With the homebuying market still struggling, real estate agencies are trying to lure potential homeowners into moving to their area by slashing home prices.
In a soon to be released report from the real estate website Trulia.com, home sellers have cut more than $24 billion in potential home equity over the past year and trimmed the cost of properties approximately 79 days after posting the initial asking price. What's more, according to the website, 35 percent of sellers will cut their prices again.
Trulia.com reports that the average home seller dropped their asking price by an average of 8 percent, but that rate is even higher in certain parts of the country, such as Detroit and Cleveland, where the average first-time price cut is 19 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
In a statement obtained by the Miami Herald, Tara-Nicholle Nelson of Trulia.com said home sellers often need to make a second cut to lure buyers, and this usually happens to people who underestimate how deeply they should cut their asking price the first time around.
The Criscitos has been selling South Florida luxury and commercial real estate for over a decade and has sold over $1 billion dollars of property. They work as a multi-lingual team speaking english, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. They carved out a niche as a leading boutique real estate company with two distinct divisions -residential and commercial- both personally overseeing by Marcela and Anthony Criscito.
Showing posts with label downtown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downtown. Show all posts
Friday, April 15, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Miami New-Condo Sales Revive As Biggest Markets Fall
The new-condo boom struck louder in Miami than it did in other markets and fell hardest there when the thunder stopped.
Now the area stands out again. Its new-condo market is coming back stronger in sales and pricing, though it's a fraction of its old self.
Thank all-cash buyers from Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Europe and other locales. They see Miami's luxury condos at discounted prices as safe havens for investment money.
Positive sales trends continue.
"These people are parking their cash," said Peter Zalewski, principal of real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. "In Venezuela, they're fearful they're going to lose it (under President Hugo Chavez's strong-arm rule). Canadians are saying their currency is on par with the U.S. dollar, so in their minds they are getting a 25% discount."
Of the top eight U.S. metro areas, Miami was the only one in 2010 to show volume gains in attached-home closings, mainly condos, according to data gathered by Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.
The other seven fell 5% to 37% as Miami rose 8%. New York dropped 13%, Los Angeles 20% and San Francisco 37%. Unit sales totaled 4,120 in Miami — above L.A.'s 3,935 — but that still pales vs. pre-crash years 2005-07, when 20,000 to 30,000 units sold each year.
The Miami metro figures cited by Hanley Wood include Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Miami-Dade is almost 70% of the total, at 2,842 closings.
"Miami is a happening place; it's really become a dynamic marketplace," said Jay Massirman, managing director of Asentus Real Estate, a real estate investment and merchant banking firm in Miami Beach.
All About Inventory
L.A. and other spots that dropped off in new-condo sales hadn't seen as big a spike in construction as the Miami area. Some 85,000 new condo units were built in the area from 2003-10, with 49,000 in coastal areas east of I-95, says Condo Vultures. Greater downtown Miami accounted for 22,250 units.
Bulk sales have figured in Miami's condo recovery, as investors bet that South Florida's cachet will continue. Last year 3,700 units in downtown Miami sold, up 57% from 2,300 in 2009, says Condo Vultures. Some 1,600 units sold in 10 bulk deals, Zalewski says. The rest were to individual all-cash buyers, mostly from overseas.
New construction has virtually halted as the market works through new inventory from prior years that hasn't sold yet. As prices rise, the pace of bulk buying seems to be slowing, at least in the coastal and downtown urban cores, leaving those markets to all-cash individual buyers, local watchers say.
Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade County the median price of an attached home — a condo, for the most part — rose 11% to $288,614 last year, says Hanley Wood. The median price was higher than the peak year of 2006, when 17,400 closings were recorded. But many low-price condos have been converted to rentals, skewing inventory to luxury units.
"A lot of the inventory has been absorbed fairly rapidly and it is continuing to be absorbed," Massirman said. Where blocks of brand-new condo towers on Brickell Avenue near downtown stood dark, "lights are on, people are jogging on the street and dining in restaurants."
Buying In Landlord Land
Most new occupants are renters.
"The number of buyers we see who are end users is a very tiny minority," Zalewski said. "The family of four with a dog doesn't have a chance in this (new-construction) market because there's no financing. If you can find a lender, you have to put down 50%."
Even so, the sales rebound is welcome relief to condo associations that have struggled to keep up services at empty or half-empty buildings. At least new owners pay monthly association fees, as their tenants live the high life, enjoying amenities such as sleek kitchens and rooftop pools.
"A lot of these association issues are working themselves out," Massirman said.
Falling prices had a lot to do with the rebound. "In 2009, prices started to bottom," Massirman said, noting that new condos on Brickell fell to as low as $200 a square foot from $600 three years earlier. In late 2009, investors "started piling in."
Bulk buyers and other investors are starting to turn their sights to suburban neighborhoods away from the coast, where prices are still falling, observers say.
"East of I-95 is well past the bottom," Zalewski said. "West of I-95 is a market that doesn't have any kind of safety stop. The 10% local unemployment rate has a drastic effect on the suburban market."
The median price of an existing single-family home in the Miami metro area, which includes condos, fell 18.3% in January from a year ago, to $165,800, says the National Association of Realtors. As prices fell, sales rose 32.9%.
Investors scouting the western suburbs of Miami are looking to pick up multiple units in garden-style condo conversions for $25,000 to $50,000 each, Zalewski says.
"The new-condo market is starting to slow. The resale condo market is starting to heat up," he said.
New construction has virtually halted as the market works through new inventory from prior years that hasn't sold yet. As prices rise, the pace of bulk buying seems to be slowing, at least in the coastal and downtown urban cores, leaving those markets to all-cash individual buyers, local watchers say.
Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade County the median price of an attached home — a condo, for the most part — rose 11% to $288,614 last year from 2009, says Hanley Wood. Both years showed higher median prices than the peak year of 2006, when 17,400 closings were recorded.
"A lot of the inventory has been absorbed fairly rapidly and it is continuing to be absorbed," Massirman said. Where blocks of brand-new condo towers on Brickell Avenue near downtown stood dark, "lights are on, people are jogging on the street and dining in restaurants."
Buying In Landlord Land
Most new occupants are renters.
"The number of buyers we see who are end users is a very tiny minority," Zalewski said. "The family of four with a dog doesn't have a chance in this (new-construction) market because there's no financing. If you can find a lender, you have to put down 50%."
Even so, the sales rebound is welcome relief to condo associations that have struggled to keep up services at empty or half-empty buildings. At least new owners pay monthly association fees, as their tenants live the high life, enjoying amenities such as sleek kitchens and rooftop pools.
"A lot of these association issues are working themselves out," Massirman said.
Falling prices had a lot to do with the rebound. "In 2009, prices started to bottom," Massirman said, noting that new condos on Brickell fell to as low as $200 a square foot from $600 three years earlier. In late 2009, investors "started piling in."
Bulk buyers and other investors are starting to turn their sights to suburban neighborhoods away from the coast, where prices are still falling, observers say.
"East of I-95 is well past the bottom," Zalewski said. "West of I-95 is a market that doesn't have any kind of safety stop. The 10% local unemployment rate has a drastic effect on the suburban market."
The median price of an existing single-family home in the Miami metro area, which includes condos, fell 18.3% in January from a year ago, to $165,800, says the National Association of Realtors. As prices fell, sales rose 32.9%.
Investors scouting the western suburbs of Miami are looking to pick up multiple units in garden-style condo conversions for $25,000 to $50,000 each, Zalewski says.
"The new-condo market is starting to slow. The resale condo market is starting to heat up," he said.
Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/564849/201103031443/Miami-New-Condo-Sales-Revive-As-Biggest-Markets-Fall.aspx
By MARILYN ALVA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Now the area stands out again. Its new-condo market is coming back stronger in sales and pricing, though it's a fraction of its old self.
Thank all-cash buyers from Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Europe and other locales. They see Miami's luxury condos at discounted prices as safe havens for investment money.
Positive sales trends continue.
"These people are parking their cash," said Peter Zalewski, principal of real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. "In Venezuela, they're fearful they're going to lose it (under President Hugo Chavez's strong-arm rule). Canadians are saying their currency is on par with the U.S. dollar, so in their minds they are getting a 25% discount."
Of the top eight U.S. metro areas, Miami was the only one in 2010 to show volume gains in attached-home closings, mainly condos, according to data gathered by Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.
The other seven fell 5% to 37% as Miami rose 8%. New York dropped 13%, Los Angeles 20% and San Francisco 37%. Unit sales totaled 4,120 in Miami — above L.A.'s 3,935 — but that still pales vs. pre-crash years 2005-07, when 20,000 to 30,000 units sold each year.
The Miami metro figures cited by Hanley Wood include Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Miami-Dade is almost 70% of the total, at 2,842 closings.
"Miami is a happening place; it's really become a dynamic marketplace," said Jay Massirman, managing director of Asentus Real Estate, a real estate investment and merchant banking firm in Miami Beach.
All About Inventory
L.A. and other spots that dropped off in new-condo sales hadn't seen as big a spike in construction as the Miami area. Some 85,000 new condo units were built in the area from 2003-10, with 49,000 in coastal areas east of I-95, says Condo Vultures. Greater downtown Miami accounted for 22,250 units.
Bulk sales have figured in Miami's condo recovery, as investors bet that South Florida's cachet will continue. Last year 3,700 units in downtown Miami sold, up 57% from 2,300 in 2009, says Condo Vultures. Some 1,600 units sold in 10 bulk deals, Zalewski says. The rest were to individual all-cash buyers, mostly from overseas.
New construction has virtually halted as the market works through new inventory from prior years that hasn't sold yet. As prices rise, the pace of bulk buying seems to be slowing, at least in the coastal and downtown urban cores, leaving those markets to all-cash individual buyers, local watchers say.
Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade County the median price of an attached home — a condo, for the most part — rose 11% to $288,614 last year, says Hanley Wood. The median price was higher than the peak year of 2006, when 17,400 closings were recorded. But many low-price condos have been converted to rentals, skewing inventory to luxury units.
"A lot of the inventory has been absorbed fairly rapidly and it is continuing to be absorbed," Massirman said. Where blocks of brand-new condo towers on Brickell Avenue near downtown stood dark, "lights are on, people are jogging on the street and dining in restaurants."
Buying In Landlord Land
Most new occupants are renters.
"The number of buyers we see who are end users is a very tiny minority," Zalewski said. "The family of four with a dog doesn't have a chance in this (new-construction) market because there's no financing. If you can find a lender, you have to put down 50%."
Even so, the sales rebound is welcome relief to condo associations that have struggled to keep up services at empty or half-empty buildings. At least new owners pay monthly association fees, as their tenants live the high life, enjoying amenities such as sleek kitchens and rooftop pools.
"A lot of these association issues are working themselves out," Massirman said.
Falling prices had a lot to do with the rebound. "In 2009, prices started to bottom," Massirman said, noting that new condos on Brickell fell to as low as $200 a square foot from $600 three years earlier. In late 2009, investors "started piling in."
Bulk buyers and other investors are starting to turn their sights to suburban neighborhoods away from the coast, where prices are still falling, observers say.
"East of I-95 is well past the bottom," Zalewski said. "West of I-95 is a market that doesn't have any kind of safety stop. The 10% local unemployment rate has a drastic effect on the suburban market."
The median price of an existing single-family home in the Miami metro area, which includes condos, fell 18.3% in January from a year ago, to $165,800, says the National Association of Realtors. As prices fell, sales rose 32.9%.
Investors scouting the western suburbs of Miami are looking to pick up multiple units in garden-style condo conversions for $25,000 to $50,000 each, Zalewski says.
"The new-condo market is starting to slow. The resale condo market is starting to heat up," he said.
New construction has virtually halted as the market works through new inventory from prior years that hasn't sold yet. As prices rise, the pace of bulk buying seems to be slowing, at least in the coastal and downtown urban cores, leaving those markets to all-cash individual buyers, local watchers say.
Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade County the median price of an attached home — a condo, for the most part — rose 11% to $288,614 last year from 2009, says Hanley Wood. Both years showed higher median prices than the peak year of 2006, when 17,400 closings were recorded.
"A lot of the inventory has been absorbed fairly rapidly and it is continuing to be absorbed," Massirman said. Where blocks of brand-new condo towers on Brickell Avenue near downtown stood dark, "lights are on, people are jogging on the street and dining in restaurants."
Buying In Landlord Land
Most new occupants are renters.
"The number of buyers we see who are end users is a very tiny minority," Zalewski said. "The family of four with a dog doesn't have a chance in this (new-construction) market because there's no financing. If you can find a lender, you have to put down 50%."
Even so, the sales rebound is welcome relief to condo associations that have struggled to keep up services at empty or half-empty buildings. At least new owners pay monthly association fees, as their tenants live the high life, enjoying amenities such as sleek kitchens and rooftop pools.
"A lot of these association issues are working themselves out," Massirman said.
Falling prices had a lot to do with the rebound. "In 2009, prices started to bottom," Massirman said, noting that new condos on Brickell fell to as low as $200 a square foot from $600 three years earlier. In late 2009, investors "started piling in."
Bulk buyers and other investors are starting to turn their sights to suburban neighborhoods away from the coast, where prices are still falling, observers say.
"East of I-95 is well past the bottom," Zalewski said. "West of I-95 is a market that doesn't have any kind of safety stop. The 10% local unemployment rate has a drastic effect on the suburban market."
The median price of an existing single-family home in the Miami metro area, which includes condos, fell 18.3% in January from a year ago, to $165,800, says the National Association of Realtors. As prices fell, sales rose 32.9%.
Investors scouting the western suburbs of Miami are looking to pick up multiple units in garden-style condo conversions for $25,000 to $50,000 each, Zalewski says.
"The new-condo market is starting to slow. The resale condo market is starting to heat up," he said.
Source: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/564849/201103031443/Miami-New-Condo-Sales-Revive-As-Biggest-Markets-Fall.aspx
By MARILYN ALVA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Cash is King as New Wave of Home Buyers Shuns Loans and Pays Small Bucks for Bargains
It's a new beginning in America's home-buying market. More and more buyers are saying no to expensive and convoluted bank loans and paying cash instead for bargain properties.
The Wall Street Journal reports scores of bargain-basement deals being closed by cash-bidding buyers who feel the bottom has been reached in the market.
Where are they getting the cash from? They are selling other investments like paintings, cars and jewelry.
For example, In Atlanta, 62-year-old piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch paid cash for a 93-year-old three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in scenic Stone Mountain, GA.
The property initially listed for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900. The piano teacher didn't think her bid of $52,500 would be taken seriously. It was. She is the new owner.
In Miami Beach, Richard Stoker, a 73-year-old retired sales executive, paid cash for two condominiums and soon plans to close on a third. He is paying $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million for properties that were initially listed for double those amounts.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties. He tells the WSJ he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010--more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The Federal Reserve reports that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December 2010 for the first time since August 2008.
Henry Schlangen
"Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing," reports the WSJ.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, CA.
Schlangen tells the WSJ, "They (lenders) hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'Refi' later."
Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years.
"The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said. He notes the number of buyers from China are increasing.
Mohammed Siddiq
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, FL, tells the WSJ.
Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind, he says.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed.
The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward.
But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick, reports the WSJ.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/raymond-james-zillowcom-national-association-of-realtors-henry-schlangen-pacific-union-international-mohammed-siddiq-stone-mountain-ga-miami-beach-skyline-3915.php
Posted by Alex Finkelstein
The Wall Street Journal reports scores of bargain-basement deals being closed by cash-bidding buyers who feel the bottom has been reached in the market.
Where are they getting the cash from? They are selling other investments like paintings, cars and jewelry.
