The Complete Guide to High Pines and Ponce-Davis

High Pines and Ponce-Davis closed the second quarter of 2026 at $1,255 per square foot, the highest figure among the eight southwest Miami-Dade areas I cover, according to my polygon-verified MLS pull for Apr 2026 - Jun 2026. The two neighborhoods sit on a square mile of unincorporated county land between Coral Gables, South Miami, and Pinecrest, and they pair that price leadership with the lowest combined property tax millage of the eight.

The numbers need honest handling. Fifteen sales closed in the quarter, and at that volume the median moves with whatever mix happened to trade. So this guide covers the area the way I underwrite it: where the two neighborhoods begin and end, how they differ, what the housing stock and lot sizes look like, what the taxes run, where the data is solid, and where the sample runs thin. I have worked these streets for more than 20 years, and my office sits on Sunset Drive, the road that forms the area's northern boundary.

Quick Reference

• Location: Unincorporated Miami-Dade County, zip code 33143. From Sunset Drive (SW 72nd Street) south to SW 88th Street, and from Red Road (SW 57th Avenue) east to the Coral Gables line. Combined footprint close to one square mile.
• Government: Miami-Dade County only. No city layer. County permitting, Miami-Dade Police, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.
• Q2 2026 median sale price: $7,250,000 across 15 closed single-family sales. Small sample; the median moves with the mix of what sold. MLS, Apr 2026 - Jun 2026.
• Price per square foot: $1,255, up 16.4% year over year. Highest of the eight areas I cover.
• Median days on market: 59.
• Inventory (July 5, 2026): 24 active listings, 5 under contract.
• Lot sizes: Ponce-Davis median 0.85 acres; High Pines median 0.27 acres (MLS, Apr 2025 - Mar 2026).
• Property tax: 16.9317 combined mills for 2025-26, the lowest of the eight areas I cover.
• Schools: Sunset Elementary (10/10) anchors the public assignment. Epiphany Catholic, Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, and St. Thomas Episcopal sit in or beside the footprint.

Where High Pines and Ponce-Davis Sit

Start with the map, because the names confuse buyers new to this corridor. High Pines and Ponce-Davis are two separate unincorporated communities inside zip code 33143, on county land that no city ever annexed. Coral Gables wraps the combined footprint on the north, east, and south. The City of South Miami sits directly west across Red Road. Pinecrest begins south of SW 88th Street. Together the two neighborhoods cover close to one square mile.

High Pines takes the western piece: Sunset Drive (SW 72nd Street) on the north, Davis Drive (SW 80th Street) on the south, Red Road (SW 57th Avenue) on the west, and School House Road on the east. Ponce-Davis wraps it on the east and south, running down to SW 88th Street. The Ponce-Davis name comes from its two spine roads, Ponce de Leon Road (SW 49th Avenue) running north-south and Davis Drive running east-west.

Both areas are almost entirely residential, and the housing stock is single-family. There is no commercial corridor inside either neighborhood; the closest retail lines the Red Road edge. Errands happen across the boundary, in downtown South Miami or the Gables. For the current data snapshot and an interactive boundary map, see my High Pines + Ponce-Davis neighborhood page.

High Pines vs. Ponce-Davis: What Separates Them

The split matters because the two sides transact differently. My trailing-12-month pull (MLS, Apr 2025 - Mar 2026) put Ponce-Davis at a $5,500,000 median across 29 sales, on a median lot of 0.85 acres, with 84 median days on market. High Pines closed at a $3,450,000 median across 21 sales, on 0.27-acre lots, in a median 41 days. The two share a zip code and a county government; the products barely overlap.

Ponce-Davis is the estate side. The median closed lot in that window was 0.85 acres, with parcels running to a full acre and beyond. A Coral Gables estate budget in this corridor covers a quarter-acre to half-acre parcel; the same spend in Ponce-Davis lands closer to a full acre. Original 1950s and 1960s homes still occupy many of these lots, which feeds a steady custom-build pipeline. Turnover is slow, and the 84-day median reflects a thin buyer pool at these price points.

