Data Analysis

West Palm Beach home prices rose 10.4% year over year in August, the second largest annual gain among the 50 most populous U.S. metros, while Fort Lauderdale posted one of the five steepest monthly declines.

Redfin's Home Price Index for August 2026, published September 22, puts national prices up 0.25% from July and 3.7% from a year earlier. Florida metros appear near the top and near the bottom of the same release.

West Palm Beach home prices rose 10.4% year over year in August 2026, the second largest annual increase among the 50 most populous U.S. metros, according to the Redfin Home Price Index released September 22. Miami rose 8.0%, fifth largest. In the same release, Fort Lauderdale fell 0.5% from July, one of the five steepest month-over-month declines in that same group. Nationally the index rose 0.25% from July on a seasonally adjusted basis and 3.7% from a year earlier, which Redfin calls "the fastest annual growth rate in a year."

Florida shows up at both ends of one national table, which undercuts the habit of talking about a single Florida price trend.

How much did Florida home prices change in August 2026?

Redfin's August index covers six Florida metros. West Palm Beach rose 0.7% from July and 10.4% from August 2025. Miami rose 0.2% and 8.0%. Tampa was flat month over month at 0.0% and up 4.1% on the year. Fort Lauderdale fell 0.5% from July and rose 1.8% on the year. Orlando rose 0.7% and 1.8%. Jacksonville rose 0.4% from July and 0.4% from a year earlier.

Three of the six beat the national annual pace of 3.7%. Three trailed it. The spread between the strongest and weakest Florida metro is ten percentage points.

Redfin's published text names only West Palm Beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville figures come from the metro table that accompanies the release, read twice on separate passes with identical results.

Which U.S. metros had the biggest price gains in August?

San Francisco led the annual rankings at 12%. West Palm Beach followed at 10.4%, then Chicago at 9.2%, Nassau County, New York at 8.1% and Miami at 8.0%.

Five major metros saw prices fall year over year, four of them in Texas plus Seattle. Dallas had the biggest drop at 1.4%, followed by Austin at 1.0%, Fort Worth at 0.7%, San Antonio at 0.4% and Seattle at 0.1%. No Florida metro appears on that list.

The monthly picture is different, and it is where Fort Lauderdale surfaces. The biggest monthly increases were St. Louis at 1.1%, Pittsburgh at 1.0%, and San Antonio, San Jose and Baltimore at 0.9% each. The biggest monthly declines were Austin and Charlotte at 0.7%, Milwaukee and Warren, Michigan at 0.6%, and Fort Lauderdale at 0.5%. Redfin says prices rose in about half of the 50 most populous metros month over month in August.

Fort Lauderdale prices are 1.8% higher than a year ago and lower than they were in July. Both are true, and either one alone makes a misleading headline.

Why does the index say Miami prices rose 8% when median sale prices barely moved?

Redfin publishes both numbers and they say different things.

Redfin's own August metro data, reported by this desk on September 22, put Miami's median sale price at $556,041, up 0.2% from a year earlier. The index for the same metro and the same month says 8.0%. Neither figure is wrong.

Redfin's methodology page states that "the RHPI is a repeat-sales home price index. It is based on homes that have sold more than once and measures how each home's price changed between sales." It holds "the mix of homes sold constant." The same page is direct about the alternative: "The most common way to track home prices, the median sale price in a given period, can be misleading. It reflects which homes happened to sell, not how home values are actually changing." Redfin applies X-13ARIMA-SEATS for seasonal adjustment, the procedure the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics use.

For a Miami owner it works out like this. If the same house sold twice, the index is tracking what happened to that house. The median is tracking which houses came to market and closed, and in a month when more modest homes sell, the median falls even if every individual home held its value. When a market's sales mix is shifting, the two measures pull apart, and Miami's August is a clear case.

What changed since July?

Redfin's July index, which this desk covered in August, had national prices up 3.4% year over year and 0.27% month over month. August's 3.7% annual reading is faster and the 0.25% monthly reading is slightly slower.

The Florida metros mostly accelerated. West Palm Beach went from 8.9% to 10.4% year over year. Miami went from 6.9% to 8.0%. Tampa moved from 3.7% to 4.1%. Orlando went from 0.2% to 1.8%. Jacksonville crossed from minus 0.4% to plus 0.4%. Fort Lauderdale did not appear in the July figures recorded here, so it has no month-to-month comparison in this article.

What does this mean for Florida buyers and sellers?

Accelerating index growth sits oddly beside the rest of the August evidence.

Florida Realtors reported statewide single-family closed sales of 21,497 in August, down 1.4% from a year earlier, with a median sale price of $415,000, up 1.2%. Statewide single-family inventory was 94,610, down 13.0% year over year. Prices are firm, supply is tightening, and sales are easing. A repeat-sales index rising faster in that setting is consistent with fewer homes trading while the ones that do hold their value.

Chen Zhao, Redfin's head of economics, framed the national picture for buyers: "Slowing price growth is good news for buyers because it means waiting for the right home is less likely to come with a rapidly rising price tag. Buyers can afford to be choosy and negotiate." Zhao also said, "Pricing realistically from the start is a good way to attract attention."

That advice lands differently depending on the metro. A West Palm Beach seller is operating in the second fastest appreciating of the 50 most populous U.S. metros. A Jacksonville seller is in a market that has moved 0.4% in a year. A Fort Lauderdale seller who priced against July's comparable sales is pricing against a month that the index now says was higher. Buyers in Miami, Tampa and Orlando should ask which measure a listing agent is quoting before treating a percentage as settled. Current metro-level figures are tracked on the Florida housing tracker.

Limitations

Redfin's published release text names only West Palm Beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale among Florida metros. The Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville figures are table-only readings from the metro data accompanying the release, extracted twice on separate passes with identical results, and they carry less provenance than the figures Redfin states in sentences.

The index covers the 50 most populous U.S. metros. Rankings in this article are rankings within that set and not within the country. Florida metros outside that set, including Sarasota, Naples, Fort Myers, Ocala and the Treasure Coast, carry no figures in this release, and nothing here should be read as describing them.

Redfin publishes no margin of error for this index and no confidence intervals on the monthly changes. Small monthly moves such as Jacksonville's 0.4% and Tampa's 0.0% should be treated as close to flat rather than as measured direction.

The July comparisons come from this desk's August coverage of Redfin's July index rather than from a July-versus-August table published by Redfin. Fort Lauderdale has no July figure in that record. The statewide Florida Realtors figures are from a different publisher, a different methodology and a different measure, and are included as context rather than as a comparison to the index.

Chen Zhao's commentary is quoted from Redfin's release. One sentence of the statement is omitted because it contains punctuation this publication does not use, and no words have been changed in the sentences quoted.

Sources

Redfin Home Price Index, August 2026, published September 22, 2026, redfin.com/news/home-price-index-august-2026/. National and metro figures verified against Redfin's wire release of the same report on two additional URLs.

Redfin Data Center methodology, redfin.com/news/data-center/methodology/, for the repeat-sales construction and seasonal adjustment.

Redfin metro median sale prices for August 2026, as reported in this publication on September 22, 2026.

Redfin Home Price Index, July 2026, as reported in this publication on August 18, 2026.

Florida Realtors August 2026 statewide single-family data detail and summary reports, floridarealtors.org.

Disclosure: Jon Brooks is a co-founder of Momentum Realty, a Florida real estate brokerage that owns and funds Florida Housing Intelligence. Momentum has a financial interest in Florida real estate transactions, including in markets named here. See our editorial standards.