For example, In Atlanta, 62-year-old piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch paid cash for a 93-year-old three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow in scenic Stone Mountain, GA.
The property initially listed for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900. The piano teacher didn't think her bid of $52,500 would be taken seriously. It was. She is the new owner.
In Miami Beach, Richard Stoker, a 73-year-old retired sales executive, paid cash for two condominiums and soon plans to close on a third. He is paying $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million for properties that were initially listed for double those amounts.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties. He tells the WSJ he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com.
In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010--more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The Federal Reserve reports that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December 2010 for the first time since August 2008.
Henry Schlangen
"Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing," reports the WSJ.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, CA.
Schlangen tells the WSJ, "They (lenders) hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'Refi' later."
Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years.
"The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said. He notes the number of buyers from China are increasing.
Mohammed Siddiq
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, FL, tells the WSJ.
Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind, he says.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed.
The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward.
But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick, reports the WSJ.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/raymond-james-zillowcom-national-association-of-realtors-henry-schlangen-pacific-union-international-mohammed-siddiq-stone-mountain-ga-miami-beach-skyline-3915.php
Posted by Alex Finkelstein
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Brazilians making an economic mark
President Barack Obama will visit Brazil during his first South American trip in March and Brazil is Florida’s top trading partner. But Brazilians are also snapping up beachfront luxury properties and downtown Miami condos, investing in everything from real estate to Burger King, and shopping voraciously.
It’s as if a “swarm of grasshoppers” has descended on South Florida, chomping through bargains from Dadeland to Sawgrass Mills, one tour operator says.
“The trend now is everybody comes to shop, shop, shop,’’ said Claudia Menezes, of Pegasus Transportation, which operates a fleet of buses for conventional tours as well as the shopping excursions that are so popular with Brazilians. “They’re buying up everything from $10 creams at Victoria’s Secret to Luis Vuitton and Prada.’’
Testimony to Brazilian consumerism: When Pegasus buses return Brazilians to the airport for their flights home, Menezes says, they have to put on extra trailers behind to haul the loot.
To keep the Brazilian visitors coming, American Airlines now offers 52 flights a week to Brazil from Miami International Airport.
“Brazil is breaking all sorts of records,’’ said Rolando Aedo, senior vice president of marketing for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It has been our rock-star market.’’
When all the numbers are tallied for 2010, Miami-Dade expects to have rolled out the welcome mat for more than 500,000 Brazilian visitors who spent more than $1 billion.
That would move Brazil into the top spot for international visitors, dethroning Canada, the perennial leader.
During the oil boom years, Venezuelans were legendary for their dame-dos (give me two) ways and Latin Americans have long loved South Florida shopping. But what sets the Brazilians apart is there are so many more of them and they’re really big spenders.
To cater to the Brazilian crowd, the tourism bureau has published shopping guides, maps and other materials in Portuguese.
Even though Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport has no direct Brazilian flights, the number of Brazilian visitors to Broward County has increased by 50 percent to 300,000 annually in the past year. Brazil now ranks as Broward’s second most important foreign market after Canada.
“They may enter though Miami, but they go to Sawgrass Mills,’’ said Francine Mason, a spokeswoman for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And they also visit their relatives. Broward County, especially the Pompano Beach/Lighthouse Point area, is home to the largest contingent of resident Brazilians in the state.
The Brazilian Consulate in Miami estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 Brazilians living in Florida with the largest populations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and Orlando.
What’s spurring the Brazilian stampede?
Brazil’s economy is booming and expected to become the world’s fifth largest by 2016. Unemployment is at record lows. And perhaps most important, Brazil’s currency — the real — is extremely strong against the dollar, making Florida trips and shopping sprees affordable for Brazilians.
Coming to South Florida for a week is often cheaper for a Sao Paulo resident than a vacation in Northeast Brazil.
“Real estate is extremely high in Brazil right now — untouchable for many people,’’ said Claudia Bacelar, a Brazilian who works as a Realtor at the Esslinger-Wooten office in Coral Gables.
Edgardo Defortuna, president and chief executive of Fortune International, says, for example, that an apartment equivalent to a three-bedroom unit at Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach that goes for $1.6 million might cost $2.5 million in Belo Horizonte, a state capital in southeastern Brazil.
And there’s another reason so many Brazilians are visiting: They just like it here.
“Florida has always been a favorite – the warm tropical weather and the beaches with the benefit of the shopping and now, of course, it’s so much more affordable,’’ Bacelar said. “When Brazilians come here and I see how they shop, I’m in shock.’’
At Dolphin Mall near Miami International Airport, for example, Brazilians are the top international tourists, urging past Venezuelans for the first time last year, said Madelyn Bello Calvar, director of sponsorship and marketing.
And they typically spend about three times what local customers do, she said.
At Sawgrass Mills, Marcos Freire, the assistant general manager, has watched with satisfaction as shoppers speaking Portuguese flood the mall and buses full of Brazilian tourists in matching T-shirts pull in.
Mall surveys show that Brazilians are the most numerous international shoppers, followed by Colombians and Canadians. But Freire says, “The Brazilians are way ahead.’’
As shoppers, he says, they are extremely brand-conscious, loading down their carts with Nike, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger plus high fashion, televisions, video games, and the latest technology.
They know their way around American retail, said Freire, who is originally from Rio de Janeiro. “They’ve done their homework and they know where they’re going.’’
Menezes, whose company often runs shopping tours that stop at Sawgrass, said the trend used to be that Brazilian groups would ask for some time at the beach, Orlando or the Everglades and maybe a day of shopping.
“Now we have some groups that are coming four or five days just to shop,’’ she said. “This year for the first time we even had shopping tours for Black Friday.’’
It’s not just hotels and stores that are benefiting from Brazilians planting their green and yellow flag around South Florida.
• Real Estate — Real estate sales to Brazilians also are booming.
“Today, they’re the most important foreign sector of the South Florida market,’’ Defortuna said. “During the past 12 months, they have come in very strongly.’’
So strongly that late last year, Fortune International opened an office in Sao Paulo to market its own luxury developments such as Jade Ocean as well as other projects it handles such as Icon Brickell and Trump Hollywood .
“I have never seen anything like this — such demand. I get calls and e-mails every single day with a new Brazilian contact or lead,’’ said Fabiana Pimenta, a top Brazilian Realtor at Fortune.
About a quarter of all new Fortune sales are now to Brazilians, Defortuna said.
They basically fall into two categories, he says: high-end buyers who are buying for themselves — although it may be their second, third or fourth home — and investors who tend to gravitate toward properties in the Brickell and downtown Miami areas.
If they’re buying for themselves, they like beachfront properties in Miami Beach and the Sunny Isles Beach area, real estate agents say.
The apartment-buying spree also is having a positive impact on other businesses.
Five years ago, Ornare, a high-end Brazilian kitchen, bath and closet store, opened its first U.S. branch in Miami’s Design District. And while the local housing market has slumped, Ornare’s business hasn’t.
Its closets with leather doors, sculpted bath fixtures and sleek, sophisticated kitchens have found a ready market here. Increasingly, it’s Brazilians who are doing the buying.
Sales are up nearly 40 percent since last year and now Ornare is planning showrooms in five other U.S. cities, says Claudio Faria, director of Ornare Miami, which imports nearly everything in its showroom from Sao Paulo.
In 2009, Brazilians accounted for just 5 percent of Ornare’s local sales. Now, it’s about 25 percent, Faria said.
Brazilian interior designer Mirtha Arriaran, who has run a Miami interior design business since 1995, says that one of her jet-setting clients recently purchased a Miami apartment as a 12th residence.
“These Brazilians are very, very rich,’’ she said. “They are not looking for bargains. They are the type of people who will pick out an apartment they like and then ask the price.’’
About 85 percent of Arriaran’s clients are Brazilians, and these days with all their new condo purchases, she’s so busy that her firm, MAS Interior Design, is not taking on new business.
But not all the Brazilian real estate buyers fall into the ultra-rich category.
“Now Brickell is very affordable for the middle class,’’ says Bacelar. She recently sold several smaller apartments there for just under $200,000 — with low maintenance fees, too.
• Airlines — Two years ago, American Airlines served just two Brazilian cities – Rio and Sao Paulo – from Miami. Now it’s added four more: Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Salvador with continuing service to Recife.
“This is huge for us — to be in six cities in one country,’’ said Martha Pantin, an American spokeswoman. “American Airlines is very bullish on Brazil.’’
TAM , a Brazilian airline, also recently added direct service several times a week from MIA to Brasilia and Belo Horizonte to complement its daily flights to Sao Paulo, Rio and Manaus.
But the best may be yet to come. With the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, American is now negotiating to add extra flights to Brazil before and after the World Cup.
American believes Miami will be a transit point for many people from around the world as they head to the sporting events, says Pantin. “The World Cup,’’ she said, “also will introduce Americans to new destinations in Brazil.’’
• The Florida/Brazil trade and business connection — Brazil ranks as South Florida’s top trading partner as well as the Sunshine State’s top trading partner. Florida’s merchandise trade with Brazil during the first 11 months of 2010, the most recent statistics available, topped $14.4 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2009 figures.
Enterprise Florida recently reopened an office in Brazil. Its purpose is to not only promote Florida products and services but also to attract Brazilian investors to Florida.
Brazilian companies Embraer, an aircraft manufacturer, and Odebrecht, a construction firm, already have extensive operations in South Florida, and last fall 3G Capital, a private investment firm with Brazilian backing, acquired Burger King in a $4 billion deal.
“We think with the emergence of Brazil as a world economic power, it will become very fertile ground to recruit companies to Florida,’’ said Manny Mencia., vice president of international development for Enterprise Florida. “There’s no market going forward that offers Florida the opportunities that Brazil does.’’
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/v-fullstory/2065059/the-brazilian-stampede.html
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
It’s as if a “swarm of grasshoppers” has descended on South Florida, chomping through bargains from Dadeland to Sawgrass Mills, one tour operator says.
“The trend now is everybody comes to shop, shop, shop,’’ said Claudia Menezes, of Pegasus Transportation, which operates a fleet of buses for conventional tours as well as the shopping excursions that are so popular with Brazilians. “They’re buying up everything from $10 creams at Victoria’s Secret to Luis Vuitton and Prada.’’
Testimony to Brazilian consumerism: When Pegasus buses return Brazilians to the airport for their flights home, Menezes says, they have to put on extra trailers behind to haul the loot.
To keep the Brazilian visitors coming, American Airlines now offers 52 flights a week to Brazil from Miami International Airport.
“Brazil is breaking all sorts of records,’’ said Rolando Aedo, senior vice president of marketing for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It has been our rock-star market.’’
When all the numbers are tallied for 2010, Miami-Dade expects to have rolled out the welcome mat for more than 500,000 Brazilian visitors who spent more than $1 billion.
That would move Brazil into the top spot for international visitors, dethroning Canada, the perennial leader.
During the oil boom years, Venezuelans were legendary for their dame-dos (give me two) ways and Latin Americans have long loved South Florida shopping. But what sets the Brazilians apart is there are so many more of them and they’re really big spenders.
To cater to the Brazilian crowd, the tourism bureau has published shopping guides, maps and other materials in Portuguese.
Even though Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport has no direct Brazilian flights, the number of Brazilian visitors to Broward County has increased by 50 percent to 300,000 annually in the past year. Brazil now ranks as Broward’s second most important foreign market after Canada.
“They may enter though Miami, but they go to Sawgrass Mills,’’ said Francine Mason, a spokeswoman for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
And they also visit their relatives. Broward County, especially the Pompano Beach/Lighthouse Point area, is home to the largest contingent of resident Brazilians in the state.
The Brazilian Consulate in Miami estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 Brazilians living in Florida with the largest populations in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and Orlando.
What’s spurring the Brazilian stampede?
Brazil’s economy is booming and expected to become the world’s fifth largest by 2016. Unemployment is at record lows. And perhaps most important, Brazil’s currency — the real — is extremely strong against the dollar, making Florida trips and shopping sprees affordable for Brazilians.
Coming to South Florida for a week is often cheaper for a Sao Paulo resident than a vacation in Northeast Brazil.
“Real estate is extremely high in Brazil right now — untouchable for many people,’’ said Claudia Bacelar, a Brazilian who works as a Realtor at the Esslinger-Wooten office in Coral Gables.
Edgardo Defortuna, president and chief executive of Fortune International, says, for example, that an apartment equivalent to a three-bedroom unit at Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach that goes for $1.6 million might cost $2.5 million in Belo Horizonte, a state capital in southeastern Brazil.
And there’s another reason so many Brazilians are visiting: They just like it here.
“Florida has always been a favorite – the warm tropical weather and the beaches with the benefit of the shopping and now, of course, it’s so much more affordable,’’ Bacelar said. “When Brazilians come here and I see how they shop, I’m in shock.’’
At Dolphin Mall near Miami International Airport, for example, Brazilians are the top international tourists, urging past Venezuelans for the first time last year, said Madelyn Bello Calvar, director of sponsorship and marketing.
And they typically spend about three times what local customers do, she said.
At Sawgrass Mills, Marcos Freire, the assistant general manager, has watched with satisfaction as shoppers speaking Portuguese flood the mall and buses full of Brazilian tourists in matching T-shirts pull in.
Mall surveys show that Brazilians are the most numerous international shoppers, followed by Colombians and Canadians. But Freire says, “The Brazilians are way ahead.’’
As shoppers, he says, they are extremely brand-conscious, loading down their carts with Nike, Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger plus high fashion, televisions, video games, and the latest technology.
They know their way around American retail, said Freire, who is originally from Rio de Janeiro. “They’ve done their homework and they know where they’re going.’’
Menezes, whose company often runs shopping tours that stop at Sawgrass, said the trend used to be that Brazilian groups would ask for some time at the beach, Orlando or the Everglades and maybe a day of shopping.
“Now we have some groups that are coming four or five days just to shop,’’ she said. “This year for the first time we even had shopping tours for Black Friday.’’
It’s not just hotels and stores that are benefiting from Brazilians planting their green and yellow flag around South Florida.
• Real Estate — Real estate sales to Brazilians also are booming.
“Today, they’re the most important foreign sector of the South Florida market,’’ Defortuna said. “During the past 12 months, they have come in very strongly.’’
So strongly that late last year, Fortune International opened an office in Sao Paulo to market its own luxury developments such as Jade Ocean as well as other projects it handles such as Icon Brickell and Trump Hollywood .
“I have never seen anything like this — such demand. I get calls and e-mails every single day with a new Brazilian contact or lead,’’ said Fabiana Pimenta, a top Brazilian Realtor at Fortune.
About a quarter of all new Fortune sales are now to Brazilians, Defortuna said.
They basically fall into two categories, he says: high-end buyers who are buying for themselves — although it may be their second, third or fourth home — and investors who tend to gravitate toward properties in the Brickell and downtown Miami areas.
If they’re buying for themselves, they like beachfront properties in Miami Beach and the Sunny Isles Beach area, real estate agents say.
The apartment-buying spree also is having a positive impact on other businesses.
Five years ago, Ornare, a high-end Brazilian kitchen, bath and closet store, opened its first U.S. branch in Miami’s Design District. And while the local housing market has slumped, Ornare’s business hasn’t.
Its closets with leather doors, sculpted bath fixtures and sleek, sophisticated kitchens have found a ready market here. Increasingly, it’s Brazilians who are doing the buying.
Sales are up nearly 40 percent since last year and now Ornare is planning showrooms in five other U.S. cities, says Claudio Faria, director of Ornare Miami, which imports nearly everything in its showroom from Sao Paulo.
In 2009, Brazilians accounted for just 5 percent of Ornare’s local sales. Now, it’s about 25 percent, Faria said.
