Venetian Islands are a chain of artificial islands near by Miami, Florida. The islands from west to east are Biscayne Island, San Marco Island, San Marino Island, Di Lido Island, Rivo Alto Island and Belle Isle.

The islands form a slice of tropical suburbia that extends eastward almost to Lincoln Road in South Beach, with its proliferating shops and restaurants. They stretch west to the mainland and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the $461 million downtown complex that opened in 2006.

Their centralized location has helped the islands very much. They are positioned comfortably between extremes: on the one hand, downtown Miami, with falling prices and climbing inventories that have placed it at the leading edge of the nation’s real estate crisis, and on the other, the strenuously hip environs of South Beach, where prices continue to climb, albeit slowly, keeping waterfront properties out of the reach of most buyers.

The Venetians are hot. There’s still an upside here; you can get luxury properties at under $10 million. That’s true nowhere else on Miami Beach.