High Pines is the compact side. The grid holds quarter-acre lots carrying a mix of original ranches, renovations, and new construction, and it moved twice as fast as Ponce-Davis over the same window. Demand concentrates on Sunset Elementary zoning and the walkable Coral Gables border. The practical takeaway is to decide which product you are shopping before you tour, because a High Pines budget does not stretch across School House Road.

Why the Area Is Unincorporated

Neither neighborhood joined a city when the surrounding municipalities drew their lines, and the county has kept it that way. The most recent test came in 2018, when Coral Gables applied to annex both High Pines and Ponce-Davis. Miami-Dade County rejected the proposal in 2019, along with a parallel bid for Little Gables, according to the county's annexation record and Miami Herald coverage from the period. The outcome preserved county governance with no city layer added.

Day to day, that means Miami-Dade County handles everything a city hall would. Police service comes from the Miami-Dade Police Department, fire from Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, and building permits run through the county with no village architectural review on top. For owners planning construction, the single permitting layer is a practical advantage. For buyers, unincorporated status shows up most clearly on the tax bill, covered below.

The Q2 2026 Market: A High Median on a Small Sample

The combined submarket closed 15 single-family sales in Q2 2026 at a median of $7,250,000 (MLS, Apr 2026 - Jun 2026). Read that number with care. Fifteen closings is a small sample, and in a market this size the median tracks the mix of what happened to sell rather than a like-for-like change in value. A quarter heavy on new-construction estates posts a high median; a quarter of original ranches posts a low one. Year-over-year comparison of the quarterly median is not meaningful at this volume, so I do not publish one.

The trailing year makes the point concretely. The 12 months through March 2026 closed 50 sales at a $4,525,000 median. Nothing doubled in value between those windows; the spring quarter's mix simply ran heavier on estate-scale closings.

Price per square foot is the steadier gauge because it normalizes for home size. The Q2 2026 figure came in at $1,255, up 16.4% year over year and the highest of the eight areas I cover. Coconut Grove followed at $1,105 and Coral Gables at $957. Median days on market ran 59.

Supply stays thin. As of July 5, 2026, the area held 24 active listings with 5 more under contract. Against the quarter's closing pace of five sales a month, that works out to just under five months of supply, close to the 5.2 months MIAMI Realtors reported for Miami-Dade single-family homes in May 2026. The county median that month was $680,000, which puts this submarket at more than ten times the county figure.

The adjacent markets frame the number. In Q2 2026, Coral Gables closed at a median of $2,550,000, up 10.3% year over year; Pinecrest at $2,560,000, up 21.9%; and South Miami at $1,020,000, down 7.3% (MLS, Apr 2026 - Jun 2026). On the cost-of-ownership side, the 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.43% as of July 2, 2026, according to Freddie Mac, and Citizens Property Insurance cut its Miami-Dade rates an average of 14% for 2026.

The Teardown and New-Construction Pipeline

Lot math drives construction here. When a 0.85-acre Ponce-Davis parcel carries an original 1960s house, most of the value sits in the land. The top closing in my Apr 2025 - Mar 2026 pull, at $23M, shows what the finished product can command. High Pines runs one of the more active teardown-rebuild patterns in southwest Miami-Dade on its quarter-acre grid, while Ponce-Davis feeds a steady stream of custom builds on estate lots.

Unincorporated status changes the process. Permits run through Miami-Dade County alone; Coral Gables, by comparison, adds a Board of Architects review on exterior work. That review protects the Gables streetscape, and some buyers want exactly that certainty about what can rise next door, so the single county layer is a trade-off rather than a free win. Anyone weighing a lot purchase against a finished home should read my cost-per-square-foot breakdown of new construction versus renovation. Mid-range custom construction in Miami-Dade runs $200-$350 per square foot before site prep, permits, demolition, and carrying costs, and the premium the market pays for finished new product is the reason the pipeline keeps moving.