Brazilian interior designer Mirtha Arriaran, who has run a Miami interior design business since 1995, says that one of her jet-setting clients recently purchased a Miami apartment as a 12th residence.
“These Brazilians are very, very rich,’’ she said. “They are not looking for bargains. They are the type of people who will pick out an apartment they like and then ask the price.’’
About 85 percent of Arriaran’s clients are Brazilians, and these days with all their new condo purchases, she’s so busy that her firm, MAS Interior Design, is not taking on new business.
But not all the Brazilian real estate buyers fall into the ultra-rich category.
“Now Brickell is very affordable for the middle class,’’ says Bacelar. She recently sold several smaller apartments there for just under $200,000 — with low maintenance fees, too.
• Airlines — Two years ago, American Airlines served just two Brazilian cities – Rio and Sao Paulo – from Miami. Now it’s added four more: Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Salvador with continuing service to Recife.
“This is huge for us — to be in six cities in one country,’’ said Martha Pantin, an American spokeswoman. “American Airlines is very bullish on Brazil.’’
TAM , a Brazilian airline, also recently added direct service several times a week from MIA to Brasilia and Belo Horizonte to complement its daily flights to Sao Paulo, Rio and Manaus.
But the best may be yet to come. With the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, American is now negotiating to add extra flights to Brazil before and after the World Cup.
American believes Miami will be a transit point for many people from around the world as they head to the sporting events, says Pantin. “The World Cup,’’ she said, “also will introduce Americans to new destinations in Brazil.’’
• The Florida/Brazil trade and business connection — Brazil ranks as South Florida’s top trading partner as well as the Sunshine State’s top trading partner. Florida’s merchandise trade with Brazil during the first 11 months of 2010, the most recent statistics available, topped $14.4 billion, a 27 percent increase over 2009 figures.
Enterprise Florida recently reopened an office in Brazil. Its purpose is to not only promote Florida products and services but also to attract Brazilian investors to Florida.
Brazilian companies Embraer, an aircraft manufacturer, and Odebrecht, a construction firm, already have extensive operations in South Florida, and last fall 3G Capital, a private investment firm with Brazilian backing, acquired Burger King in a $4 billion deal.
“We think with the emergence of Brazil as a world economic power, it will become very fertile ground to recruit companies to Florida,’’ said Manny Mencia., vice president of international development for Enterprise Florida. “There’s no market going forward that offers Florida the opportunities that Brazil does.’’
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/v-fullstory/2065059/the-brazilian-stampede.html
By MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@MiamiHerald.com
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Cash Buyers Lift Housing
Buyers in markets around the U.S. are snapping up homes in all-cash deals, betting that prices are at or near bottom and breathing life into some of the nation's most battered housing markets.
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com. In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010—more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The jump in real-estate purchases made with cash is another sign of the revival of animal spirits in the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 69.48 points Monday, or 0.6%, to 12161.63, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 8.18 points, or 0.6%, to 1319.05.
Monday's announcements of $13 billion in acquisitions lifted stocks on hopes of more deals, share buybacks and dividends as companies regain momentum in an improving economy.
The two stock indexes have soared more than 80% since early March 2009.
The Federal Reserve reported that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December for the first time since August 2008, showing that consumers are getting less skittish about opening their wallets. Investors also were soothed Monday by encouraging signs in Egypt, including last weekend's reopening of banks.
Residential real estate has been slower to bounce back than stocks, but the presence of apparent bargains is luring in newly confident buyers.
Richard Stoker, a retired sales executive, recently plunked down cash for two condominiums in Miami Beach, and plans to close on one more in coming days. He loves the complex's ocean views, four swimming pools and activities such as yoga and Pilates.
But what also motivated the purchase, said the 73-year-old, was that "the prices were just irresistible. Florida's been hit pretty hard." To pay the $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million prices on the condos, Mr. Stoker and his wife, Jane, cashed out of some financial investments and sold a Roy Lichtenstein painting and an Alexander Calder mobile.
Mr. Stoker could have taken out mortgages, but decided to pay cash. "It was a good time to lighten up in the art market and take on real estate at a favorable price," he said.
The harder a market has been hit, say economists, the higher the percentage of cash deals. Last summer, piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch told a real-estate agent she met through the Rotary Club to keep her posted on deals on historic houses in Stone Mountain, Ga.
A few days later, Ms. Hall-Busch, 62, got a call about a 1918 bungalow with three bedrooms and one bathroom listed for "short sale," which in the real-estate world means at a price lower than what's owed on it. The home had been on the market for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900.
"I offered them 50," she said. "I figured, it wasn't like I needed a place to live. I can afford to be a little cocky here."
Ms. Hall-Busch closed in October for $52,500 and began renovations within weeks.
"When you have a bad economy, it's hard on lots of people," she said. "But right now if you've got the money to put down on a house, long term it's going to be good thing."
Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, Calif.
"They hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'refi' later."
Mr. Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years. "The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said, noting a surge of buyers from China.
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, said Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind.
And while many buyers making low-ball offers dig their heels, Mr. Siddiq said he has started to see bidding wars and slightly increasing prices.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed. The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward. But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick.
Since mid-October, Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach, the development Mr. Stoker bought into, has sold 35 units, with a third of the buyers from overseas and many others retiring from the Northeast.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Mr. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties, saying he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704570104576124502975117950.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Cash buyers represented more than half of all transactions in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area last year, according to an analysis from real-estate portal Zillow.com. In the fourth quarter of 2006, they represented just 13% of deals. Meanwhile, downtown Miami prices rose 15% in 2010 from a year earlier, according to the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
The percentage of buyers in Phoenix paying cash hit 42% in 2010—more than triple the rate in 2008, according to Raymond James's equity research division.
Nationally, 28% of sales were all-cash transactions last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. The rate was 14% in October 2008, when the trade group began tracking the measure.
The jump in real-estate purchases made with cash is another sign of the revival of animal spirits in the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 69.48 points Monday, or 0.6%, to 12161.63, and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index rose 8.18 points, or 0.6%, to 1319.05.
Monday's announcements of $13 billion in acquisitions lifted stocks on hopes of more deals, share buybacks and dividends as companies regain momentum in an improving economy.
The two stock indexes have soared more than 80% since early March 2009.
The Federal Reserve reported that Americans increased their use of credit cards in December for the first time since August 2008, showing that consumers are getting less skittish about opening their wallets. Investors also were soothed Monday by encouraging signs in Egypt, including last weekend's reopening of banks.
Residential real estate has been slower to bounce back than stocks, but the presence of apparent bargains is luring in newly confident buyers.
Richard Stoker, a retired sales executive, recently plunked down cash for two condominiums in Miami Beach, and plans to close on one more in coming days. He loves the complex's ocean views, four swimming pools and activities such as yoga and Pilates.
But what also motivated the purchase, said the 73-year-old, was that "the prices were just irresistible. Florida's been hit pretty hard." To pay the $1.8 million, $1.2 million and $1 million prices on the condos, Mr. Stoker and his wife, Jane, cashed out of some financial investments and sold a Roy Lichtenstein painting and an Alexander Calder mobile.
Mr. Stoker could have taken out mortgages, but decided to pay cash. "It was a good time to lighten up in the art market and take on real estate at a favorable price," he said.
The harder a market has been hit, say economists, the higher the percentage of cash deals. Last summer, piano teacher Virginia Hall-Busch told a real-estate agent she met through the Rotary Club to keep her posted on deals on historic houses in Stone Mountain, Ga.
A few days later, Ms. Hall-Busch, 62, got a call about a 1918 bungalow with three bedrooms and one bathroom listed for "short sale," which in the real-estate world means at a price lower than what's owed on it. The home had been on the market for $159,000, then dropped to $129,000 and then to $79,900.
"I offered them 50," she said. "I figured, it wasn't like I needed a place to live. I can afford to be a little cocky here."
Ms. Hall-Busch closed in October for $52,500 and began renovations within weeks.
"When you have a bad economy, it's hard on lots of people," she said. "But right now if you've got the money to put down on a house, long term it's going to be good thing."
Some of the cash purchases reflect a tight lending environment, where even people with good credit and ample down payments are sometimes turned away for conventional borrowing.
"The rates are great but the underwriting is brutal," said Henry Schlangen, an agent with real-estate firm Pacific Union International who buys and sells for clients, mainly in Napa Valley, Calif.
"They hang these people upside down and shake them till they see what falls out of their pockets. So people are buying with cash and maybe they'll 'refi' later."
Mr. Schlangen, who deals in higher-end properties such as vineyard estates, estimated that 95% of his deals last year were all-cash, up from about half in previous years. "The deals that are consummating, these are buyers who feel they got a great deal," he said, noting a surge of buyers from China.
Cash buyers can often command 5% to 10% more off the asking price than a potential buyer using a mortgage, said Mohammed Siddiq, a real-estate professional in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sellers prefer cash deals since they close more quickly and avoid risks such as a buyer's job loss or a bank's changing its mind.
And while many buyers making low-ball offers dig their heels, Mr. Siddiq said he has started to see bidding wars and slightly increasing prices.
Nationally, it isn't clear whether prices have bottomed. The Case-Shiller index of housing prices in 20 cities showed a steep decline in prices until 2009, when they appeared to bottom and began to trend upward. But in the second half of last year, prices began falling again. A Zillow index, meanwhile, never noted the uptick.
Since mid-October, Canyon Ranch in Miami Beach, the development Mr. Stoker bought into, has sold 35 units, with a third of the buyers from overseas and many others retiring from the Northeast.
The Stokers have a home in Potomac, Md., but spend most of the year in Florida. Mr. Stoker doesn't plan to rent out any of his new properties, saying he and his wife will live in one with two dogs, his son might live in another and the third will house an older dog and guests.
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704570104576124502975117950.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Metro-Miami's Pending Home Sales Rise 28% Year-over-year
(MIAMI, FL ) -- According to the Miami Association of Realtors and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS), total cumulative pending home sales - including single-family homes and condominiums - in Miami-Dade County increased 28 percent in January compared to a year earlier, from 8,388 to 10,698, and 2.5 percent, from 10,437, compared to the previous month.
"Over the last few months, we have seen pending and closed sales gain momentum while inventory levels continue to drop, said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors. "This trend in rising sales, particularly for condominiums, coupled with significant reductions in housing inventory, is a very positive sign for the local market. We expect this trend to continue as the job market, economy, and consumer confidence improve."
Pending Condominium Contract Activity on the Rise
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to outperform that of single-family homes. In January, condominium pending sales increased a significant 37.2 percent compared to a year ago, from 4,647 to 6,376 and increased 3.3 percent from 6,173 the previous month. Pending sales of single-family homes in January increased 15.531 percent from the previous year, from 3,741 to 4,322, and 1.4 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,264.
Significant Reduction in Housing Inventory
The Miami-Dade real estate market continues to experience drops in housing inventory. Inventory for all housing types has dropped 47 percent since mid-2008 and eight percent compared to a year ago. Just over the last month, inventory in the county dropped six percent, pointing to increased demand for local properties.
"Local buyers are taking advantage of the many opportunities the local market offers, including high affordability that continues to boost contract activity," said 2011 Miami Association of Realtors Residential President Ralph E. De Martino. "International buyers continue to continue to have a significant impact in rising sales and declining inventory in the local market."
Increased pending sales are an indication of increased future sales. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/miami-pending-home-sales-dade-county-home-sales-miami-association-of-realtors-southeast-florida-multiple-listing-service-sefmls-miami-condo-foreclosures-3826.php
Posted by Michael Gerrity
"Over the last few months, we have seen pending and closed sales gain momentum while inventory levels continue to drop, said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors. "This trend in rising sales, particularly for condominiums, coupled with significant reductions in housing inventory, is a very positive sign for the local market. We expect this trend to continue as the job market, economy, and consumer confidence improve."
Pending Condominium Contract Activity on the Rise
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to outperform that of single-family homes. In January, condominium pending sales increased a significant 37.2 percent compared to a year ago, from 4,647 to 6,376 and increased 3.3 percent from 6,173 the previous month. Pending sales of single-family homes in January increased 15.531 percent from the previous year, from 3,741 to 4,322, and 1.4 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,264.
Significant Reduction in Housing Inventory
The Miami-Dade real estate market continues to experience drops in housing inventory. Inventory for all housing types has dropped 47 percent since mid-2008 and eight percent compared to a year ago. Just over the last month, inventory in the county dropped six percent, pointing to increased demand for local properties.
"Local buyers are taking advantage of the many opportunities the local market offers, including high affordability that continues to boost contract activity," said 2011 Miami Association of Realtors Residential President Ralph E. De Martino. "International buyers continue to continue to have a significant impact in rising sales and declining inventory in the local market."
Increased pending sales are an indication of increased future sales. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing.
Source: http://www.realestatechannel.com/us-markets/residential-real-estate-1/miami-pending-home-sales-dade-county-home-sales-miami-association-of-realtors-southeast-florida-multiple-listing-service-sefmls-miami-condo-foreclosures-3826.php
Posted by Michael Gerrity
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Trulia: It’s cheaper to buy than rent in Miami
Miami tops the list of places in the country where it’s cheaper to own than rent a home, according to Trulia.com’s latest Rent vs. Buy Index.
The San Francisco-based real estate website noted that the foreclosure crisis has pushed many homeowners to become renters, thus jacking up the cost of rentals.
“Following the principles of supply and demand, renting has become relatively more expensive than buying in most markets,” Trulia CEO and co-founder Pete Flint said in a news release.
In fact, Trulia found that it is more affordable to buy than rent a two-bedroom home in 72 percent of America’s 50 largest cities.
Trulia said it calculates the price-to-rent ratio for the 50 largest U.S. cities using the median list price compared with the median rent price on two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes listed on its website.
The median sales price for homes in Miami was $185,000. The average list price for homes for sale in Miami on Trulia is $402,603. The median sales price decreased 38.3 percent compared to the prior year based on 4,142 sales, which is up 20.1 percent compared to the prior year.
Other cities where it’s cheaper to buy than rent are:
Las Vegas
Arlington, Texas
Mesa, Ariz.
Phoenix
Jacksonville
Sacramento, Calif.
San Antonio
Fresno, Calif.
El Paso, Texas
On the flip side, Trulia found that renting is only less expensive than buying in four cities: New York, Seattle, Kansas City and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/01/25/trulia-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent.html
The San Francisco-based real estate website noted that the foreclosure crisis has pushed many homeowners to become renters, thus jacking up the cost of rentals.
“Following the principles of supply and demand, renting has become relatively more expensive than buying in most markets,” Trulia CEO and co-founder Pete Flint said in a news release.
In fact, Trulia found that it is more affordable to buy than rent a two-bedroom home in 72 percent of America’s 50 largest cities.
Trulia said it calculates the price-to-rent ratio for the 50 largest U.S. cities using the median list price compared with the median rent price on two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes listed on its website.
The median sales price for homes in Miami was $185,000. The average list price for homes for sale in Miami on Trulia is $402,603. The median sales price decreased 38.3 percent compared to the prior year based on 4,142 sales, which is up 20.1 percent compared to the prior year.
Other cities where it’s cheaper to buy than rent are:
Las Vegas
Arlington, Texas
Mesa, Ariz.
Phoenix
Jacksonville
Sacramento, Calif.
San Antonio
Fresno, Calif.
El Paso, Texas
On the flip side, Trulia found that renting is only less expensive than buying in four cities: New York, Seattle, Kansas City and San Francisco.
