Miami Buyers Are Snapping Up Neighboring Homes to Build Mega-Compounds

They say everything is bigger in Texas, but in Miami, just one mansion—that’s anything north of 8,000 square feet—just isn’t enough anymore.

For the city’s wealthiest buyers, the play now is to scoop up surrounding properties: the house or vacant lot next door, and sometimes even the whole block. The result is a growing trend among UHNWIs creating super-compounds that stretch across streets, islands, and waterfronts. It’s part status symbol, part lifestyle upgrade, and part investment strategy.

“Miami has become a place where the world’s wealthiest are planting roots and not just vacationing,” says Norma-Jean Callahan, who leads sales for the Witkoff portfolio at Douglas Elliman Development Marketing. “They’re moving companies, relocating families, and treating Miami as a true home base. In order to live here the way they live elsewhere—in Los Angeles, New York, Aspen, or the Hamptons—they want compounds. With limited coastline and finite building inventory, assembling adjacent parcels is the only way to achieve real scale.”

Take Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova. Their Bay Point home already clocks in at 19,000 square feet with a tennis court, dock, and pool. But over the past decade, companies tied to the Spanish singer-songwriter and retired tennis player have quietly added neighboring homes and lots, pushing their total footprint to about 2.5 acres. In tightly packed Miami Beach, where space is at a premium, being able to amass that much land is almost like winning the lottery.

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Bay Point, a guard-gated enclave just north of the western terminus of the Julia Tuttle Causeway, has become one of the hottest markets this year. Sara Colombo, wife of developer Ugo Colombo—best known for condo towers like Brickell Flatiron and Santa Maria—grabbed a waterfront home for $23.5 million, while developer Fatos Rosenberg sold a 1.7-acre estate for a whopping $85.2 million, setting a neighborhood record. “Buyers want privacy, space, and the freedom to create something that fits their needs,” says broker Julian Johnston. “Miami Beach has limited waterfront lots, so when a chance comes along to build a mega-estate, it’s highly sought after.”

Across the bay, Fashion Nova founder Richard Saghian dropped $30 million on a spec-built mansion and then picked up the house across the street. Together, they’ve been reimagined into a private oasis with seven bedrooms, a cabana, a home theater, a gym, and, of course, postcard-worthy Biscayne Bay views. On sought-after North Bay Road, an unknown buyer ponied up $24.3 million for a vacant lot—Miami Beach’s priciest land sale per square foot—and another $29.5 million for the house next door, with plans to merge them into one mega-estate. Nearby, another vacant parcel was acquired for $22.9 million by the owner of the neighboring home, suggesting another compound in the making.

As big as those numbers are, they’re real estate child’s play compared to billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who has spent more than $200 million on three properties on Indian Creek, Miami’s so-called Billionaire Bunker. The two larger parcels are adjoining; the third is situated on the opposite side of the 300-acre private island. Trophy property collector and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt set his sights on the Sunset Islands, where since 2020 he’s spent a combined $114 million buying up at least five adjacent homes.

A company linked to Canadian mogul Lino Saputo’s family office recently paid $16.5 million for a teardown home on Allison Island, a pill-shaped island at the northern end of Miami Beach, and the same buyer also owns the property next door, effectively doubling the plot. “This sale really stood out because it wasn’t just about the price. It was about vision,” says broker Devin Kay, who represented the buyer with Johnston. “Deals like this take patience and a deep understanding of the ultra-luxury market.”

Johnston adds, “Miami Beach waterfront is finite, and when buyers assemble properties thoughtfully, the value tends to hold over time.” On La Gorce Island, just to the west of Allison Island, IdeaVillage founder Anand Khubani went even bigger, spending around $100 million on three parcels; the seller of those parcels sold a fourth property to someone else for another $22 million.

The trend isn’t limited to mansions. Some are piecing together multiple condo units, creating palatial vertical estates with killer views and hotel-level amenities. At Witkoff’s The Shore Club Private Collection, Callahan says, several buyers have already combined full-floor apartments into 10,000-plus-square-foot residences designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects. These sprawling aeries will rival waterfront mansions in size but with Auberge’s five-star amenities and world-class security.

For many, it’s about more than just space. “Privacy and exclusivity are always at the top of the list, but buyers also describe the homes in legacy terms, creating estates their children and grandchildren will enjoy,” Callahan says. Beyond lifestyle, scarcity is fueling the frenzy. “People aren’t just buying homes, they’re buying scarcity. The fact that Bezos, Griffin, and other billionaires are assembling here gives confidence to the entire market.”

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This playbook isn’t confined to Miami. Citadel founder Ken Griffin, who has spent nearly $170 million on half a dozen properties on Miami Beach’s Star Island, has also spent the past decade quietly acquiring more than 25 acres on Palm Beach’s so-called Billionaires Row, where he’s now building what’s expected to be the most expensive home in the world, worth $1 billion upon completion. Over in West Palm Beach’s Soso neighborhood, hedge funder Paul Tudor Jones recently got approval to annex part of a public street so he could stitch together three adjacent waterfront parcels into one 2.7-acre compound, ruffling some feathers along the way.

Similar compound-building sprees are playing out in Aspen, the Hamptons, and Los Angeles, where Saghian and other moguls have pieced together trophy properties into massive private domains. Elon Musk has purchased at least three homes on a quiet cul-de-sac in Austin, Texas, where of his improvements and security features have angered some of his neighbors, while Mark Zuckerberg has done the same in Palo Alto, California, and on Kauai, where his multiple purchases total about 2,300 acres.