Miami-Dade’s luckiest home buyers live in these four communities

If you bought a home in Leisure City, Key Biscayne, Princeton or Kendall West during the downturn, give yourself a pat on the back.

Homes in those four communities have seen the biggest average price gains in Miami-Dade County since the economy began recovering, according to a Zillow analysis released Friday.

Zillow looked at cities with a population of at least 10,000 and assumed that buyers purchased their homes at the bottom of their community’s housing market.

In Leisure City, that meant buying a home in Sept. 2011 when the average price was $64,000. Today, the average home is worth $116,300, an 82 percent jump in value.

Meanwhile, an average home in Key Biscayne sold for $606,700 in July 2009, but its market value has since soared to $1,090,500 for a gain of 80 percent.

Homeowners in Princeton (from $90,000 in Sept. 2011 to $159,000 today) and Kendall West (from $94,500 in June 2011 to $163,200 today) would also make a tidy profit if they bought during the downturn and wanted to sell at today’s prices.

But in other parts of the county many homeowners are still struggling to recover from the crash. About 25 percent of Miami-Dade homeowners are still “underwater” on their mortgages, meaning they owe more than their homes are worth, according to a report released last month by property analytics firm CoreLogic.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Miami-Dade’s luckiest home buyers live in these four communities."