Doral Keeps Growing

The 2020 census showed that Doral has become a diverse cultural city, with a sustained growth and a quality of life that has attracted more than 75,800 residents.

 

By: Edda Pujadas

 

 

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“People discovered Doral.” It is with this phrase that Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez defined the population’s growth in our city. Today, we can count a total of 75,874 residents according to the results of the last census of 2020.

The census showed that Doral is a culturally diverse city, a city represented by people of different nationalities and with a recent influx of people from different cities in the United States.

In 2010, the population of Doral was 45,704 residents, according to the Census Office. This shows a growth higher than 30,000 people in these ten years.  After witnessing this increase in the population, the obvious question is: is the city equipped with the necessary services to cater to this new population?

Mayor Bermudez responded that the city was already expecting a figure close to this one and because of this, the city was already prepared with the necessary services to keep up with the standards that have made of Doral one of the best cities to live in the United States. Today, Doral is a place that people want to live in.

“The strategic location, diverse economy, low taxes, and quality of life are key factors that keep promoting the intelligent growth and prosperity of Doral,” added Mayor Bermudez.

“The Northern area of the city and the Downtown Doral area have had a large development, but the truth is that we are in a very good position to deal with their growth because we have the right amount of police officers, we have the right number of businesses to deal with the commercial needs, we have good schools and the best parks in the State of Florida,” commented Mayor Bermudez.

Regarding the traffic situation, Bermudez stated that this is not a Doral issue, this is an issue on all South Florida and in general in all developed cities. “We keep working in the possibility of opening new streets and in improving our public transportation services, such as the trolley.”

Bermudez explained that between the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, we will have two more trolley units that will connect with the Metrorail. He also reminded us that both the trolley and the Freebee (that travels only in the Downtown Doral area) are public transportation services that are completely free.

Another important part of this growth is that it gives us the opportunity to have access to more federal grants. We need to remember that according to the census figures, the federal government assigns funds and resources for health, education, transportation, housing, and other services. Also, the legislative districts are determined in base of these census figures; the population in a certain area determines the number of representatives that a state will have in the United States Congress and in its State Legislatures.

OF INTEREST

The census is a reliable source of data that covers the economy and the population of the country that is conducted every ten years. This provides information of interest that includes important issues such as the number of residents in each home, the type of housing (owned or rented), sex, marital status, age, race, and ethnicity of each resident.

In the case of Doral, the census showed that apart from the increase in population, 85% of its residents are Hispanic or Latinos and 88% of the residents of Doral speak a language at home that is not English. This makes it evident that our city is home to thousands of people from other countries that have found in it the possibility of a better future.

91.2% of the residents of Doral are cataloged as being white, 52.1% are females and only 7.2% are older than 65 years of age. This last figure could also be related to the large number of residents that have arrived in Doral from other countries, because in general, migration processes take place during the most productive years of age of the people.

Speaking about real estate, the data until 2019 indicates that in Doral, 47.8% of the residents own the house in which they live. These have an average monthly expense in maintenance (this is mortgage payment, HOA, insurance, and taxes) of around $2,413 per month and of $890 for those that acquired their property without the need of a mortgage and that have paid for it completely.

Another interesting piece of data to take into consideration in the real estate sector is that by the date of the census, the average value of a property in Doral was estimated in $394,000 and the average expense for rental properties in our city was $1,991. Nevertheless, these figures have changed a lot in the last six months, due primarily to the shortage in inventory.

As of today, taking as an example those properties with prices up to $500,000 dollars, the total of the inventory in Doral is 514 properties in sale in the secondary market, compared to the 1,369 that were available in the same date in 2020 and with the 1,315 that were for sale in 2019. These figures are taken from the Realtors Association of Miami.

If we analyze the rental scenario, we find similar conditions given that, as of today in the rental market in Doral, we can only find 130 units in rent with prices up to $3,000 per month. In 2020 on the same date, the number of properties was of 513 and 391 in 2019.

Obviously, we must add to this inventory all of the new construction and the communities that are rental units per se and that also show limited availability today. This real estate scenario has been pushed by the population growth in Doral, especially after the Covid 19 pandemic, when we received a huge influx of migration from other states, people that “have discovered Doral” as Mayor Bermudez states.

In the case of the transactions of real estate, we need to take into consideration an additional factor such as the decrease in mortgage rates.  According to Freddie Mac, interest rates during 2021 have been between 2.74% and 3.08% compared with 3.11% in 2020, when they have just started to decrease from 3.94% in 2019 and 4.54% in 2018.

The data about health, education, and the economy of Doral is not less interesting. To start, Doral reports that 82% of its population below 65 years of age carries medical insurance. This is directly related to the average family income of $77,493 per year, which is much higher than the average of Miami Dade County of $51,347 per year.

Another figure that calls for attention is the educational level of the residents of Doral. 91.4% of the residents have a high school diploma, and 51.9% have a bachelor’s degree or higher. This last figure takes higher relevance when we compare it with the 29.8% for the same level in Miami Dade County.

Maybe a figure that would have been omitted in a different era is that 97.4% of the houses in Doral have at least one computer and 93.5% have a subscription to some internet service. These figures indicate that the residents in Doral had the proper tools to study from home and the workforce was also able to use the necessary resources to conduct their labor from home.

A summary of the data collected by this last census shows us that Doral is no longer an industrial suburb West of Miami and has turned into an important city, with a sustainable growth, and a quality of life that attracts thousands of people and that makes even more people want to live here.