In the wake of the South Florida real estate boom, many apartment complexes (esp. near the beach) have converted to condos, leaving only a handful of decent apartment communities available for those who want to rent East of I-95. That means that communities like Intracoastal Yacht Club ("IYC") in Sunny Isles Beach have a virtual monopoly over the the beach-apartment-rental market. IYC takes full advantage of this limited supply/high demand situation to squeeze more than it should out of the residents.

I have lived at IYC for over 2 years now, and my overall impression is that it's probably one of the better communities out of a scarce lot of mediocre apartment high-rises on the beach. Yes, IYC is a fairly new community (it was built in 2000-01), which puts it a cut above many of the older (MOULDY) buildings near the beach. And yes, it's nice to have a washer and dryer in your apartment (although my dryer practically eats electricity b/c it takes 2-3 rounds to dry a regular load of laundry). And the equipment in the gym is fairly new.

BUT THAT'S PRETTY MUCH WHERE THE BENEFITS END. First off, the relative advantages and amenities of living here are extremely expensive. After our first year, the cost for our parking spot more than doubled. (Management was quick to point out that parking spaces near the beach are "valuable real estate.") And many of the classes offered at the gym (if they are still available) are NOT free of charge.

Then there are the countless little annoyances. For example, when we moved in, IYC gave us a gate-entry card, and key-fob for getting into the pool & gym areas. Although we paid a substantial deposit for the gate-card, it never worked, despite several fruitless requests to get it fixed. In an (unsuccessful) effort to remedy the perpetually-malfunctioning front gates, IYC subsquently switched over to infra-red sensors for entering both the gates and pool/gym area, but then ran out of them, AND forgot to tell their security officers. The result was that security personnel were unnecessarily nasty to every resident who tried to get through the gates without a sensor (although the sensor-shortage was management's fault). Unfortunately, this poor attitude is not limited to IYC's "security" guards. The staff at the leasing office look and act as if they are perpetually bored (unless you are a prospective tenant), and as if they are doing you a huge favor by responding to any question or service request. The actual maintenance guys aren't that bad (and reasonably prompt), but heaven forbid you get through to one of the leasing office personnel while trying to make a maintenance request - "attitude"! The only person on the staff that is reasonably courteous is Diego, the concierge; the rest seem to have forgotten that their job is to serve the tenants that pay alot of money to live at IYC.

As other reviewers have commented, the options for cable or satellite TV service here are abysmal. Apparently, IYC's management has entered into a monopology deal with a single company, CAMCO, that provides both cable and DirecTV service. Residents are not allowed to have individual satellite dishes (this is supposedly an "eyesore") or to use another cable provider. I suppose this would be tolerable, except that CAMCO does not offer high-definition service (DirecTV and Comcast offer hi-def programming options, but CAMCO does not). And the rebates, discounts, etc. that subscribers can get from Comcast, DISH, and DirecTV are not available to IYC residents, who must go through CAMCO, and pay CAMCO extra fees for doing so.

For these, and several other reasons (including grounds full of dog-poop and constantly non-working elevators that are slowly repaired), I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Intracoastal Yacht Club. I would suggest that prospective residents look elsewhere before settling on IYC, but, unfortunately, other options for living on Miami beach are few-and-far-between. If you can do without the beach and don't mind a bit of a commute, I would propose taking a look at some of the new townhouse rental communities in Doral. You could certainly do far worse than living at IYC, but please consider all of your options and the pros/cons of this apartment community before deciding to move in.

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