The Two Highland Beaches: Why the Town's Median Price Tells You Almost Nothing

The single most useful sentence in a Highland Beach condo listing this year is not about the view. It is the one that reads "all assessments paid" or "concrete restoration complete." Both phrases now appear routinely in oceanfront listings at 45 Ocean, Coronado, and the Highland Beach Club, and they are doing quiet work: signaling to buyers that the building has already absorbed a cost that other buildings in town have not.

A buyer scanning portals sees a Highland Beach median list price hovering somewhere between $989,000 and $1.05 million through spring and early summer 2026, with days on market between 107 and 118. That number is not wrong. It is simply the average of two markets that never trade against each other, and treating it as one market is the fastest way to misread the town.

Highland Beach is roughly one mile of residential barrier island between Delray Beach and Boca Raton. The condo tier and the single-family tier sit within a few hundred feet of each other on A1A, but the forces setting their prices in 2026 have almost nothing in common.

Where the median actually comes from

Strip the town-wide median apart and two distributions appear. One is a broad condo tier, most of it built in the 1970s and 1980s, now working through Florida's post-Surfside structural regime. The other is a small single-family estate tier, concentrated in Bel Lido Isle and Byrd Beach, that trades on lot geometry, seawall condition, and unobstructed ocean access.

The condo tier sets the median because it supplies the volume. The single-family tier sets the ceiling because it supplies the trophies. When a buyer reads "median list $1.05M, down about 10% year over year," what they are really reading is a repricing event inside the condo tier, not a broad softening of Highland Beach real estate.

The mechanism behind the condo repricing

Two overlapping bodies of law now sit under every condo transaction in town. The state layer is SB 4-D, signed in May 2022 after the Champlain Towers South collapse, and amended by SB 154 in 2023 and by HB 913 in 2025, which became Chapter 2025-175 and generally took effect July 1, 2025. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation requires condominium and cooperative buildings three or more habitable stories in height to complete a Milestone Inspection, and requires unit-owner-controlled associations existing on or before July 1, 2022 to complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study by December 31, 2025, with SIRS-tied reserves beginning to be funded January 1, 2026.

Coastal geography tightens the timeline. Under Palm Beach County's implementation, buildings within three miles of the coast take their first Milestone Inspection at 25 years of age rather than 30, then every 10 years after. Every condo building in Highland Beach is inside that three-mile band by definition.

Layered on top is the town's own Ordinance 2021-011, passed unanimously by the Town Commission on November 16, 2021, four months before the state law existed. Highland Beach chose to run a local recertification program in parallel with the state Milestone process, with its own registered-inspector requirements and more prescriptive reporting for structural and electrical findings. In practice this means a Highland Beach condo board is answering to both the town building official and the state Division of Condominiums, and the buyer is inheriting whatever findings, phase-two reports, and remediation plans came out of either process.

The financial consequence is not theoretical. In documented cases elsewhere in South Florida, Phase 2 findings and SIRS-driven funding have produced per-unit special assessments in the range of $134,000 to $400,000. Palm Bay Yacht Club in Miami approved a $46 million total assessment reaching about $175,000 per unit. Cricket Club in North Miami came in near $30 million, or about $134,000 per unit. Mediterranean Village in Aventura saw per-unit assessments reported as high as $400,000. None of these are Highland Beach buildings, but they are the pricing precedent every Highland Beach board and every Highland Beach buyer is now referencing.

That precedent is what the median is absorbing. A 1970s beachfront building whose board has not yet booked its assessment carries an unpriced liability. A building that has already completed concrete restoration and paid down the assessment carries a resolved one. The two units can list within a few dollars per square foot of each other and represent completely different transactions.

Six questions before you write an offer on a Highland Beach condo

The due-diligence checklist has shifted. Location, view corridor, and floor plan still matter. They no longer clear the deal on their own.

