FL
Bay Harbor IslandsCity Guide
Two islands of MiMo houses, kosher bakeries, and a drawbridge away from Bal Harbour Shops.
Bay Harbor Islands is two man-made islands in Biscayne Bay, dredged out of mangrove in 1947 by Shepard Broad and connected to the mainland by a single drawbridge. The whole town is 208 acres. You can walk it end to end in twenty minutes, and most residents do — for the school, the bakery, the post office, or the boutiques along Kane Concourse.
It splits cleanly in two. West Island is single-family — low-slung waterfront houses with private docks, many on canals deep enough for forty-foot boats. East Island is the denser half: garden-style MiMo apartment buildings from the 1950s, a new generation of boutique luxury condos breaking ground along East Bay Harbor Drive, and the two-block business spine of Kane Concourse.
A small town stitched into Miami Beach
Geography does most of the work here. Cross the 96th Street causeway east and you're in Bal Harbour with the Chanel store and the ocean; cross south and you're in Surfside; cross west on the Broad Causeway and you're on the mainland in five minutes. The result is a quiet, residential-only feel with the dining and retail of one of the wealthiest stretches of Miami a literal block away. Browse homes for sale in Bay Harbor Islands to see the range — from $600K teardowns on Kane Concourse to $5M+ Signature Collection units delivering in 2026.
Bay Harbor Islands holds the largest intact cluster of Miami Modern architecture in South Florida — work by Charles McKirahan, Henry Hohauser, Igor Polevitzky, Norman Giller, and Morris Lapidus. The town has protected most of it. That's the trade-off you accept when you move here: small scale, mid-century bones, walk-everywhere life — in exchange for accepting that every property sits inside a flood hazard zone and flood insurance is non-negotiable.
Key Details
What makes Bay Harbor Islands special
East Island vs. West Island
West Island is 103 acres of single-family houses, mostly waterfront with private docks. East Island is 105 acres of garden-style MiMo apartments, new boutique condos, and the Kane Concourse business district. Two very different price floors.
Market right now
Median listing price is $1.19M at roughly $750/sq ft. Condo inventory across coastal Miami fell ~13% year over year going into 2026, and new construction here is pricing well above resale — Signature Collection units start at $3M, with $5M+ penthouses.
The school is the anchor
Ruth K. Broad Bay Harbor K-8 Center is the only public school on the islands. It's A-rated, scores 9/10 on GreatSchools, and ranks in the top 20 public K-8s in Florida. Families build their decision to live here around its catchment.
MiMo, preserved
Built on dredged swampland in the late 1940s, the islands gave architects a blank slate and they filled it with small-scale Miami Modern. Most of those buildings still stand and the town has actively resisted teardown culture — though East Island is now in the middle of a luxury rebuild cycle.
Flood risk is the asterisk
The entire town sits in a FEMA flood hazard zone. Storm surge can flood every property. Floodplain ordinances since 1993 and active drainage management help, but flood insurance is mandatory and underwrites the cost of ownership.
Who lives here
A bilingual, family-skewed town of about 5,960. Roughly 44% Hispanic, with significant Brazilian, Israeli, and Argentinian populations — the Hebrew, Portuguese, and Spanish you hear on the sidewalk is part of the neighborhood's identity. Median age is 42.9.
Getting around
There's a free town shuttle, but most residents walk or bike on the islands themselves. The Broad Causeway is the only westbound exit — it's a SunPass toll bridge into North Miami. Eastbound, 96th Street takes you onto Collins and the beach in two minutes.
Bal Harbour is your retail
Day-to-day shopping happens along Kane Concourse — jewelry, modernist furniture, a few markets. For everything else, Bal Harbour Shops is a one-bridge walk: Chanel, Gucci, Neiman Marcus, Saks, plus the chef-driven restaurants that anchor the property.
Lifestyle & Highlights
The best of Bay Harbor Islands
Market Intelligence
Real estate trends in Bay Harbor Islands
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Bay Harbor Islands
Talk to a Bay Harbor Islands specialist
Inventory turns over quickly across the two islands, and new construction along East Bay Harbor Drive is sold mostly off-market. A local agent can walk you through what's actually available before it lists.