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2011/01/25/trulia-its-cheaper-to-buy-than-rent.html
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Selling A Miami Real Estate Asset: Behind The Scenes
Selling a Miami Real Estate Asset is no mean feat as there is loads of work which needs to be performed in order to produce it a good results. What goes on behind the scenes before the actual selling process is what matters most. Unlike Buying a Property, selling is a very much more difficult job as their needs to be a lot of deliberation and Organizing before one could actually be confident about selling a Property. usually estate sellers employ experienced agents to represent their Property and its advertising campaigns along with all the Dwelling showings. These agents specialize themselves as Asset sellers and are pretty adept at their job.
With the Miami Real Estate market being so saturated, were you can effortlessly locate several Units at the exact rate, one needs to keep his/her Asset in pristine situation to stand a chance of selling it. For which, you need to have to renovate your estate in way which it looks and feels Brand new. This includes all key and insignificant repairs along with the expected cosmetic changes. Most consumers just really don’t look at Property prices; in fact the condition of the estate is what matters most to them. Although preparing the estate to an immaculate condition does involve a lot of Expenditures, but its well worth the gamble.
When selling a Property be it Brand new or old, what purchasers observe at first is the predicament of the landscape just outside your estate. In case the surroundings are messed up then this might easily act against you and sway off Asset buyers. Small little things like maintanence the gutters, preserving the garden, care the pool etc will present a cleaner look besides attracting consumers towards your Miami Real Estate.
Most Miami Real Estate buyers tend to be emotional whilst making their decision. Knowing the preferences and tastes of the buyer can support you sell the Property quite simply. This is where a quality agent may help you out. Deliberating the likes and dislikes of the buyer demands the agent to perform a little bit of study before he/she could prepare the estate accordingly. Although selling an estate is never straightforward, with the Appropriate agent on hand you could readily sell your Asset and times even double up on your earnings margins.
searching for a Miami Real Estate Asset in a posh location, to open a store or organization outlet, then, communication us. The premises we sell are in appropriate locations to fit the purpose.
Source: http://www.favstocks.com/selling-a-miami-real-estate-asset-behind-the-scenes/0529238/
By Chandler Man
With the Miami Real Estate market being so saturated, were you can effortlessly locate several Units at the exact rate, one needs to keep his/her Asset in pristine situation to stand a chance of selling it. For which, you need to have to renovate your estate in way which it looks and feels Brand new. This includes all key and insignificant repairs along with the expected cosmetic changes. Most consumers just really don’t look at Property prices; in fact the condition of the estate is what matters most to them. Although preparing the estate to an immaculate condition does involve a lot of Expenditures, but its well worth the gamble.
When selling a Property be it Brand new or old, what purchasers observe at first is the predicament of the landscape just outside your estate. In case the surroundings are messed up then this might easily act against you and sway off Asset buyers. Small little things like maintanence the gutters, preserving the garden, care the pool etc will present a cleaner look besides attracting consumers towards your Miami Real Estate.
Most Miami Real Estate buyers tend to be emotional whilst making their decision. Knowing the preferences and tastes of the buyer can support you sell the Property quite simply. This is where a quality agent may help you out. Deliberating the likes and dislikes of the buyer demands the agent to perform a little bit of study before he/she could prepare the estate accordingly. Although selling an estate is never straightforward, with the Appropriate agent on hand you could readily sell your Asset and times even double up on your earnings margins.
searching for a Miami Real Estate Asset in a posh location, to open a store or organization outlet, then, communication us. The premises we sell are in appropriate locations to fit the purpose.
Source: http://www.favstocks.com/selling-a-miami-real-estate-asset-behind-the-scenes/0529238/
By Chandler Man
Friday, December 3, 2010
Miami Pending Home Sales Up 26% in November
Miami, FL - Total cumulative pending home sales - including single-family homes and condominiums - in Miami-Dade County increased 26 percent in November compared to a year earlier, from 8,288 to 10,495, and increased 2.3 percent, up from 10,264, compared to the previous month according to the MIAMI Association of REALTORS and the Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service (SEFMLS).
November marks the fourth consecutive month of increased pending home sales in Miami-Dade County. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing. "As an indication of future sales, consistently increasing pending sales is a very positive sign for the South Florida real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to perform stronger than that of single-family homes. In November, condominium pending sales increased 38 percent compared to the previous year, from 4,414 to 6,094 and increased 3.68 percent, up from 5,878 the previous month.
Pending sales of single-family homes in November increased 14 percent from the previous year, from 3,874 to 4,401, and increased .34 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,386. "The current strengthening Miami real estate market is motivating all types of buyers to act now," said Oliver Ruiz, 2010 residential president of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10937134/1/miami-pending-home-sales-up-26-in-november.html
By DQNews.com 12/02/10 - 12:12 PM EST
November marks the fourth consecutive month of increased pending home sales in Miami-Dade County. A sale is listed as pending when a contract is signed but the transaction has not closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing. "As an indication of future sales, consistently increasing pending sales is a very positive sign for the South Florida real estate market," said Jack H. Levine, 2010 chairman of the board of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Pending sales of condominiums in Miami-Dade County continue to perform stronger than that of single-family homes. In November, condominium pending sales increased 38 percent compared to the previous year, from 4,414 to 6,094 and increased 3.68 percent, up from 5,878 the previous month.
Pending sales of single-family homes in November increased 14 percent from the previous year, from 3,874 to 4,401, and increased .34 percent from the previous month, when pending single-family home sales totaled 4,386. "The current strengthening Miami real estate market is motivating all types of buyers to act now," said Oliver Ruiz, 2010 residential president of the MIAMI Association of REALTORS.
Source: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10937134/1/miami-pending-home-sales-up-26-in-november.html
By DQNews.com 12/02/10 - 12:12 PM EST
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Art of the deal
New Yorkers who regularly visit Miami often talk about how hard it is to get any work done there — how the city's lazy, beautiful people just bounce around to beaches, restaurants, hotel lounges, nightclubs, house parties and boat parties.
But the reality is more complicated. There’s no other American city that works this hard at partying and is full of so many people hustling for business while they’re partying. And this is especially true when it comes to selling real estate during the Miami social season, which kicks off with a big splash this week as Art Basel and dozens of satellite events take over South Beach and beyond.
Miami is always a place where out-of-towners can show up to a random apartment party, mention that they might want to buy a vacation home and find themselves talking to a broker and a salesperson of furniture packages while they’re still drinking their first glass of champagne. And with thousands of New Yorkers and rich foreigners in Miami for Art Basel, developers and brokers all over the city know that this week is an especially good time for marketing their real estate.
“Out of all the different festivals in Miami, Art Basel is the one that brings in the kind of demographic that is really prime for our properties,” says local broker Mark Zilbert, who specializes in luxury condos. “We’re working seven days a week. And people come into town with no intentions of buying, but they get caught up in the moment.”
In October, we visited the site of 3 Indian Creek, a new, listed-for-$60-million house that’s part of a private, extremely exclusive 300-acre community whose homeowners include Carl Icahn, Julio Iglesias and Art Basel chairperson Norman Braman. Designer and co-owner Felix Cohen greeted us wearing frayed jeans and a white shirt with paint stains. He offered a quick tour of the 30,000-square-foot mansion while contractors were hard at work all around us.
There was no time to waste, Cohen said, because he had a serious deadline. The house, which had already been visited by potential buyers, among them Alex Rodriguez, had to be ready for Art Basel week. Cohen admitted that he was “nervous” about the timing, but 3 Indian Creek (which is being marketed in New York by Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Oren Alexander) was indeed unveiled with a party on Tuesday.
That was the same evening the W South Beach Hotel & Residences held the official Art Basel opening party. The W, like many Miami spots, is hosting events all week and hoping that some art collectors also turn into homebuyers.
Other highlights of the week include:
The Icon Brickell condo building downtown has a Scope Art Show film premiere on Friday and just unveiled its new iPhone/iPad app, which offers neighborhood information, floor plans and event locations. In addition, the Fortune International brokerage is having open houses at Icon Brickell and Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach, where brokers and potential buyers can pick up “VIP Basel” bags with passes to various art events.
The $2.3 billion Midtown Miami mixed-use project is hosting several fairs, including Art Miami, Red Dot Fair, Scope and Art Asia, and offering an exhibit from London artist Willard Wigan, who creates ultra-tiny sculptures that can only be seen through a microscope.
The new JW Marriott Marquis, part of the billion-dollar Metropolitan Miami mixed-use project downtown, has partnered with Christie’s on an exhibit with pieces by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Eduardo Chillida and others.
The tony Golden Beach community (where Ricky Martin has put his mansion on the market and where Basel-participating artist Bruce Weber lives) is offering tours with Mayor Glenn Singer to show off the town’s $30 million renovation.
In Wynwood, an emerging area near the Design District, the Bakehouse Art Complex is offering a tour of local studios while also showcasing its two galleries (the Audrey Love Gallery has an exhibit inspired by the seven deadly sins, while the Swenson Gallery is selling budget-friendly $100 5-by-7-inch pieces) and 33,000 square feet of exhibition space
But the reality is more complicated. There’s no other American city that works this hard at partying and is full of so many people hustling for business while they’re partying. And this is especially true when it comes to selling real estate during the Miami social season, which kicks off with a big splash this week as Art Basel and dozens of satellite events take over South Beach and beyond.
Miami is always a place where out-of-towners can show up to a random apartment party, mention that they might want to buy a vacation home and find themselves talking to a broker and a salesperson of furniture packages while they’re still drinking their first glass of champagne. And with thousands of New Yorkers and rich foreigners in Miami for Art Basel, developers and brokers all over the city know that this week is an especially good time for marketing their real estate.
“Out of all the different festivals in Miami, Art Basel is the one that brings in the kind of demographic that is really prime for our properties,” says local broker Mark Zilbert, who specializes in luxury condos. “We’re working seven days a week. And people come into town with no intentions of buying, but they get caught up in the moment.”
In October, we visited the site of 3 Indian Creek, a new, listed-for-$60-million house that’s part of a private, extremely exclusive 300-acre community whose homeowners include Carl Icahn, Julio Iglesias and Art Basel chairperson Norman Braman. Designer and co-owner Felix Cohen greeted us wearing frayed jeans and a white shirt with paint stains. He offered a quick tour of the 30,000-square-foot mansion while contractors were hard at work all around us.
There was no time to waste, Cohen said, because he had a serious deadline. The house, which had already been visited by potential buyers, among them Alex Rodriguez, had to be ready for Art Basel week. Cohen admitted that he was “nervous” about the timing, but 3 Indian Creek (which is being marketed in New York by Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Oren Alexander) was indeed unveiled with a party on Tuesday.
That was the same evening the W South Beach Hotel & Residences held the official Art Basel opening party. The W, like many Miami spots, is hosting events all week and hoping that some art collectors also turn into homebuyers.
Other highlights of the week include:
The Icon Brickell condo building downtown has a Scope Art Show film premiere on Friday and just unveiled its new iPhone/iPad app, which offers neighborhood information, floor plans and event locations. In addition, the Fortune International brokerage is having open houses at Icon Brickell and Jade Ocean in Sunny Isles Beach, where brokers and potential buyers can pick up “VIP Basel” bags with passes to various art events.
The $2.3 billion Midtown Miami mixed-use project is hosting several fairs, including Art Miami, Red Dot Fair, Scope and Art Asia, and offering an exhibit from London artist Willard Wigan, who creates ultra-tiny sculptures that can only be seen through a microscope.
The new JW Marriott Marquis, part of the billion-dollar Metropolitan Miami mixed-use project downtown, has partnered with Christie’s on an exhibit with pieces by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Eduardo Chillida and others.
The tony Golden Beach community (where Ricky Martin has put his mansion on the market and where Basel-participating artist Bruce Weber lives) is offering tours with Mayor Glenn Singer to show off the town’s $30 million renovation.
In Wynwood, an emerging area near the Design District, the Bakehouse Art Complex is offering a tour of local studios while also showcasing its two galleries (the Audrey Love Gallery has an exhibit inspired by the seven deadly sins, while the Swenson Gallery is selling budget-friendly $100 5-by-7-inch pieces) and 33,000 square feet of exhibition space
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Visa deal funding realty, investors get homeland
At a time international investors are drawn to Miami's real estate bargains, the government's EB-5 visa program is an attractive vehicle for them to invest here in exchange for US residency.
Exclusive Visas, an EB-5 consulting firm based in Weston, is advising developers of several projects that would boost the local economy and create jobs while offering participating investors permanent residency for them and their families.
These projects include the University of Miami's Life Science and Technology Park, rising in Miami's health district, and the planned construction of 50 Sonic fast-food restaurants throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Fred Burgess, president of Exclusive Visas, has been a practicing attorney for 20 years and got involved in the EB-5 program in 2007.
His firm advises clients on how to apply for a regional center and demonstrate the creation of a certain number of jobs to get the federal government to approve the projects.
The EB-5 visa program was created by the government to provide employment-based visas. The government basically requires a foreign national to invest $500,000 to $1 million into a venture that would create 10 sustainable jobs and in exchange, receive a green card.
If the project is in a geographic area of high unemployment, the investor is only required to put in $500,000.
Basically, Mr. Burgess said, "we need to make sure their funds come from credible sources and that they don't have a criminal background."
One project Mr. Burgess has been working on is UM's Life Science and Technology Park.
Under the EB-5 program, developer Wexford Miami is raising $20 million capital from 40 participating investors.
"They are close to selling off," he said. "That EB-5 project will be filled by the end of this year."
He is also advising Miami-based QueensFort Capital Corp., which bought exclusive development rights to build 50 Sonic restaurants in Miami-Dade and Broward in the next four years.
The development firm is acquiring the land where it plans to build the restaurants at discounted prices, which benefits the investors involved. It is seeking six to eight investors per package of two to four restaurants.
Carolina Oliva, QueensFort Capital's senior vice president, said right now most interest in the Sonic project is coming from China, Latin America — particularly Venezuela and Mexico — and the Middle East.
Mr. Burgess and his team travel globally with clients to market their projects, making frequent trips to countries such as China, Korea and Venezuela.
"We travel throughout the world regularly, so we know what the market is looking for and we can advise companies raising capital how to structure their project so it's attractive to the investor," he explained.
Some internationals are drawn to invest in these ventures because they want to come to the US for social, political and even climate reasons.
"We have a big push from Mexico and Venezuela for safety and political reasons," respectively, he said.
More than half of EB-5 visas come from China and Korea, Mr. Burgess noted, adding that when the program first took off it became popular in the United Kingdom.
Although this government-backed visa program has been in place since the 1990s, he said, it got little use until the regional center model was added in 2003.
But the model kept sunsetting every six months, until in October 2009 President Obama extended it three years with a push to make it permanent.
Today, he said, more than 120 projects nationwide are participating under the regional center model.
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/101202/story4.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
Exclusive Visas, an EB-5 consulting firm based in Weston, is advising developers of several projects that would boost the local economy and create jobs while offering participating investors permanent residency for them and their families.
These projects include the University of Miami's Life Science and Technology Park, rising in Miami's health district, and the planned construction of 50 Sonic fast-food restaurants throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Fred Burgess, president of Exclusive Visas, has been a practicing attorney for 20 years and got involved in the EB-5 program in 2007.
His firm advises clients on how to apply for a regional center and demonstrate the creation of a certain number of jobs to get the federal government to approve the projects.
The EB-5 visa program was created by the government to provide employment-based visas. The government basically requires a foreign national to invest $500,000 to $1 million into a venture that would create 10 sustainable jobs and in exchange, receive a green card.
If the project is in a geographic area of high unemployment, the investor is only required to put in $500,000.
Basically, Mr. Burgess said, "we need to make sure their funds come from credible sources and that they don't have a criminal background."
