South Beach Condos Blog

I recently had a client who purchased a large condominium in South Beach.  While doing my research on available inventory of like/kind units in the neighborhood, I came to dissect each one of the luxury buildings to find out how many units were comparable to my buyer-client’s unit.  Here are some interesting real estate tid-bits about large units (over 2500 sq. ft.) in luxury condos in South Beach:

There are a total of 173 units with over 2500 sq. ft. in a total of six buildings:

Portofino Tower-13

Now, in just a few weeks, Apogee South Beach will add 67 condos and Continuum South Beach-North Tower will add approximately 40 condos over 2500 sq. ft. to the South Beach real estate condo inventory.

Use the following links to learn more about available condos for sale at Miami Beach’s most luxurious condos

I’ve had a large number of people contacting me and asking me about 2007 condo stats for Miami Beach and South Beach condos. I plan to do the 2007 statistics this week and post most of them by this weekend.

I plan to analyze each Miami Beach condo’s stats separately, and group them by neighborhood as well. I also plan to give the numbers as they are, WITHOUT SPIN.

There has been a lot of talk about the Case Schiller home price index of late. This index seems to be the most “respected” index lately, probably because the numbers are the worst for South Florida.

According to a widely followed national home price index released Wednesday, prices of homes in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties fell 12.4 percent in October from last year. The Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller index says the South Florida region posted the worst decline of 20 major metropolitan areas it follows.

Here are some interesting reads just to highlight the differences in the numbers:

Miami Herald, Thursday, Dec. 27th

The discrepancies boil down to the very different methods the groups use to calculate their numbers. Each method provides a snapshot — and only a snapshot — in a very diverse real estate scene whose more than 1.2 million properties stretch from upscale waterfront communities and suburbs to inner-city neighborhoods. Analyzing just how bad the market is occupies cocktail chatter and boardroom debates, and these differing data highlight the difficulties of figuring out exactly what is going on.

The Wall Street Examiner, Monday, Dec. 31st

In my reports to subscribers of the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Housing and Real Estate Report, I regularly review data from Housingtracker.net, a service that collects the MLS data posted on Realtor.com for 55 of the largest metros in the US. Their data showed that just after Thanksgiving the average of the median listing prices of each of the 55 metros was down 5.5% on the year. As of December 24, that figure had sunk to -6.2%. The monthly price change in November was -1.5%. In December the monthly decline had accelerated to 2.2%. In December, one market showed an increase in price. 6 were unchanged. 48 were lower.

Miami Herald, Wednesday, Jan. 2nd

South Florida’s housing market continued to deflate in November, with prices down, sales plunging, and buyers scarce and frugal, according to numbers released by the Florida Association of Realtors Monday.

This article has nothing to do with this post, but I thought it was interesting.

I was watching Channel 7 News last week when a special segment about real estate foreclosures in South Florida aired.  I felt badly for the people in this story that are losing their homes but there are two messages in the video segment below which I feel may be beneficial to some.

It is my feeling that foreclosures in general ARE NOT the best buys for one reason:  the majority of the foreclosures that are available were originally purchased at or near the “peak” of the market—and the banks have lent too much money on these properties.  Since the banks are owed so much money on a typical foreclosed property, they don’t have the ability to sell it at today’s market price.  From WSVN’s Foreclosure Forced Out

Auctioneer: “Welcome to the mortgage foreclosure sale.”

Each week, hundreds of properties in foreclosure are auctioned off.

Auctioneer: ”Home Equity Mortgage Corp. vs. Butler.”

On this day, for the first time in 21 years, not a single property sold, the banks had to keep them all.

Luis Valdeon: “The banks lent too much money. They did first mortgage and second mortgages, and they’re completely off of what the price really are, and that’s why everything is so high; you can’t sell them.”

And the foreclosed properties are piling up.

Click Above to Play Video

Why The Miami Beach Real Estate Market Isn’t That Bad

This is a five year history for the South Beach condo market for area code 33139.  The dark green bar represents condo sales and the light green bar represents condo units on the market.

I know that some of the numbers are a bit hard to read but they really don’t matter anyway.  What matters is the incredible amout of inventory (light green bar) that started to accumulate in May 2005.  The number of sales are off from the peak, but nothing alarming.  The real story here is the amount of inventory on the market.  People have not stopped buying here and Miami Beach real estate continues to sell if it is priced right.  If you need to sell your Miami Beach condo, PRICE IT RIGHT.  If you don’t need to sell your condo, now is NOT the time to sell and you should take it off the market until some of the inventory gets absorbed.  More from Foreclosure Forced Out

Barry Habib: “There’s no simple solution.”

Barry Habib is a nationally known mortgage expert. His advice? Get out before you get in trouble.

Barry Habib: “If they have equity in it, they’ve got to find a way to protect that equity. Put the house up for sale. Don’t be greedy. Don’t try and put it up at an unrealistic number. Homes sell, and they sell very quickly if they’re priced right in every market.”

When I was interviewed last month by The New York Times for a piece Miami Beach real estate, specifically luxury condos, I was asked to research the condo market going back two years. 

 What I decided to do, since SO many people have asked me, was to do a three year snapshot of the market, specifically for the SoFi neighborhood in South Beach, which includes Continuum South Beach, Murano at Portofino, Murano Grande, ICON South Beach, Portofino Tower, Yacht Club at Portofino, and South Pointe Tower.  When doing this type of analysis, I really like using this neighborhood because it has a high concentration of units, which provides accurate insight into the luxury condo market activity of Miami Beach condos. 

I used one time period: January 1st-October 3^rd of three years (2005, 2006, and 2007).  It is very interesting to see how the market has progressed during the last three years.  Here is a great Miami Beach neighborhood map

The graph above represents number of sales for each building in the SoFi neighborhood.  Most would think that the number of sales would be highest in 2004–2005.  Even though 2007 is down from 2006, in ALL cases the number of sales are higher than in 2005.

This graph shows the issue for condos in general—with the exception of Continuum South Beach, the average days on market have all substantially increased from 2005.

The graph above shows a three year history of average $ p.s.f.  SOLD prices for all the condos in the South of Fifth neighborhood.  Continuum South Beach continues to climb without any fluctuations.  Overall,  each building is holding its own and the neighborhood in general continues to do well.

This graph represents the list price ($ p.s.f.) to the sold price ($ p.s.f.) for each year.  It basically tracks the list price to sale price ratio for each building for all three years.  The blue bar is the list price (in $ p.s.f.) and the green bar represents the sold price (in $ p.s.f.).  Things to note from this graph:  ICON South Beach peaked in 2006 and Continuum South Beach continues to march onward and upward. 

I have to admit I was not surprised by the numbers.  Most of what I see here only re-inforces my recommendations from my South Beach Luxury Condo Outlook 2008 post.

Miami Beach real estate, Continuum South Beach, ICON South Beach, South Beach condos, South Beach real estate, Miami condo statistics, Miami luxury condos, 33139

If you’d like to forward this post to someone you think might be interested, simply click on the “Share This” link and click “E-mail.”