Often, yes. Renting for a season in your target neighborhood is the cheapest research the market offers. You learn the commute at real hours, the noise at real hours, and whether the neighborhood you loved on a Saturday visit fits an ordinary Tuesday. Buyers who test-drive an area first tend to buy with more conviction and less regret.
The cost of waiting is real too: a year of rent, and a purchase market that will not hold still for you. The calculus depends on how certain you already are. Relocators who know Miami well often buy directly; first-timers to the city usually benefit from the rental year.
A practical middle path is renting in the leading candidate neighborhood while actively watching the purchase market with an agent, so you can move when the right property appears rather than when the lease happens to end. Rangely runs both sides of that plan, rentals up to Fort Lauderdale and purchases across Miami-Dade and Broward, and the map search at rangelyadames.com keeps the pipeline visible the whole time.