One project Mr. Burgess has been working on is UM's Life Science and Technology Park.
Under the EB-5 program, developer Wexford Miami is raising $20 million capital from 40 participating investors.
"They are close to selling off," he said. "That EB-5 project will be filled by the end of this year."
He is also advising Miami-based QueensFort Capital Corp., which bought exclusive development rights to build 50 Sonic restaurants in Miami-Dade and Broward in the next four years.
The development firm is acquiring the land where it plans to build the restaurants at discounted prices, which benefits the investors involved. It is seeking six to eight investors per package of two to four restaurants.
Carolina Oliva, QueensFort Capital's senior vice president, said right now most interest in the Sonic project is coming from China, Latin America — particularly Venezuela and Mexico — and the Middle East.
Mr. Burgess and his team travel globally with clients to market their projects, making frequent trips to countries such as China, Korea and Venezuela.
"We travel throughout the world regularly, so we know what the market is looking for and we can advise companies raising capital how to structure their project so it's attractive to the investor," he explained.
Some internationals are drawn to invest in these ventures because they want to come to the US for social, political and even climate reasons.
"We have a big push from Mexico and Venezuela for safety and political reasons," respectively, he said.
More than half of EB-5 visas come from China and Korea, Mr. Burgess noted, adding that when the program first took off it became popular in the United Kingdom.
Although this government-backed visa program has been in place since the 1990s, he said, it got little use until the regional center model was added in 2003.
But the model kept sunsetting every six months, until in October 2009 President Obama extended it three years with a push to make it permanent.
Today, he said, more than 120 projects nationwide are participating under the regional center model.
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/101202/story4.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
Monday, November 29, 2010
NAR predicts commercial vacancies to fall in 2011 as market stabilizes
Commercial real estate markets are stabilizing nationwide and will modestly improve in 2011, according to the latest National Association of Realtors economic outlook released Monday.
The outlook cited a recent commercial real estate index by The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, which reported a 1.6% increase in the third quarter, to 42.6 on the index. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of improvement in the index, however, it still remains well below normal.
The index is measured on a scale to 100. An index of 100 represents equilibrium in the commercial marketplace.
NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said that signs of stabilization in the market are due primarily to an increase in demand for commercial space, which "means overall vacancy rates have already peaked or will soon top out."
The current vacancy rate for office space nationally stands at 16.7%, but NAR predicts that rate to drop to 16.4% by the fourth quarter of 2011. New York City and Honolulu are the cities with the lowest vacancy rates, both near 9%, according to NAR. All other office markets monitored by NAR — which monitors a range of 50 to 60 markets for each commercial category — reported an office vacancy rate more than 10%.
NAR expects vacancy rates in the industrial and multifamily sectors to decline as well. Industrial vacancies are projected to fall to 13.2% by the fourth quarter of 2011, down from the current 13.9%.
Multifamily properties are also predicted to improve, according to NAR's outlook. Vacancy rates will drop to 5.8% by the end of 2011, down from the current 6.4%.
As of the report's release, San Jose, Calif, Miami, Boston and Portland, Ore., had the lowest multifamily vacancies rates, around 4%.
Lower vacancy rates suggest and increase in property rent, according to Yun; however, only rent in the multifamily sector is expected to rise, up 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2010 and up 1.6% in 2011.
Rent in the retail sector is expected to drop 3.4% from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the same period 2011, while rent for industrial property is predicted to fall 7.4%. NAR said rent for office space will drop 3.4% by the end of 2011.
Source: http://www.housingwire.com/2010/11/29/nar-predicts-commercial-vacancies-to-fall-in-2011-as-market-stabilizes
http://www.housingwire.com/2010/11/29/nar-predicts-commercial-vacancies-to-fall-in-2011-as-market-stabilizes
by CHRISTINE RICCIARDI
The outlook cited a recent commercial real estate index by The Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, which reported a 1.6% increase in the third quarter, to 42.6 on the index. This is the fourth consecutive quarter of improvement in the index, however, it still remains well below normal.
The index is measured on a scale to 100. An index of 100 represents equilibrium in the commercial marketplace.
NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said that signs of stabilization in the market are due primarily to an increase in demand for commercial space, which "means overall vacancy rates have already peaked or will soon top out."
The current vacancy rate for office space nationally stands at 16.7%, but NAR predicts that rate to drop to 16.4% by the fourth quarter of 2011. New York City and Honolulu are the cities with the lowest vacancy rates, both near 9%, according to NAR. All other office markets monitored by NAR — which monitors a range of 50 to 60 markets for each commercial category — reported an office vacancy rate more than 10%.
NAR expects vacancy rates in the industrial and multifamily sectors to decline as well. Industrial vacancies are projected to fall to 13.2% by the fourth quarter of 2011, down from the current 13.9%.
Multifamily properties are also predicted to improve, according to NAR's outlook. Vacancy rates will drop to 5.8% by the end of 2011, down from the current 6.4%.
As of the report's release, San Jose, Calif, Miami, Boston and Portland, Ore., had the lowest multifamily vacancies rates, around 4%.
Lower vacancy rates suggest and increase in property rent, according to Yun; however, only rent in the multifamily sector is expected to rise, up 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2010 and up 1.6% in 2011.
Rent in the retail sector is expected to drop 3.4% from the fourth quarter of 2010 to the same period 2011, while rent for industrial property is predicted to fall 7.4%. NAR said rent for office space will drop 3.4% by the end of 2011.
Source: http://www.housingwire.com/2010/11/29/nar-predicts-commercial-vacancies-to-fall-in-2011-as-market-stabilizes
http://www.housingwire.com/2010/11/29/nar-predicts-commercial-vacancies-to-fall-in-2011-as-market-stabilizes
by CHRISTINE RICCIARDI
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Know condo rules before decking the halls
Before you tack, nail or tape holiday decorations outside your condominium or home, consider your governing documents, your right to religious freedom and the story of Laurie Richter Spector.
Richter Spector, of Fort Lauderdale, fought back in court several years ago when her condo association demanded she remove a Jewish mezuzah from her door shortly after the holidays. While the case was eventually dismissed, now all Floridians share a state-supported right to post religiously mandated symbols — albeit small in size — anytime of year, regardless of association rules.
"I had a bad experience," said Richter Spector, about her association's order to remove her mezuzah — a small display case no longer than 6 inches long that encases a scroll with religious messages — from the exterior of her front door.
"But I am glad we went through it," added Spector, who left the condo community after the 2007 incident. "Nobody should be deprived of freedom of religion, especially in their own home."
Spector's experience is especially relevant this time of year, when residents' religious beliefs — and desire to express them publicly through holiday decorations — sometimes run afoul of HOA and condo rules.
Richter Spector argued that her right to religious freedom trumped the authority of the association. She said she was following Jewish religious law by keeping a mezuzah near the entrance of her home, and in letters to the association cited the fact that at least one other owner was allowed to keep a Christmas wreath up months after the holiday.
The association cited rules against exterior modifications and threatened eviction and a $1,000 fine.
Both sides refused to budge and ended up in civil court until the Florida Attorney General's Office intervened on behalf of Richter Spector and ordered the association to allow mezuzahs. The association was also ordered to post a sign in the building to let owners know their right to display mezuzahs.
Now it's a rule of the land. In 2008, the Legislature amended state law to guarantee condo owners a special right to display religious objects outside the door. While the statute does not mention the word "mezuzah," it covers objects with the same dimensions of a traditional mezuzah — 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep.
Richter Spector says her ordeal remains a bittersweet victory. It also serves as a civics lesson about protecting your rights as an owner in a shared community.
But keep this in mind: Your condo or homeowners association may be able to put the kibosh on large religious displays and nonreligious decorations of any size.
Before you decorate this year, give your governing documents a once-over. Some associations limit sizes and locations of holiday displays, some enforce fines for taking too long to remove them post-holiday. Others may have no rules because they were not passed properly or have lapsed.
The state of Florida, which regulates condo communities, allows condo associations to pass rules that keep the community and residents safe. That means if your decorations interfere with that, you could have a problem.
There are not similar regulations for homeowners association per se, but an HOA may ban displays that block common areas, walkways, street intersections or the view of drivers on the road. An outdoor lighting display with poor wiring could be the subject of removal, possibly at the expense of the owner should governing documents provide the association the authority to fine and/or pay to have a display moved.
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/condos/fl-decorations-condocol-1117-20101116,0,7701864.column
Daniel Vasquez can be reached at CondoColumn@Sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4219 or 561-243-6686. His condo column runs Wednesdays in Your Money and at SunSentinel.com/condos. Check out Daniel's Condos & HOAs blog for news, information and tips related to life in community associations at SunSentinel.com/condoblog. You can also read his consumer column Mondays in Your Money and at sunsentinel.com/vasquez.
Richter Spector, of Fort Lauderdale, fought back in court several years ago when her condo association demanded she remove a Jewish mezuzah from her door shortly after the holidays. While the case was eventually dismissed, now all Floridians share a state-supported right to post religiously mandated symbols — albeit small in size — anytime of year, regardless of association rules.
"I had a bad experience," said Richter Spector, about her association's order to remove her mezuzah — a small display case no longer than 6 inches long that encases a scroll with religious messages — from the exterior of her front door.
"But I am glad we went through it," added Spector, who left the condo community after the 2007 incident. "Nobody should be deprived of freedom of religion, especially in their own home."
Spector's experience is especially relevant this time of year, when residents' religious beliefs — and desire to express them publicly through holiday decorations — sometimes run afoul of HOA and condo rules.
Richter Spector argued that her right to religious freedom trumped the authority of the association. She said she was following Jewish religious law by keeping a mezuzah near the entrance of her home, and in letters to the association cited the fact that at least one other owner was allowed to keep a Christmas wreath up months after the holiday.
The association cited rules against exterior modifications and threatened eviction and a $1,000 fine.
Both sides refused to budge and ended up in civil court until the Florida Attorney General's Office intervened on behalf of Richter Spector and ordered the association to allow mezuzahs. The association was also ordered to post a sign in the building to let owners know their right to display mezuzahs.
Now it's a rule of the land. In 2008, the Legislature amended state law to guarantee condo owners a special right to display religious objects outside the door. While the statute does not mention the word "mezuzah," it covers objects with the same dimensions of a traditional mezuzah — 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and 1.5 inches deep.
Richter Spector says her ordeal remains a bittersweet victory. It also serves as a civics lesson about protecting your rights as an owner in a shared community.
But keep this in mind: Your condo or homeowners association may be able to put the kibosh on large religious displays and nonreligious decorations of any size.
Before you decorate this year, give your governing documents a once-over. Some associations limit sizes and locations of holiday displays, some enforce fines for taking too long to remove them post-holiday. Others may have no rules because they were not passed properly or have lapsed.
The state of Florida, which regulates condo communities, allows condo associations to pass rules that keep the community and residents safe. That means if your decorations interfere with that, you could have a problem.
There are not similar regulations for homeowners association per se, but an HOA may ban displays that block common areas, walkways, street intersections or the view of drivers on the road. An outdoor lighting display with poor wiring could be the subject of removal, possibly at the expense of the owner should governing documents provide the association the authority to fine and/or pay to have a display moved.
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/realestate/condos/fl-decorations-condocol-1117-20101116,0,7701864.column
Daniel Vasquez can be reached at CondoColumn@Sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4219 or 561-243-6686. His condo column runs Wednesdays in Your Money and at SunSentinel.com/condos. Check out Daniel's Condos & HOAs blog for news, information and tips related to life in community associations at SunSentinel.com/condoblog. You can also read his consumer column Mondays in Your Money and at sunsentinel.com/vasquez.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Slide in South Florida home prices continues
South Florida homes continued to shed value, sellers were still slashing prices and distressed sales were still dominating the market in the third quarter of the year-- all signs that the real estate recovery has a long way to go.
A report released Wednesday by real estate firm Zillow found that 45.2 percent of South Florida homes sold between June and September were sold for a loss, up slightly from the previous quarter, but down 2 percent for the month.
``Distressed sales have contributed to that 50 percent decline,'' said David Dabby, president of Coral Gables-based Dabby Group. ``They will continue to put a lid on prices for the foreseeable future.''
The continued slide has added to the ranks of underwater homes in the region. Since the June 2006 peak, home values have fallen 53.5 percent in South Florida, the largest drop among the top 25 markets covered by Zillow. That has left some 42 percent of single-family homeowners underwater, or owing more on their mortgages that their homes are worth.
That's slightly better than the third quarter of last year, when 45.1 percent of homes were underwater, but still much higher than the national average of 25 percent.
A high foreclosure rate and a weak job market continued to influence housing in the third quarter, the report found.
Deborah Katsikas, who recently sold her home in Southwest Miami-Dade County, said she had to cut the price, finally accepting an offer that was considerably less than she originally hoped for.
``The only way to sell is if you're competitive with everything that's out there,'' she said.
Now she's reaping the benefit of a buyer's market as she looks to purchase a new home. She has a contract to buy a short sale in Palmetto Bay, and the price of that home has been slashed multiple times, said her real estate agent, Anthony Askowitz.
According to Zillow, 21 percent of South Florida home sellers reduced prices in the third quarter, with a median reduction of 10 percent. The median selling price for a single-family home was $221,200 in the third quarter, up 1 percent quarter-over-quarter, but down 7.8 percent from last year.
For South Florida condominiums, the median sales price was $109,800, down 4.3 percent over last quarter, and down 14.2 percent from last year.
Askowitz, who owns two Re/Max offices, said price-cutting is the new normal, as home sellers seek to compete with the glut of foreclosures on the market.
According to a sales analysis by Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realty, short sales and foreclosures account for more than 60 percent of South Florida home sales.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/10/1917884/slide-in-south-florida-home-prices.html
By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
A report released Wednesday by real estate firm Zillow found that 45.2 percent of South Florida homes sold between June and September were sold for a loss, up slightly from the previous quarter, but down 2 percent for the month.
``Distressed sales have contributed to that 50 percent decline,'' said David Dabby, president of Coral Gables-based Dabby Group. ``They will continue to put a lid on prices for the foreseeable future.''
The continued slide has added to the ranks of underwater homes in the region. Since the June 2006 peak, home values have fallen 53.5 percent in South Florida, the largest drop among the top 25 markets covered by Zillow. That has left some 42 percent of single-family homeowners underwater, or owing more on their mortgages that their homes are worth.
That's slightly better than the third quarter of last year, when 45.1 percent of homes were underwater, but still much higher than the national average of 25 percent.
A high foreclosure rate and a weak job market continued to influence housing in the third quarter, the report found.
Deborah Katsikas, who recently sold her home in Southwest Miami-Dade County, said she had to cut the price, finally accepting an offer that was considerably less than she originally hoped for.
``The only way to sell is if you're competitive with everything that's out there,'' she said.
Now she's reaping the benefit of a buyer's market as she looks to purchase a new home. She has a contract to buy a short sale in Palmetto Bay, and the price of that home has been slashed multiple times, said her real estate agent, Anthony Askowitz.
According to Zillow, 21 percent of South Florida home sellers reduced prices in the third quarter, with a median reduction of 10 percent. The median selling price for a single-family home was $221,200 in the third quarter, up 1 percent quarter-over-quarter, but down 7.8 percent from last year.
For South Florida condominiums, the median sales price was $109,800, down 4.3 percent over last quarter, and down 14.2 percent from last year.
Askowitz, who owns two Re/Max offices, said price-cutting is the new normal, as home sellers seek to compete with the glut of foreclosures on the market.
According to a sales analysis by Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realty, short sales and foreclosures account for more than 60 percent of South Florida home sales.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/10/1917884/slide-in-south-florida-home-prices.html
By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Florida Real Estate Prices On the Rise in Miami and Orlando?