Schools Serving High Pines and Ponce-Davis

Sunset Elementary anchors the public assignment for much of the area. The school sits at 5120 SW 72nd Street on Sunset Drive, carries a (10/10) GreatSchools rating as of July 2026, and runs magnet programming with a gifted and talented track. Enrollment is 1,178 students. Parcels toward the north and west zone instead to David Fairchild Elementary (8/10), and for the upper grades the area feeds Ponce de Leon Middle and Coral Gables Senior High. The elementary split moves pricing, so confirm the exact parcel with Miami-Dade County Public Schools before you write a contract. School zoning is one of the variables that decides value block by block here, and I check it on every deal.

The private options sit unusually close. Epiphany Catholic School, a PreK3-8 parish school founded in 1953, is at 5557 SW 84th Street inside the Ponce-Davis footprint. Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school, sits on the same street. St. Thomas Episcopal Parish School, the largest PK-5 Episcopal school in Miami, holds the corridor's southern edge at 5692 N Kendall Drive. The wider private-school bench in the Gables and the Grove is a short drive north and east.

Property Taxes: The Lowest Combined Millage in Southwest Miami-Dade

With no city layer, both neighborhoods pay Miami-Dade's unincorporated combined rate of 16.9317 mills for 2025-26, the lowest combined millage of the eight areas I cover. The formula is Annual Tax = Taxable Value × Millage Rate ÷ 1,000. On $2,000,000 of taxable value, that is $2,000,000 × 16.9317 ÷ 1,000 = $33,863 a year. The same taxable value at the Coral Gables rate of 18.1852 mills generates $36,370, a $2,507 annual difference, and the gap compounds over a hold period.

The trade-off is the absence of a municipal service layer, described above. Buyers comparing bills across all eight areas, including the fire-service adjustment that makes headline city rates misleading, should use the calculator in my 2025-26 millage guide.

What Living in High Pines and Ponce-Davis Looks Like

Daily life runs along the edges. Red Road carries you north into the Gables or south to Kendall Drive. US-1 passes the northwest corner, where the South Miami Metrorail station sits at Sunset Drive, two blocks west of Red Road; the University of Miami campus is one stop north on the line. Baptist Health South Miami Hospital is off US-1 at SW 62nd Avenue and SW 73rd Street, and downtown South Miami's restaurant and retail blocks line Sunset Drive just across Red Road.

Inside the area, traffic is local. With no through commercial corridor, the streets carry residents, school drop-offs, and construction crews, and little else. That quiet is a large part of what the price per square foot is buying.

Who High Pines and Ponce-Davis Fit

Match the sub-area to the requirement. Buyers anchored on Sunset Elementary zoning with a budget near the High Pines median tend to land west of School House Road, where quarter-acre lots keep entry below Ponce-Davis levels and the Coral Gables border sits within walking distance. Buyers whose first requirement is land end up east and south, on Ponce-Davis parcels that deliver close to a full acre where a comparable Gables estate delivers a quarter to a half. Pinecrest offers estate lots further south at a 0.56-acre median, with a longer run back to UM and the Gables business district. Builders and buy-the-lot clients value the single-layer county permitting.

The area fits poorly if the requirement is walkable retail, condo or townhome product, or entry pricing anywhere near the county median. The housing stock is single-family and detached, and the commercial districts sit across the boundary. Buyers weighing the incorporated alternatives should read my Coral Gables vs. Pinecrest comparison, which covers the two cities most of my High Pines and Ponce-Davis clients also tour.

Start With the Block

Area-level numbers get you oriented; they do not price a house. On a 15-sale quarter, the honest unit of analysis is the block: the recent sales on the specific street, the permit activity on the lots around it, and the school assignment for the exact address. I run that workup for every client before we talk list price or offer strategy. If you are weighing a purchase or sale on either side of School House Road, call me at 786-223-1117 or email jorge.guanche@compass.com, and start with the live inventory on my High Pines + Ponce-Davis page.