1. Has the Milestone Inspection been completed, and at which phase did it stop? A Phase 1 pass is a green light. A Phase 2 requirement means mandatory repairs must commence within 365 days of the report, per state statute.
2. Is the Structural Integrity Reserve Study current, and what does the funding schedule look like on paper? After January 1, 2026, boards can no longer waive reserves for the eight enumerated structural components. The SIRS is now a forward calendar of dues increases, not a suggestion.
3. Have special assessments been levied, are any pending, and what do the last twelve months of board minutes suggest? The listing language is a tell. "All assessments paid" and "concrete restoration complete" are not marketing filler in this market.
4. What does the association's insurance stack look like in 2026? Property, wind, and flood premiums on coastal Palm Beach County towers have been the second major line item resetting alongside reserves.
5. Is the building on any lender's ineligible list? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and portfolio lenders each maintain their own condo eligibility screens tied to inspection and reserve status. A building off the eligible list narrows the buyer pool at resale.
6. Which registered inspector performed the Highland Beach recertification, and is the report on file with the town? The town's inspector-registration standards under Ordinance 2021-011 exist to raise the floor on report quality. Ask to see the report, not the summary.

Any Highland Beach condo purchase in 2026 is really the purchase of two things: the unit and a fractional interest in the building's remaining structural obligations. The second one is what the price is negotiating.

Bel Lido and Byrd Beach are a different conversation

Cross A1A and the mechanism changes completely. Bel Lido Isle is a community of roughly 70 single-family homes on the Intracoastal side, with private docks, no fixed bridges to the ocean, and HOA fees that sit in the low double digits per month rather than the four figures that a full-service oceanfront tower charges. Byrd Beach adds another 27 estate homes on the ocean side.

Neither community is subject to the Milestone Inspection regime, which applies to condominium and cooperative buildings three habitable stories and up. A Bel Lido buyer's structural questions are private ones: seawall age, dock permit status, elevation certificate, and whether the roof and impact glass were installed post-2017 code. That is why one recent Bel Lido listing at 4211 Intracoastal Drive markets a brand-new seawall as a headline feature, alongside a 100 by 125 foot lot and a 160-foot-wide canal.

The pricing signals reflect the difference. Bel Lido's trailing twelve months of MLS activity shows about ten sales averaging near $3.49 million against roughly $3.83 million average ask, with current inventory skewing much higher as trophy listings sit. Redfin's Bel Lido waterfront median list stands near $2.6 million. Across the broader Highland Beach luxury tier, one 2026 analysis pegged the luxury-tier median list price near $8.9 million on Altos data, with active inventory up roughly 21.8% year over year. That inventory build is a single-family story, not a condo one, and it is driven by seller behavior at the top of the market rather than by any structural regulation.

The practical read for a cross-shopping buyer: a $3 million budget in Highland Beach buys a different asset class depending on which side of A1A you land on. West of the road, it buys a boat-accessible single-family lot with light HOA overhead and full control of your own capital calendar. East of the road, it buys a large oceanfront unit in a building whose reserve and assessment picture you inherit.

A short FAQ

Is the town-wide median price falling because Highland Beach is out of favor? The soft print in the condo tier is legible mostly as a repricing for structural risk, not as a demand story. Bel Lido and Byrd Beach continue to trade in their own tier.

Do the Milestone Inspection rules apply to a Bel Lido single-family home? No. The Milestone regime applies to condominium and cooperative buildings three or more habitable stories in height. Single-family owners have their own inspections to run, but they are private, not statutory.

Should a buyer avoid older oceanfront buildings altogether? Not necessarily. An older building that has completed its Milestone Inspection, funded its SIRS, and closed out its concrete restoration can be a lower-risk purchase than a younger building that has done none of the above. The paperwork is the asset.

How long does a proper condo due-diligence review take in Highland Beach today? Longer than it used to. Reviewing the Milestone report, the SIRS, board minutes for the last twelve to twenty-four months, insurance declarations, and lender eligibility notes adds real calendar time. Build it into the contract.

Highland Beach is still one of the more discreet addresses on the Palm Beach County coast, with a private town character, its own police and library, and no commercial strip to soften the edges. What has changed is the reading of the price tag. A buyer who understands which of the two Highland Beaches they are actually buying into is a buyer who does not overpay in either one.

For a private conversation about a specific building, a Bel Lido lot, or a discreet off-market opportunity, Kelly Gerber is available to walk through the numbers before you write an offer. Let's Connect.