As we all know, Florida has seen some of the most dramatic falls in real estate prices and the total number of homes sold since the housing market collapsed. Although things are bad in much of the state, it seems that the real estate market in Florida may be on the mend.
Some of the most hard hit areas such as the Orlando, Miami, and Fort Myers areas have seen nice rebounds in the number of homes sold over the last several months, raising hope that prices will soon follow. Fort Myers, located in Southwest Florida, has seen the number of home sales rise from about 850 sales in February of 2008, to well over 1,700 in October of this year. Miami has seen even bigger gains in that time period, with approximately 2,000 sales in February of 2008, compared with over 5,100 last month.
As inventory reduces, prices should begin to rise, not only in hardly hit Florida, but in real estate markets nationwide. The one variable that is still an unknown is what affect remaining foreclosures may have on this market. As long as foreclosures trickle in, instead of all hitting at once, inventory reductions should hopefully leave us with a stronger market come the end of 2011, and 2012.
Some of the most hard hit areas such as the Orlando, Miami, and Fort Myers areas have seen nice rebounds in the number of homes sold over the last several months, raising hope that prices will soon follow. Fort Myers, located in Southwest Florida, has seen the number of home sales rise from about 850 sales in February of 2008, to well over 1,700 in October of this year. Miami has seen even bigger gains in that time period, with approximately 2,000 sales in February of 2008, compared with over 5,100 last month.
As inventory reduces, prices should begin to rise, not only in hardly hit Florida, but in real estate markets nationwide. The one variable that is still an unknown is what affect remaining foreclosures may have on this market. As long as foreclosures trickle in, instead of all hitting at once, inventory reductions should hopefully leave us with a stronger market come the end of 2011, and 2012.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Market bright spot: condos in Dade
As South Florida's shaky real estate market searches for recovery, an investor group's $1 billion bet on the local condominium market is about to be put to the test.
Starwood Capital-led investor group ST Residential -- in charge of more than 1,200 new condo units in South Florida -- launched its ST Miami initiative this month, announcing plans to release hundreds of new condo units into South Florida's fragile market in the coming months.
Condo sales were the standout figure in the September existing sales report released Monday by the Miami Association of Realtors.
Existing condo sales in Miami-Dade County rose 36 percent in September compared to the same month last year, with 833 sales closed. Month over month, sales were down 2.8 percent, despite a 5 percent decline in median prices. In Broward County, condo sales slid to 828, down 4 percent from September of last year.
Existing single-family home sales continued their descent in September, falling 6 percent year over year in Miami-Dade, with 582 sales. In Broward, year-over-year single family sales dropped 16 percent to 673.
Nationally, the housing market improved in September, with existing sales increasing 10 percent from August.
Prices are still falling in many sectors of the housing market, but ST Residential CEO Wade Hundley said brand new condos have avoided that fate this year, even posting increases.
``Relative to all the other markets in the U.S., Miami is doing well,'' Hundley said. ``We've seen prices increase about 10 to 15 percent since the beginning of the year.''
ST Residential became a major player in South Florida's real estate market about a year ago when it bought a stake in the distressed real estate portfolio of failed Chicago-based Corus Bank. In a public-private deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, ST Residential bought into a portfolio of condo projects that includes Paramount Bay in Miami, Jade Ocean Condominiums in Sunny Isles Beach and Tao in Sunrise.
The purchase made ST the second-largest owner of developer units in Miami's downtown condo market, behind Jorge Perez's Related Group, and the public-private deal gave the investor group the flexibility to adjust pricing levels.
ST Residential is ``coming in at a time when prices have stabilized, and they're creeping upwards, in that Brickell-downtown area,'' said David Dabby, a real estate analyst with Dabby Group Advisors. ``The market is weak overall, but there's enough acquisition activity to begin moving that [developer] inventory.''
Dabby noted however, that prices are still 50 percent below where they were four years ago, and not likely to make significant gains anytime soon, since discounted foreclosures and short sales rule the market.
Distressed properties are responsible for more than half of existing home sales in South Florida, dragging down median prices.
In September, year-over-year housing prices fell nearly across the board, with Broward single-family homes standing out as the sole exception. The median priced home in Broward sold for $214,200, up 7 percent compared to last September. Broward condo prices were down 9 percent to $71,600. In Miami-Dade, condo prices fell 25 percent to $99,400, and single-family home prices fell 2 percent to $188,000.
ST Residential plans to relaunch 530-unit Mint on the Miami River into the market in December and will kickstart sales at the 346-unit Paramount Bay on Biscayne Bay north of the Performing Arts Center next year, pricing units ``at market'' rates, Hundley said.
``We control so much inventory that if we come in at very low price point we could disrupt the market,'' he said. ``And we don't want to do that.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/26/1891129/market-bright-spot-condos-in-dade.html
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Starwood Capital-led investor group ST Residential -- in charge of more than 1,200 new condo units in South Florida -- launched its ST Miami initiative this month, announcing plans to release hundreds of new condo units into South Florida's fragile market in the coming months.
Condo sales were the standout figure in the September existing sales report released Monday by the Miami Association of Realtors.
Existing condo sales in Miami-Dade County rose 36 percent in September compared to the same month last year, with 833 sales closed. Month over month, sales were down 2.8 percent, despite a 5 percent decline in median prices. In Broward County, condo sales slid to 828, down 4 percent from September of last year.
Existing single-family home sales continued their descent in September, falling 6 percent year over year in Miami-Dade, with 582 sales. In Broward, year-over-year single family sales dropped 16 percent to 673.
Nationally, the housing market improved in September, with existing sales increasing 10 percent from August.
Prices are still falling in many sectors of the housing market, but ST Residential CEO Wade Hundley said brand new condos have avoided that fate this year, even posting increases.
``Relative to all the other markets in the U.S., Miami is doing well,'' Hundley said. ``We've seen prices increase about 10 to 15 percent since the beginning of the year.''
ST Residential became a major player in South Florida's real estate market about a year ago when it bought a stake in the distressed real estate portfolio of failed Chicago-based Corus Bank. In a public-private deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, ST Residential bought into a portfolio of condo projects that includes Paramount Bay in Miami, Jade Ocean Condominiums in Sunny Isles Beach and Tao in Sunrise.
The purchase made ST the second-largest owner of developer units in Miami's downtown condo market, behind Jorge Perez's Related Group, and the public-private deal gave the investor group the flexibility to adjust pricing levels.
ST Residential is ``coming in at a time when prices have stabilized, and they're creeping upwards, in that Brickell-downtown area,'' said David Dabby, a real estate analyst with Dabby Group Advisors. ``The market is weak overall, but there's enough acquisition activity to begin moving that [developer] inventory.''
Dabby noted however, that prices are still 50 percent below where they were four years ago, and not likely to make significant gains anytime soon, since discounted foreclosures and short sales rule the market.
Distressed properties are responsible for more than half of existing home sales in South Florida, dragging down median prices.
In September, year-over-year housing prices fell nearly across the board, with Broward single-family homes standing out as the sole exception. The median priced home in Broward sold for $214,200, up 7 percent compared to last September. Broward condo prices were down 9 percent to $71,600. In Miami-Dade, condo prices fell 25 percent to $99,400, and single-family home prices fell 2 percent to $188,000.
ST Residential plans to relaunch 530-unit Mint on the Miami River into the market in December and will kickstart sales at the 346-unit Paramount Bay on Biscayne Bay north of the Performing Arts Center next year, pricing units ``at market'' rates, Hundley said.
``We control so much inventory that if we come in at very low price point we could disrupt the market,'' he said. ``And we don't want to do that.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/26/1891129/market-bright-spot-condos-in-dade.html
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Friday, October 29, 2010
Firm can buy debt of downtown condo
A New York-based real estate investment firm has won a bank auction and court approval to buy the debt of downtown Miami's Everglades on the Bay condominium towers.
Rockwood Capital paid about $142 million for the note, according to South Florida real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. But the sale of the 849-unit project on Biscayne Boulevard did not go smoothly, with the developer, another bidder and the bank holding the debt battling over terms.
Developer Cabi Downtown LLC -- which faced a 2009 foreclosure suit by Bank of America on a $209 million construction loan -- claimed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week that Rockwood went behind its back to cut a deal with the lender, after pledging to deal directly with the developer. Elias Cababie, managing member of Cabi, claimed he had secured a higher bid from a San Antonio-based private investment group, court documents show.
Cabi had been juggling negotiations with Rockwood and San Antonio-based Lynd Company this summer, taking representatives from both groups to see the property's twin 49-story towers.
According to Cababie's sworn statement, sometime in July, Lynd put in an offer for the note, and Cabi solicited Rockwood to make a counteroffer. Rockwood responded by asking for more information about the property and then abruptly cut communication with Cabi, Cababie claims.
Rockwood execs tell a different story: ``Before we had completed our due diligence, [Cabi] informed Rockwood that it intended to accept a different entity's proposal and to end negotiations with Rockwood,'' said Dwight ``Arne'' Arnesen, Rockwood's senior managing director of portfolio and asset management, in a sworn statement. Arnesen also said Rockwood had been willing to pay more than Lynd's initial offer.
Attorneys for Cabi and Bank of America did not return calls for comment. The purchase may be the target of future litigation from Cabi as well as Lynd, who lost the bid, said Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures.
One motivation for the drama: The building offered what may be the last sizable bulk purchase of new condos in downtown Miami, where developers have built more than 20,000 units in the last seven years.
Developers have sold just over 175 units at Everglades, and there are hundreds of renters in the building, which was completed about two years ago.
The purchase price amounted to at least $191 per square foot, Zalewski said. ``I think Rockwood paid too much,'' he said. ``But with time, that number will end up looking better and better.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/29/1897264/firm-can-buy-debt-of-downtown.html
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Rockwood Capital paid about $142 million for the note, according to South Florida real estate consultancy Condo Vultures. But the sale of the 849-unit project on Biscayne Boulevard did not go smoothly, with the developer, another bidder and the bank holding the debt battling over terms.
Developer Cabi Downtown LLC -- which faced a 2009 foreclosure suit by Bank of America on a $209 million construction loan -- claimed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week that Rockwood went behind its back to cut a deal with the lender, after pledging to deal directly with the developer. Elias Cababie, managing member of Cabi, claimed he had secured a higher bid from a San Antonio-based private investment group, court documents show.
Cabi had been juggling negotiations with Rockwood and San Antonio-based Lynd Company this summer, taking representatives from both groups to see the property's twin 49-story towers.
According to Cababie's sworn statement, sometime in July, Lynd put in an offer for the note, and Cabi solicited Rockwood to make a counteroffer. Rockwood responded by asking for more information about the property and then abruptly cut communication with Cabi, Cababie claims.
Rockwood execs tell a different story: ``Before we had completed our due diligence, [Cabi] informed Rockwood that it intended to accept a different entity's proposal and to end negotiations with Rockwood,'' said Dwight ``Arne'' Arnesen, Rockwood's senior managing director of portfolio and asset management, in a sworn statement. Arnesen also said Rockwood had been willing to pay more than Lynd's initial offer.
Attorneys for Cabi and Bank of America did not return calls for comment. The purchase may be the target of future litigation from Cabi as well as Lynd, who lost the bid, said Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures.
One motivation for the drama: The building offered what may be the last sizable bulk purchase of new condos in downtown Miami, where developers have built more than 20,000 units in the last seven years.
Developers have sold just over 175 units at Everglades, and there are hundreds of renters in the building, which was completed about two years ago.
The purchase price amounted to at least $191 per square foot, Zalewski said. ``I think Rockwood paid too much,'' he said. ``But with time, that number will end up looking better and better.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/29/1897264/firm-can-buy-debt-of-downtown.html
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Monday, October 25, 2010
Miami Heat's Big Three a boon to neigjboring condos
Drivers making their way east on Interstate 395 toward the exit marked ``Arenas'' can't help but notice the four skyscrapers towering over downtown Miami -- the highway seems to steer directly into them before curving off to the shores of South Beach.
As more cars and more cameras will be taking that exit to the arena where basketball giant LeBron James will bring his talents this season, downtown Miami's condo developers are looking to cash in on the new-found cachet of the Miami Heat team.
Developers of the four skyline-shaping condo towers across the street from AmericanAirlines Arena -- Marina Blue, 900 Biscayne Bay, Ten Museum Park and Marquis Residences -- are hoping James and Co. can increase their buildings' clout and help them sell virgin square feet.
Some say that's already happening.
``You can call the sales office and sometimes not get through to anyone because they're so busy,'' said Lori Levine Ordover, director of sales for Marquis developer Africa Israel USA. ``That bodes well for what's going to happen this season.''
With restaurants, retail space and residential units to fill, downtown's stakeholders are bracing themselves for the yet-to-be-known impact of the new Miami Heat, as the regular season starts Tuesday against the Celtics in Boston. The home opener is Friday against Orlando.
Built during the mid-decade developers boom, the four condo buildings closest to the arena symbolize the spectrum of real estate highs and lows in South Florida over the past five years.
Two of the buildings sold out quickly as the market peaked, while two others still have a glut of unsold units available at off-peak prices. Buyers in the properties enjoy top-of-the-line amenities, but many have seen their home values plummet during the market crash. In all four buildings, thousands of square feet of office and retail space sit empty at the base of the towers.
While real estate analysts acknowledge that James' arrival in Miami won't cause a massive condo-buying stampede or heal the city's battered housing market, there is growing evidence that the new Heat lineup is spurring activity in the area around the arena.
At the Marquis, 1100 Biscayne Blvd., a penthouse unit sold for $4.2 million on July 8, the same day James announced he would be joining the Heat. That purchase was the largest amount ever paid for a condo in the downtown area, and the businessman who bought the unit admitted proximity to the arena influenced his decision.
``I'm a big basketball fan and we chose the Marquis because we like the building and the location,'' said Russell Wright, who has floor-level season tickets for the Heat games. ``At first, I was just hoping that Dwyane Wade would re-sign -- I had no clue that LeBron and Chris Bosh would join him.''
At Marina Blue, 888 Biscayne Blvd., a Sunny Isles Beach investor scooped up 5,100 square feet of retail space in August, netting the sellers $2.1 million. That investor, Sergey Novov, has drawn up plans to build a microbrewery there.
There are also reports of rising rent prices, game-day sellouts at hotels and soon-to-come hangout spots within walking distance of the arena.
With economists calculating James' impact in Cleveland in the hundreds of millions of dollars during his seven-year tenure there, Miami stakeholders are maneuvering to cash in on the star's presence once the season starts.
``I think downtown is just coming into fruition, coupled with the Heat stars and all that's going on there,'' said Penni Chasens, a real estate agent who has been selling developer units at 900 Biscayne Bay and the Marquis. ``I think it's given us a shot in the arm that we needed.''
The four towers are likely to be in hundreds of aerial shots of Miami's skyline during internationally televised Heat games, and each is looking to gain from that exposure.
Here is a look at each building.
MARINA BLUE
The southernmost building among the group, Marina Blue, pitches itself as one of the healthiest buildings downtown. The developer's residential units are completely sold out and the Castle Group, which manages the building, said more than 95 percent of the 516 units are occupied.
The so-called ``LeBron Effect'' made its mark in the building's retail sector, which had been sitting empty and unheralded for two years.
``The week that the LeBron announcement came -- we sold three commercial units immediately,'' said Donald Campbell, general manager at the 57-story Marina Blue. ``They started construction three days later.''
The micro-brewery envisioned by Novov, the investor, is in a frenzy to open as soon as possible, Campbell said.
