After nearly eight years in office, the outgoing mayor is proud of realizing his ambitions to make Miami the “capital of capital,” arguing in an interview with Fortune that it’s “graduated from the capital of Latin America to a truly great global city.” And Suarez has a lot of words for the likely next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, including Mamdani’s campaign to force FIFA to change its ticket pricing strategy.
Suarez said he was wary of Mamdani. “My parents came from a country [in Cuba] where a young, charismatic leader made the same promises. And he did create equality: He created equality of misery, suffering, poverty.”
Still, Suarez and Mamdani have some things in common, especially their telegenic, social-media savvy rises to fame, albeit from opposing political poles. When this dynamic is pointed out, especially the central role of social media in their campaigning, Suarez says he “thinks that’s true,” while quickly clarifying that “anybody who’s young, presumably, is going to be good on social media, right?” Suarez would rather talk about what he sees Mamdani ultimately selling to likely voters: “Are you selling a future that’s going to make things better, or are you selling a road to perdition? And I think he’s selling a road to perdition, whether he’s doing it intentionally or not, whether he actually believes that he can make things better. I have no idea. I don’t know him personally.”
Among all the bubbly real-estate markets, UBS found Miami posting the strongest inflation-adjusted housing appreciation over the past 15 years. Affordability is still near record lows, but housing inventory has rebounded to near pre-pandemic levels as of 2025. “Miami’s coastal appeal and favorable tax environment continue to attract newcomers from the U.S. West and Northeast,” the report noted, with international demand remaining robust, particularly from Latin America.
Suarez blames too many New Yorkers moving in for the inflated real-estate prices. “When people come in, it does put stress on our price affordability. We used to be a lot more affordable than New York, until all the New Yorkers came and now we’re close in price.” He said he sees this continuing under the likely mayorship of Mamdani. “The sense that I have … as interest rates go down, plus people fleeing New York, there will be another wave. You feel it, you sense it, it’s going to have a 20%, 30% impact on values.”
