Frans and Caroline Swaalf, management consultants in the Netherlands, have been enamored of South Florida since they were graduate students at the University of Miami in the 1990s.

When the housing crisis hit in 2007, they thought their time to buy had come. They bought a condo in the Fontainebleau, a resort in Miami Beach, in 2010, after prices had bottomed out, paying 60 percent less than it had sold for two years earlier. The condo has since doubled in value.

The Swaalfs began investing in other properties. In 2011, they bought a small condo in an Art Deco building and doubled their money when they sold it six years later. They put that money into a larger condo in Miami that overlooked the water, and then looked for a buyer. But Mr. Swaalf expects to make only 5 to 10 percent when the sale closes.

That was a signal to the couple that the market was slowing and that it was time to put their investment gains elsewhere. Prices in the Miami area have cooled since September, according to Trulia, a real estate search engine.