Another restaurant is set to open there early next year, pitching Brooklyn-style pizza and plasma TVs to sports fans. A sign hanging in front of its undeveloped space plays into the hoops-generated hype: ``Pucci's Pizza: Coming soon. Before the playoffs (hopefully).''
A Spain-based advertising agency, Tribeca Media, also scooped up about 5,000 square feet in the building shortly after James announced he'd be joining Wade and Bosh in Miami.
On the residential side, rental interest has grown over the summer. Selling prices averaged about $350 per-square-foot during the boom, and many investors have had to buffer falling values by renting units during the market downturn.
``Some of our investors are taking the opportunity to raise their rent [asking] prices,'' Campbell said. ``If we have someone move out, we'll have someone new in there within the week.''
MARQUIS RESIDENCES
Marquis Residences, the tallest of the four structures, probably has the most to gain from increased attention and foot traffic around the arena. The 67-story structure has more than 200 unsold condos, and a recently opened hotel, restaurant and lounge that could benefit from pre- and post-game patrons.
Ordover, the sales director, said the Heat's new lineup has already increased interest in the luxury building, and residential ``sales have been good and steady.''
She attributes at least three recent sales directly to the Heat effect, including the $4.2 million penthouse purchase. With a typical two-bedroom trading for more than $500,000 at Marquis, that's about $5 million in revenue that can be tied to the team across the street.
As the tallest residential skyscraper in the state, Marquis will stand out as aerial cameras zoom in on the city during more than 30 nationally televised Heat games this season.
Ordover is hoping to parlay that free advertising into increased interest at the building's boutique hotel, and has placed ads in Heat game programs and the team's commemorative yearbook.
One ad for Tempo, the hotel, describes the building as ``within three-point range of the arena.''
Those kinds of ads will be common this season, Ordover said, as they have already shown results.
``I have a room in the hotel, because I travel back and forth. Now the hotel has so many nights of 100 percent occupancy that they're kicking me out,'' she said. And it's directly correlated to the Heat games.''
Out-of-town visitors searching online for the closest hotel to the arena will find Tempo listed at the top, 0.3 miles away, another marketing boost for the hotel, which opened in June. Rooms start at about $229.
The hotel has bought into the Heat mania, with player-based room specials tied to Wade, Bosh and James.
900 BISCAYNE BAY
The 900 Biscayne Bay condo tower, built in 2008, also has a large number of condos left on its rolls. The building has nearly 130 of its 509 developer units available and sold 18 units between July and September, according to data from real estate consultancy Condo Vultures.
Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures, said that with units going for $500,000 and more in buildings like 900 Biscayne Bay, the Heat effect will be limited.
``I don't think anyone is going to buy a residential property because of LeBron,'' he said. ``But I do think that they're going to go to the bars and restaurants and get more comfortable with the area.''
Owners of Miss Yip restaurant are counting on those expected bar-hoppers to help boost sales at the Chinese eatery's new downtown location at 900 Biscayne.
Shortly after the Heat play their first home game, the Chinese restaurant will open its downtown Miami branch, said Deniz Kose, the restaurant's manager. Miss Yip, a mainstay in Miami Beach since 2003, had contemplated expanding downtown long before this summer, but the Heat's revamped team was the tipping point.
``We have a lot of customers coming from downtown saying `I wish you had a location near me,' so it's the demand and supply thing,'' he said. ``We expect to have even more people for the basketball games.''
Still, the Heat effect at 900 Biscayne has been limited -- the building has a good chunk of vacant retail space near its bottom that has been for sale for more than a year.
TEN MUSEUM PARK
Ten Museum Park sold nearly all of its 200 units soon after being completed in 2007, and many boom-time investor-buyers have seen an uptick in rental interest this summer, said Shelly Abramowitz, owner of Museum Park Realty.
Those renters have helped the building reach near-full status, as they dish out $1,700 and more each month for one-bedrooms there.
The building has been a draw among the young professional crowd seeking big-city life, Abramowitz said.
``This neighborhood spreading its wings right now by adding all these entertainment options,'' he said.
``That was what was missing before.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/24/v-fullstory/1889670/miami-heats-big-three-a-boon-to.html
By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
As more cars and more cameras will be taking that exit to the arena where basketball giant LeBron James will bring his talents this season, downtown Miami's condo developers are looking to cash in on the new-found cachet of the Miami Heat team.
Developers of the four skyline-shaping condo towers across the street from AmericanAirlines Arena -- Marina Blue, 900 Biscayne Bay, Ten Museum Park and Marquis Residences -- are hoping James and Co. can increase their buildings' clout and help them sell virgin square feet.
Some say that's already happening.
``You can call the sales office and sometimes not get through to anyone because they're so busy,'' said Lori Levine Ordover, director of sales for Marquis developer Africa Israel USA. ``That bodes well for what's going to happen this season.''
With restaurants, retail space and residential units to fill, downtown's stakeholders are bracing themselves for the yet-to-be-known impact of the new Miami Heat, as the regular season starts Tuesday against the Celtics in Boston. The home opener is Friday against Orlando.
Built during the mid-decade developers boom, the four condo buildings closest to the arena symbolize the spectrum of real estate highs and lows in South Florida over the past five years.
Two of the buildings sold out quickly as the market peaked, while two others still have a glut of unsold units available at off-peak prices. Buyers in the properties enjoy top-of-the-line amenities, but many have seen their home values plummet during the market crash. In all four buildings, thousands of square feet of office and retail space sit empty at the base of the towers.
While real estate analysts acknowledge that James' arrival in Miami won't cause a massive condo-buying stampede or heal the city's battered housing market, there is growing evidence that the new Heat lineup is spurring activity in the area around the arena.
At the Marquis, 1100 Biscayne Blvd., a penthouse unit sold for $4.2 million on July 8, the same day James announced he would be joining the Heat. That purchase was the largest amount ever paid for a condo in the downtown area, and the businessman who bought the unit admitted proximity to the arena influenced his decision.
``I'm a big basketball fan and we chose the Marquis because we like the building and the location,'' said Russell Wright, who has floor-level season tickets for the Heat games. ``At first, I was just hoping that Dwyane Wade would re-sign -- I had no clue that LeBron and Chris Bosh would join him.''
At Marina Blue, 888 Biscayne Blvd., a Sunny Isles Beach investor scooped up 5,100 square feet of retail space in August, netting the sellers $2.1 million. That investor, Sergey Novov, has drawn up plans to build a microbrewery there.
There are also reports of rising rent prices, game-day sellouts at hotels and soon-to-come hangout spots within walking distance of the arena.
With economists calculating James' impact in Cleveland in the hundreds of millions of dollars during his seven-year tenure there, Miami stakeholders are maneuvering to cash in on the star's presence once the season starts.
``I think downtown is just coming into fruition, coupled with the Heat stars and all that's going on there,'' said Penni Chasens, a real estate agent who has been selling developer units at 900 Biscayne Bay and the Marquis. ``I think it's given us a shot in the arm that we needed.''
The four towers are likely to be in hundreds of aerial shots of Miami's skyline during internationally televised Heat games, and each is looking to gain from that exposure.
Here is a look at each building.
MARINA BLUE
The southernmost building among the group, Marina Blue, pitches itself as one of the healthiest buildings downtown. The developer's residential units are completely sold out and the Castle Group, which manages the building, said more than 95 percent of the 516 units are occupied.
The so-called ``LeBron Effect'' made its mark in the building's retail sector, which had been sitting empty and unheralded for two years.
``The week that the LeBron announcement came -- we sold three commercial units immediately,'' said Donald Campbell, general manager at the 57-story Marina Blue. ``They started construction three days later.''
The micro-brewery envisioned by Novov, the investor, is in a frenzy to open as soon as possible, Campbell said.
Another restaurant is set to open there early next year, pitching Brooklyn-style pizza and plasma TVs to sports fans. A sign hanging in front of its undeveloped space plays into the hoops-generated hype: ``Pucci's Pizza: Coming soon. Before the playoffs (hopefully).''
A Spain-based advertising agency, Tribeca Media, also scooped up about 5,000 square feet in the building shortly after James announced he'd be joining Wade and Bosh in Miami.
On the residential side, rental interest has grown over the summer. Selling prices averaged about $350 per-square-foot during the boom, and many investors have had to buffer falling values by renting units during the market downturn.
``Some of our investors are taking the opportunity to raise their rent [asking] prices,'' Campbell said. ``If we have someone move out, we'll have someone new in there within the week.''
MARQUIS RESIDENCES
Marquis Residences, the tallest of the four structures, probably has the most to gain from increased attention and foot traffic around the arena. The 67-story structure has more than 200 unsold condos, and a recently opened hotel, restaurant and lounge that could benefit from pre- and post-game patrons.
Ordover, the sales director, said the Heat's new lineup has already increased interest in the luxury building, and residential ``sales have been good and steady.''
She attributes at least three recent sales directly to the Heat effect, including the $4.2 million penthouse purchase. With a typical two-bedroom trading for more than $500,000 at Marquis, that's about $5 million in revenue that can be tied to the team across the street.
As the tallest residential skyscraper in the state, Marquis will stand out as aerial cameras zoom in on the city during more than 30 nationally televised Heat games this season.
Ordover is hoping to parlay that free advertising into increased interest at the building's boutique hotel, and has placed ads in Heat game programs and the team's commemorative yearbook.
One ad for Tempo, the hotel, describes the building as ``within three-point range of the arena.''
Those kinds of ads will be common this season, Ordover said, as they have already shown results.
``I have a room in the hotel, because I travel back and forth. Now the hotel has so many nights of 100 percent occupancy that they're kicking me out,'' she said. And it's directly correlated to the Heat games.''
Out-of-town visitors searching online for the closest hotel to the arena will find Tempo listed at the top, 0.3 miles away, another marketing boost for the hotel, which opened in June. Rooms start at about $229.
The hotel has bought into the Heat mania, with player-based room specials tied to Wade, Bosh and James.
900 BISCAYNE BAY
The 900 Biscayne Bay condo tower, built in 2008, also has a large number of condos left on its rolls. The building has nearly 130 of its 509 developer units available and sold 18 units between July and September, according to data from real estate consultancy Condo Vultures.
Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures, said that with units going for $500,000 and more in buildings like 900 Biscayne Bay, the Heat effect will be limited.
``I don't think anyone is going to buy a residential property because of LeBron,'' he said. ``But I do think that they're going to go to the bars and restaurants and get more comfortable with the area.''
Owners of Miss Yip restaurant are counting on those expected bar-hoppers to help boost sales at the Chinese eatery's new downtown location at 900 Biscayne.
Shortly after the Heat play their first home game, the Chinese restaurant will open its downtown Miami branch, said Deniz Kose, the restaurant's manager. Miss Yip, a mainstay in Miami Beach since 2003, had contemplated expanding downtown long before this summer, but the Heat's revamped team was the tipping point.
``We have a lot of customers coming from downtown saying `I wish you had a location near me,' so it's the demand and supply thing,'' he said. ``We expect to have even more people for the basketball games.''
Still, the Heat effect at 900 Biscayne has been limited -- the building has a good chunk of vacant retail space near its bottom that has been for sale for more than a year.
TEN MUSEUM PARK
Ten Museum Park sold nearly all of its 200 units soon after being completed in 2007, and many boom-time investor-buyers have seen an uptick in rental interest this summer, said Shelly Abramowitz, owner of Museum Park Realty.
Those renters have helped the building reach near-full status, as they dish out $1,700 and more each month for one-bedrooms there.
The building has been a draw among the young professional crowd seeking big-city life, Abramowitz said.
``This neighborhood spreading its wings right now by adding all these entertainment options,'' he said.
``That was what was missing before.''
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/24/v-fullstory/1889670/miami-heats-big-three-a-boon-to.html
By TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Foreign buyers see big opportunity in housing bust
The Viceroy, a swanky condominium complex in downtown Miami, gives the impression that the United States is in another real estate boom. The sales office is strangely exuberant. Buyers gush about the glam condos — designed by hipster tastemaker Kelly Wearstler — and their hotel-like amenities: poolside libations, daily housekeeping and room service food stirred up by a celebrity chef.
Since January, 262 of the Viceroy's 372 units have sold. But there's a twist: Almost 90 percent of the buyers are foreigners. And they all paid cash.
The Viceroy's story is playing out across Miami. Individual investors from as far as Argentina, Canada, Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Norway and Venezuela are swarming the city's sales offices to get in on what they see as one of the greatest real estate fire sales in the history of the United States.
At one time, these people would have invested in the U.S. stock market. Now they see the opportunity of a lifetime in the nation's debilitated housing market. The idea is to rent out the properties and then sell them once the economy turns around.
The math is seductive: Prices at the Viceroy are roughly 52 percent off the 2007 peak. Units once sold for as much $670 a square foot. Today the average price is $319.
"I have never seen such a high concentration of foreign nationals acquiring real estate," says Peter Zalewski, who has been in real estate for 15 years and founded Condo Vultures, a consulting and brokerage firm. "Eighty percent of the sales in downtown Miami are foreign-based. This is unprecedented."
Miami is hardly the only hot spot for buyers from outside the United States. Real estate brokers say they've seen a surge in Washington, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Seattle, Asians are buying property sight unseen, says Joe Brazen of Brazen Sotheby's International. In New York, 25 percent of buyers at the Armani-designed 20 Pine building, near the World Trade Center site, are from overseas.
"It's a positive in a sea of negatives," says Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a real estate consulting firm in New York.
This year in Phoenix, for the first time, there have been more buyers from Canada than from California, according to real estate data outfit Information Market. With the Canadian dollar approaching parity with its U.S. counterpart, the opportunity was simply irresistible to Jim Chuong, a 38-year-old Novartis sales manager from Toronto.
Chuong, whose house in Canada is already paid off, used to invest in U.S. stocks. Now he's investing in Phoenix condos, paying $50 a square foot for units that would cost $500 a square foot in Toronto.
"It's ridiculous is what it is," Chuong says.
For foreigners with cash, the deals can make them money from day one. Chuong buys two-bedroom condos for less than $40,000 in low-crime areas. He only picks up units that already have renters. After paying association fees and taxes, he walks away with $300 a month, pre-tax, on each. The deals are now easy to do, thanks to the cottage industry of companies that has grown up to manage virtually everything for foreign buyers, down to badgering renters for the monthly check.
For the international investor class, the United States' bloated inventory of homes, high unemployment and weak currency make for an unusually attractive buyer's market.
"Never before have all these things come together like this," says Patrick O'Neill, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong-based O'Neill Group, which helps Chinese invest in international real estate. O'Neill says Chinese buying in places like New York is on track to double this year.
"Unless you want to go to Baghdad," O'Neill says, "the United States is the best you can get."
The trend is showing up in the statistics. In a National Association of Realtors report released in July, 28 percent of brokers reported they had worked with at least one international client, up from 23 percent a year earlier. Among those, 18 percent had completed at least one sale, compared with 12 percent in the 2009 report.
"I was going invest in the stock market, but I decided to invest in real estate instead," says Diego Garcia, a Mexico City native on assignment in New York City with Pfizer Inc., where he is a regional finance director. Garcia paid $850,000 for a Manhattan one-bedroom in a gleaming new high-rise that he plans to live in for now. "I'm a conservative guy," Garcia says, "and this was more conservative."
That's not to say there aren't steep risks. An economic jolt could easily throw the whole plan into disarray. The housing market is far from a recovery. In many places, prices continue to fall. What happens if currency values reverse and a foreign owner needs a quick sale? Or a renter bolts in the middle of the night, leaving an empty unit and no cash flow?
It's not as if foreign buying can be counted on for a housing market turnaround. Overseas buyers represent a mere 7 percent or so of today's total. Yet in some cities, such as Miami and Washington, the foreign sales are helping to stabilize the markets.
In past downturns, buying a property in the U.S. was the prestigious purview of the wealthy, but today the market is within reach of the swelling ranks of the global upper-middle class.
Colombians, who often call Miami the most beautiful city in their country, have always been drawn to Florida. The difference now is the upside-down economics. It is cheaper to buy in Miami than in Bogota, and you can fly between the two cities for $59 each way.
"Muchos muchos muchos muchos opportunity," says Elsa de Blaschke, who owns a construction company with her husband in Barranquilla, Colombia, and is hunting for an investment property to buy in Miami. De Blaschke chose not to invest the capital at home because she says Florida offers a better chance of a bigger return.
"The international buyer pool is better than we have ever seen it before," says Phillip White, president of Sotheby's International, based in New York.
To match demand, U.S. brokerages are hiring agents who can speak foreign languages and are pouring more resources into marketing overseas.
In October, agents from 11 Sotheby's International branches will descend on Hong Kong's convention center to regale wealthy buyers there with slick visuals on showcase properties. In Toronto, agents from Florida Home Finders play to crowds of 800 every other Sunday at a Holiday Inn banquet hall. Jenny Huertas, Condo Vultures' international sales director, throws seminars for potential clients across South America.
"Their jaws drop. They can't believe it," Huertas says. "They think these deals are too good to be true."
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLyL-V2T4vaQdAOvlFcoliG1yGoQD9IL4I780?docId=D9IL4I780
By MICHELLE CONLIN
Since January, 262 of the Viceroy's 372 units have sold. But there's a twist: Almost 90 percent of the buyers are foreigners. And they all paid cash.
The Viceroy's story is playing out across Miami. Individual investors from as far as Argentina, Canada, Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Norway and Venezuela are swarming the city's sales offices to get in on what they see as one of the greatest real estate fire sales in the history of the United States.
At one time, these people would have invested in the U.S. stock market. Now they see the opportunity of a lifetime in the nation's debilitated housing market. The idea is to rent out the properties and then sell them once the economy turns around.
The math is seductive: Prices at the Viceroy are roughly 52 percent off the 2007 peak. Units once sold for as much $670 a square foot. Today the average price is $319.
"I have never seen such a high concentration of foreign nationals acquiring real estate," says Peter Zalewski, who has been in real estate for 15 years and founded Condo Vultures, a consulting and brokerage firm. "Eighty percent of the sales in downtown Miami are foreign-based. This is unprecedented."
Miami is hardly the only hot spot for buyers from outside the United States. Real estate brokers say they've seen a surge in Washington, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In Seattle, Asians are buying property sight unseen, says Joe Brazen of Brazen Sotheby's International. In New York, 25 percent of buyers at the Armani-designed 20 Pine building, near the World Trade Center site, are from overseas.
"It's a positive in a sea of negatives," says Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Miller Samuel, a real estate consulting firm in New York.
This year in Phoenix, for the first time, there have been more buyers from Canada than from California, according to real estate data outfit Information Market. With the Canadian dollar approaching parity with its U.S. counterpart, the opportunity was simply irresistible to Jim Chuong, a 38-year-old Novartis sales manager from Toronto.
Chuong, whose house in Canada is already paid off, used to invest in U.S. stocks. Now he's investing in Phoenix condos, paying $50 a square foot for units that would cost $500 a square foot in Toronto.
"It's ridiculous is what it is," Chuong says.
For foreigners with cash, the deals can make them money from day one. Chuong buys two-bedroom condos for less than $40,000 in low-crime areas. He only picks up units that already have renters. After paying association fees and taxes, he walks away with $300 a month, pre-tax, on each. The deals are now easy to do, thanks to the cottage industry of companies that has grown up to manage virtually everything for foreign buyers, down to badgering renters for the monthly check.
For the international investor class, the United States' bloated inventory of homes, high unemployment and weak currency make for an unusually attractive buyer's market.
"Never before have all these things come together like this," says Patrick O'Neill, chief executive officer of the Hong Kong-based O'Neill Group, which helps Chinese invest in international real estate. O'Neill says Chinese buying in places like New York is on track to double this year.
"Unless you want to go to Baghdad," O'Neill says, "the United States is the best you can get."
The trend is showing up in the statistics. In a National Association of Realtors report released in July, 28 percent of brokers reported they had worked with at least one international client, up from 23 percent a year earlier. Among those, 18 percent had completed at least one sale, compared with 12 percent in the 2009 report.
"I was going invest in the stock market, but I decided to invest in real estate instead," says Diego Garcia, a Mexico City native on assignment in New York City with Pfizer Inc., where he is a regional finance director. Garcia paid $850,000 for a Manhattan one-bedroom in a gleaming new high-rise that he plans to live in for now. "I'm a conservative guy," Garcia says, "and this was more conservative."
That's not to say there aren't steep risks. An economic jolt could easily throw the whole plan into disarray. The housing market is far from a recovery. In many places, prices continue to fall. What happens if currency values reverse and a foreign owner needs a quick sale? Or a renter bolts in the middle of the night, leaving an empty unit and no cash flow?
It's not as if foreign buying can be counted on for a housing market turnaround. Overseas buyers represent a mere 7 percent or so of today's total. Yet in some cities, such as Miami and Washington, the foreign sales are helping to stabilize the markets.
In past downturns, buying a property in the U.S. was the prestigious purview of the wealthy, but today the market is within reach of the swelling ranks of the global upper-middle class.
Colombians, who often call Miami the most beautiful city in their country, have always been drawn to Florida. The difference now is the upside-down economics. It is cheaper to buy in Miami than in Bogota, and you can fly between the two cities for $59 each way.
"Muchos muchos muchos muchos opportunity," says Elsa de Blaschke, who owns a construction company with her husband in Barranquilla, Colombia, and is hunting for an investment property to buy in Miami. De Blaschke chose not to invest the capital at home because she says Florida offers a better chance of a bigger return.
"The international buyer pool is better than we have ever seen it before," says Phillip White, president of Sotheby's International, based in New York.
To match demand, U.S. brokerages are hiring agents who can speak foreign languages and are pouring more resources into marketing overseas.
In October, agents from 11 Sotheby's International branches will descend on Hong Kong's convention center to regale wealthy buyers there with slick visuals on showcase properties. In Toronto, agents from Florida Home Finders play to crowds of 800 every other Sunday at a Holiday Inn banquet hall. Jenny Huertas, Condo Vultures' international sales director, throws seminars for potential clients across South America.
"Their jaws drop. They can't believe it," Huertas says. "They think these deals are too good to be true."
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLyL-V2T4vaQdAOvlFcoliG1yGoQD9IL4I780?docId=D9IL4I780
By MICHELLE CONLIN
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Europeans and South Americans buy condos as homes, investments
Many of the international buyers scooping up condos in South Florida's top bayfront communities are buying to occupy part-time, brokers say, but many would consider a future sale at a profit.
Where these buyers decide to purchase depends in part to the condominium's location, as some are more attracted to beachfront enclaves like Miami Beach, Sunny Isles Beach and Aventura while others want to be in the center of the action and opt for condos in greater Downtown in areas such as Omni, Brickell and downtown.
At the 66-floor Marquis Residences, one of Miami's tallest buildings at 1100 Biscayne Blvd., many of the foreign buyers are from Brazil, Venezuela, Israel and Italy, said Wendy Marks Pine, sales director for Cervera Real Estate, which handles its sales.
For many of these buyers, she said, "their currency has increased in value, offering great opportunities for them to buy in the Miami market."
For example, "we are seeing a heavy influx of Venezuelan buyers who have been able to allocate funds into US dollars" and are buying condos, Ms. Marks Pine said. "The challenge for those who are in Venezuela is taking the currency out of Venezuela to buy."
Along the Biscayne Boulevard corridor, the cluster of performing arts venues, the neighboring art and design districts, the American Airlines Arena and the many restaurants that have sprung up are attracting Israeli buyers to Marquis, many of whom previously owned residences in North Miami Beach and other areas, said Penni Chasens, a Cervera sales associate.
"Miami is so multicultural it has something for everybody," she said.
About 50% of foreigners are buying in cash and the rest are using a seller financing program Marquis offers, Ms. Marks Pine said, "allocated specifically for buyers who are coming in and need to finance. It's unique to this building. Most buildings don't offer that type of financing, so it's an opportunity to get buyers here."
The 292-unit Marquis has about 200 condos left for sale, with 92 sold or awaiting closing, she said. Lofts and two- and three-bedroom units are selling at discounted prices that range from the $400,000s to $3 million.
"It's a combination of original buyers who closed on residences and new buyers who capitalized on opportunities with the 40% price reduction," she said.
Edgardo Defortuna, president of Fortune International Realty, said at the luxury condominiums he represents, many foreigners are buying for their own use "because they love the product and think it's a great value."
Oceanfront residential towers such as Jade Ocean and Jade Beach in Sunny Isles Beach and ArTech in Aventura are being sold to many Latin Americans and Europeans.
For example at ArTech, where Fortune has 50 units left to sell, buyers are mostly Jewish Latin Americans and locals, Mr. Defortuna said.
At Icon Brickell's Towers 1 and 2, Fortune has sold 170 units, of which about 75% have been sold to international buyers, he said. The same at Jade, home to buyers from 22 nationalities, where foreigners represent 70% of buyers.
Julián La Madrid, a Spanish-born developer based in Guatemala, bought a three-bedroom unit at Icon Brickell's Tower 2 because he liked the property's design and its location.
At first, he was debating whether to buy in Miami Beach or Brickell, but he opted for a bayfront unit on the tower's 35th floor because he liked Brickell's work-and-play lifestyle.
Mr. La Madrid, who develops office buildings and shopping centers in Guatemala, said he also saw value in the area's fast development, as he foresees more retail and restaurants opening up in the future.
"The apartment is for me to use as a second residence, to live between Guatemala and Miami," he said. "It's not focused on investment, but I don't discard that in the future it could become an investment."
Brazilians represent another strong buyer segment right now, followed by Argentines and Venezuelans, Mr. Defortuna said. He added that among the reasons for the latter groups to invest here is safety concerns and political problems affecting those countries.
"The economy in Brazil is doing really well. In Argentina, the economy is also doing well, but they are concerned with the safety situation," he said. "In Venezuela, the politician turmoil and the concern it could get worse has made a lot of Venezuelans have some safety net here in the US, and Miami is the perfect place."
About 62% of foreign buyers purchase condos, 21% single-family homes and another 10% townhomes, according to an international sales survey conducted by the Miami Realtors based on transactions in Miami-Dade from April 2009 to April 2010.
These international buyers are helping condo sales stay strong.
While the re-sales of single-family homes in Miami-Dade dropped 8% in July, condo re-sales rose 43% this July from July 2009 and by 112% from two years ago, according to the realtor association and Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service.
Many buying today plan to use the condos as a vacation or second home, but some don't discard selling them at a profit some day.
But Mr. Defortuna described these as "solid" investors because more than 70% are paying cash.
"The investors who we saw in the good old days of the boom planned to sell or finance the rest of their purchase because they didn't have the cash to pay upfront," he said. "Also, the ability to rent the unit. If the price is right, the unit gets rented in a short period of time that makes it attractive."
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/100902/story7.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
Where these buyers decide to purchase depends in part to the condominium's location, as some are more attracted to beachfront enclaves like Miami Beach, Sunny Isles Beach and Aventura while others want to be in the center of the action and opt for condos in greater Downtown in areas such as Omni, Brickell and downtown.
At the 66-floor Marquis Residences, one of Miami's tallest buildings at 1100 Biscayne Blvd., many of the foreign buyers are from Brazil, Venezuela, Israel and Italy, said Wendy Marks Pine, sales director for Cervera Real Estate, which handles its sales.
For many of these buyers, she said, "their currency has increased in value, offering great opportunities for them to buy in the Miami market."
For example, "we are seeing a heavy influx of Venezuelan buyers who have been able to allocate funds into US dollars" and are buying condos, Ms. Marks Pine said. "The challenge for those who are in Venezuela is taking the currency out of Venezuela to buy."
Along the Biscayne Boulevard corridor, the cluster of performing arts venues, the neighboring art and design districts, the American Airlines Arena and the many restaurants that have sprung up are attracting Israeli buyers to Marquis, many of whom previously owned residences in North Miami Beach and other areas, said Penni Chasens, a Cervera sales associate.
"Miami is so multicultural it has something for everybody," she said.
About 50% of foreigners are buying in cash and the rest are using a seller financing program Marquis offers, Ms. Marks Pine said, "allocated specifically for buyers who are coming in and need to finance. It's unique to this building. Most buildings don't offer that type of financing, so it's an opportunity to get buyers here."
The 292-unit Marquis has about 200 condos left for sale, with 92 sold or awaiting closing, she said. Lofts and two- and three-bedroom units are selling at discounted prices that range from the $400,000s to $3 million.
"It's a combination of original buyers who closed on residences and new buyers who capitalized on opportunities with the 40% price reduction," she said.
Edgardo Defortuna, president of Fortune International Realty, said at the luxury condominiums he represents, many foreigners are buying for their own use "because they love the product and think it's a great value."
Oceanfront residential towers such as Jade Ocean and Jade Beach in Sunny Isles Beach and ArTech in Aventura are being sold to many Latin Americans and Europeans.
For example at ArTech, where Fortune has 50 units left to sell, buyers are mostly Jewish Latin Americans and locals, Mr. Defortuna said.
At Icon Brickell's Towers 1 and 2, Fortune has sold 170 units, of which about 75% have been sold to international buyers, he said. The same at Jade, home to buyers from 22 nationalities, where foreigners represent 70% of buyers.
Julián La Madrid, a Spanish-born developer based in Guatemala, bought a three-bedroom unit at Icon Brickell's Tower 2 because he liked the property's design and its location.
At first, he was debating whether to buy in Miami Beach or Brickell, but he opted for a bayfront unit on the tower's 35th floor because he liked Brickell's work-and-play lifestyle.
Mr. La Madrid, who develops office buildings and shopping centers in Guatemala, said he also saw value in the area's fast development, as he foresees more retail and restaurants opening up in the future.
"The apartment is for me to use as a second residence, to live between Guatemala and Miami," he said. "It's not focused on investment, but I don't discard that in the future it could become an investment."
Brazilians represent another strong buyer segment right now, followed by Argentines and Venezuelans, Mr. Defortuna said. He added that among the reasons for the latter groups to invest here is safety concerns and political problems affecting those countries.
"The economy in Brazil is doing really well. In Argentina, the economy is also doing well, but they are concerned with the safety situation," he said. "In Venezuela, the politician turmoil and the concern it could get worse has made a lot of Venezuelans have some safety net here in the US, and Miami is the perfect place."
About 62% of foreign buyers purchase condos, 21% single-family homes and another 10% townhomes, according to an international sales survey conducted by the Miami Realtors based on transactions in Miami-Dade from April 2009 to April 2010.
These international buyers are helping condo sales stay strong.
While the re-sales of single-family homes in Miami-Dade dropped 8% in July, condo re-sales rose 43% this July from July 2009 and by 112% from two years ago, according to the realtor association and Southeast Florida Multiple Listing Service.
Many buying today plan to use the condos as a vacation or second home, but some don't discard selling them at a profit some day.
But Mr. Defortuna described these as "solid" investors because more than 70% are paying cash.
"The investors who we saw in the good old days of the boom planned to sell or finance the rest of their purchase because they didn't have the cash to pay upfront," he said. "Also, the ability to rent the unit. If the price is right, the unit gets rented in a short period of time that makes it attractive."
Source: http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/100902/story7.shtml
By Yudislaidy Fernandez
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