Sales spike at the Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and Cipriani as luxury buyers weigh moves from Manhattan

There is a short stretch of prime waterfront real estate in Miami that has come to be known as Billionaire’s Beach. It contains a mix of famous old art deco hotels such as the Delano and Raleigh, both undergoing extensive upmarket refurbishments, and the construction of exclusive new residential tower blocks with high-end apartments running into the tens of millions.

It is here on the sun-filled shores of South Beach, more than a thousand miles from the chills of a Manhattan winter, where realtors and developers are beginning to see the first shoots of what they call the “Mamdani effect”: the predicted exodus of wealthy New Yorkers in the wake of socialist democrat Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor.