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The Real Deal Miami
| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a four-bedroom, six-bathroom single-family house asking $4.5 million. The 5,000-square-foot home is located at 10875 North Bayshore Drive in Miami, near Biscayne Bay. It features a fireplace, a garage and new electric wiring. Jeffrey Koebel of Annie Montgomery Realty has the listing. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Monroe County that are [more]
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| MDM Group plans for convention center, Marriott hotel tower |
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MDM Group announced yesterday it has a contract to build a tower with a 500,000-square-foot convention space below a 1,800-room hotel to be managed by Marriott, the Miami Herald reported. The site at 700 North Miami Avenue is currently Grand Central Park and under the control of MDM Group, which intends to privately finance the project. Coral Gables-based Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates is designing the tower, the Herald said. Marriott at Miami Worldcenter [more]
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| Check out TRD’s coverage of ICSC, starting Sunday |
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The International Council of Shopping Centers’ RECon event kicks off on Sunday, and The Real Deal will be on hand to cover all the panels, parties, networking and, most importantly, dealmaking that are the hallmarks of the annual global retail convention. This year’s conference, held in Las Vegas from May 19 to May 22, is expected to be the biggest one since the 2008 real estate bust, drawing more than 33,000 real estate professionals, 1,000 [more]
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| Condo attorney: hard to tack cash to buyers |
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The engine of South Florida’s factory-like condo production is what Carlos Rosso, head of condo development at the Related Group, touted in The Real Deal’s roundtable Thursday as a “new type of contract.” Developers like Rosso are asking buyers – mostly wealthy and foreign – to cough up as much as 80 percent of a condo’s sales price, months before construction begins. “The world has changed. We’re coming back from a huge crash,” Rosso said. [more]
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| Credit reporting snafu burdens borrowers with past short sales |
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Are large numbers of homeowners who have negotiated short sales with lenders at risk because of a startling omission in the American credit system? Do their credit reports and scores indicate that they were foreclosed upon, rather than having negotiated a mutually agreeable resolution with their lender? The answer appears to be yes, and last week two federal agencies — the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — were asked to investigate [more]
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| As lenders’ South Florida appetite grows, $100M construction loan sought for Echo Aventura |
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New York-based developers Property Markets Group and JDS Development Group have teamed up to raise $100 million in construction loans to build the 190-unit Echo Aventura condominium tower, Mortgage Observer Weekly reported, in the latest sign of lenders’ renewed appetite for condo construction in South Florida. Mission Capital Advisors, which is representing the borrowers, is seeking a non-recourse loan with a three-year term and two one-year extensions, the trade magazine said. Construction-loan lending revved back [more]
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| SoBe’s foreclosed Shore Club set for June sale |
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South Beach’s iconic Shore Club hotel has plunged into foreclosure, the Miami Herald reported, with more than $164 million owed on the property, according to a judgment entered earlier this week. An online sale of the 309-room hotel is set for June 25. The Herald was unable to reach the hotel’s majority owner, New York-based Phililips International, or LNR, the Miami Beach company that controls the mortgage. Morgans Hotel Group, a minority stakeholder in the [more]
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| Miami is on fire: TRD’s South Florida roundtable |
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South Florida’s top real estate developers looked into crystal balls and swapped war stories Thursday at The Real Deal‘s roundtable event and the launch of the magazine’s spring 2013 South Florida Market Report. With five South Florida powerhouse developers on stage, all of whom have snagged “starchitects” and competed on unforeseen heights in luxury after experiencing the bust in the Miami-area market, The Real Deal‘s Mel Gray, director of editorial development at TRD‘s New York [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Peebles Corp. chief credits NYC entrepreneurs for Miami’s new stature as a global market 2. Look out, Canada – Brazilians take Miami 3. Barton G sues for fast exit from Versace mansion [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a three-bedroom, four-bathroom condominium at Villa Magna asking $2.25 million. The 3,077-square-foot home is located at 2727 South Ocean Boulevard, unit penthouse-150, in Highland Beach in Palm Beach County. Scot Karp of Premier Estate Properties has the listing. It has a 58-foot-by-38-foot rooftop terrace. It features a boat dock, cabana and two garage spaces. The unit has a spacious dressing room and updated kitchen. (Condo Vultures data include condos and [more]
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| Developers say convention center project could create 11K jobs |
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Two prospective developers for the billion-dollar Miami Beach Convention Center project said the 52-acre district stands to gain more than 11,000 jobs, the South Florida Business Journal reported. Portman CMC and South Beach ACE filed letters of interest with budgets and financial strategies for the Miami Beach Convention Center project. Yesterday both groups presented a video rendering of their respective visions at a public workshop. The Miami Beach Commission, which last week approved a proposal [more]
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| Across the U.S., signs of a boom market reappear |
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From the New York May issue: They’re back after barely a decade: Escalation clauses in real estate contracts, “naked” contingency-free offers and lowball-priced listings designed to pull in dozens of bidders and turn routine sales transactions into auctions. [more] [more]
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| Are U.S. home prices rising at unsustainable levels? |
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Steep home price gains in certain U.S. markets, including South Florida, have some economists worried that the increases are unsustainable for a healthy housing market, forecasting another real estate bubble, Bloomberg News reported. “If prices keep going up at this rate for another six months, we will have a bubble, and people will get hurt,” Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, told Bloomberg. The traffic for housing [more]
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| Barton G sues for fast exit from Versace mansion |
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Star Miami chef Barton Weiss sued the owners of the Versace mansion in South Beach, alleging they duped the restaurateur into signing a 10-year lease on a property while hiding its imminent default, South Florida Business Journal reported, citing a complaint filed with the 11th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida this week. Weiss, also known as Barton G, has filed for an emergency injunction to remove his boutique hotel and event space business from the [more]
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| Tight supply, all-cash deals are hallmarks of South Florida residential market |
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From the May issue: Like the residential scene nationwide, strong demand keeps shrinking the supply of homes on the market — obviously not good for the scads of buyers out there. But the dearth of properties is driving up prices, making for very happy sellers. The region, though, is distinguishing itself from other parts of the country with its high number of cash transactions, nearly all by international buyers. [more]
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| Look out, Canada – Brazilians take Miami |
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Brazilians have overtaken Canadians as the top overseas visitors and property buyers in Miami as the city shrugs off the after-effects of the 2008 real estate crash, América Economía reported. “There is a love affair between Brazilians and Miami, which has helped the economy in both places,” Rolando Aedo, executive vice-president of the Greater Miami Office of Tourism and Conventions, told the online magazine. Brazilians’ stamp on South Florida’s economy has been “incredible,” Aedo said. [more]
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| Leading developers to discuss SF Market today at TRD roundtable |
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The Real Deal will supplement the launch of its spring 2013 South Florida Market Report, an in-depth look at all aspects of real estate in the region, with a top-flight roundtable Thursday in Aventura. Slated to speak are Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development; Carlos Rosso, president of condominium development for the Related Group; Kevin Maloney, founder and principal of Property Markets Group; developer Avra Jain; and Eric Trump, executive vice president of development and acquisition [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Howard Stern buys $40M Palm Beach mansion 2. Peebles Corp. chief credits NYC entrepreneurs for Miami’s new stature as a global market 3. Edgewater rising as Miami’s next trendy district [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom penthouse condominium asking $4 million. The 5,643-square-foot home is located at 900 Biscayne Boulevard, Unit 6303, in Miami. It features a master suite and open floor plan. Barbara Elmir and Alexandra Goeseke of Cervera Real Estate have the listing. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Monroe County that are [more]
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| Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce chief fights for Marina Lofts project |
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The $150 million rental project in the works in Fort Lauderdale should be approved, the city’s Chamber of Commerce President Dan Lindblade wrote in an op-ed published in the Sun-Sentinel. The Marina Lofts project would create 999 multi-family rental units near the New River with a starting price of $1,100 per month, at a time when demand is outpacing supply, he wrote. Lindblade defended against activists who he said are “spewing propaganda opposing the impressive [more]
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| U.S. home builder confidence rises in May |
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Confidence among U.S. home builders rose in May — a time of rising home prices despite increased costs of building materials — following several months of declines, CNBC reported. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index posted a three-point gain to 44 from the 41 recorded in April. A number over 50 on the index shows that a majority of the 341 builders surveyed see market conditions as good, rather than poor. [more]
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| Tight land inventory squeezes out new hotels |
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A dearth of land in Greater Miami is pushing hotel developers further north than they’d like, Miami Today reported. Would-be hotel investors from Eastern Europe and South America – as well as other U.S. cities – are striking out at their attempt to grab a piece of Miami’s hotel industry, the newspaper said. Soaring land prices and construction costs are barriers for national hotel chains, Guy Trusty, president of Lodging & Hospitality Realty, told Miami [more]
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| Developer offers $1.5M for Florida City ‘Snakepit’ |
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Blue Heaven Villas LLC is poised to buy 22 lots in a Florida City neighborhood dubbed the “Snakepit” because of the slithering creatures known to greet gas-meter readers there, the Miami Herald reported. The developer, also involved in a separate redevelopment project in Florida City, plans to build 100 apartments on the site, where evidence of Hurricane Andrew’s devastation in 1992 can still be seen, the Herald said. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency bought the [more]
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| Office leasing on upswing, but vacancies dampen need for new construction |
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From the May issue: South Florida’s office market isn’t as robust as its residential one — just like much of the rest of the country — but the slower pace of leasing comes with an upside: The surplus of inventory is keeping prices in check for tenants. Less than a fifth of the commercial space in Miami-Dade and Broward counties — 18.1 percent and 18.7 percent, respectively — is available, about the same amount percentagewise
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| Miami-based affordable housing developer Carlisle to unveil units for teens post-foster care |
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Carlisle Development Group, the Miami-based affordable housing developer under grand jury investigation for allegedly padding profits with government subsidies, has built a 22-unit complex with nine units dedicated to youth aging out of foster care, according to a news release. “Life is challenging enough for young adults who come from stable homes, but for youth aging out of foster care, the obstacles to succeeding in life are almost insurmountable,” said chief executive Matthew Greer. Carlisle, [more]
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| Peebles Corp. chief credits NYC entrepreneurs for Miami’s new stature as a global market |
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Miami has become a global real estate market to the credit of New York developers, R. Donahue Peebles, chairman and chief executive of the Coral Gables, Fla.-based Peebles Corporation, said in a New York Times interview. “Strategically, New York and Miami are very well connected. When you look at the last real estate cycle, much of the big boom in Miami took place because New York entrepreneurs and developers came to Miami to develop,” he [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Edgewater rising as Miami’s next trendy district 2. Howard Stern buys $40M Palm Beach mansion 3. Miami real estate red-hot, Oren Alexander says [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a four-bedroom, six-bathroom condominium asking $6.75 million. The 5,200-square-foot penthouse is located at 17121 Collins Avenue, Unit 4604, in Sunny Isles Beach. It features 180-degree views of the ocean, downtown Miami and the Intracoastal Waterway. It also has appliances with intelligent touchscreen technology and is finished in calacata gold marble. Lana Bell of One Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the [more]
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| Howard Stern buys $40M Palm Beach mansion |
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Shock jock Howard Stern has purchased an oceanfront home appraised at $40.8 million on “Raiders Row” in Palm Beach, according to Gossip Extra. North County Road, nicknamed for the high number of corporate tycoons living there, is home to talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh and Nelson Peltz, the billionaire founder of Trian Fund Management. The sellers are New Hampshire textile mogul Martin Trust and his wife, Diane, the blog reported. The Trusts purchased the house in [more]
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| Owner of Weidling House site has plans for home |
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The new owner of the dilapidated but historic Weidling House in Fort Lauderdale plans to build a home on the site, after commissioners approved the demolition last week, the Sun-Sentinel reported. A failed restoration project for the Sailboat Bend home at 716 Southwest 4th Place in 2005 rendered it in poor shape. Three years later, the Unsafe Structures Board issued a demolition order for the building. But the Historic Preservation Board would not give the [more]
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| Housing bubble? What housing bubble? U.S. homes are undervalued, Trulia says |
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In a time of sharply rising U.S. home prices, should one worry about a new housing bubble? Apparently not. Despite the price hikes — which are currently increasing at the same rate as during the 2003, 2004 and 2005 bubble years — there is no bubble today, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Trulia data. The difference is that home prices are now undervalued when compared to personal incomes and rents. In the bubble years, [more]
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| South Florida home inventory drops, sales rise |
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Residential inventory in South Florida decreased to 31,760 from 31,946 active listings for the week ending May 13, 2013. During the same period, pending sales increased slightly, to 24,828 from 24,199. Active listings are properties where no current sale contract exists; pending sales are properties in which a contract for sale has been executed, but not yet closed. Listing brokers control the status of a property listing. The figures were compiled by Condo Vultures Realty [more]
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| Leading developers to discuss SF market Thursday at TRD roundtable |
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The Real Deal will supplement the launch of its spring 2013 South Florida Market Report, an in-depth look at all aspects of real estate in the region, with a top-flight roundtable Thursday in Aventura. Slated to speak are Gil Dezer, president of Dezer Development; Carlos Rosso, president of condominium development for the Related Group; Kevin Maloney, founder and principal of Property Markets Group; developer Avra Jain; and Eric Trump, executive vice president of development and acquisition [more]
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| Miami’s luxe listings vie to break $47M sale record |
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From the May issue: A $47 million glass house with a seven-car garage is the priciest residential sale ever in Miami-Dade County, and brokers are chomping at the bit to break that benchmark. Today, the five most expensive properties on the market range from a mere $39 million to an eye-popping nine digits — $100 million. [more]
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| UK consultancy Colordarcy sees green in Florida |
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Florida property prices are growing at a rate unseen since 2005, according to a Colordarcy analysis of Florida realtors’ data and real estate portals. Investors from Canada to Asia are capitalizing on a weak dollar compared to their home countries’ currencies and a slate of new luxury condo projects, according to Colordarcy, a UK-based property investment consultancy. Median sales prices for single-family homes across Florida shot up by 16 percent from February to March, the [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Edgewater rising as Miami’s next trendy district 2. Miami real estate red-hot, Oren Alexander says 3. Competing visions fuel boom in South Florida [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a five-bedroom, five-bathroom condominium asking $5.9 million. The 5,733-square-foot home is located at Santa Maria at 1643 Brickell Avenue, Unit 3702, in Miami. It features 5,733 square feet and 1,742 square feet of terraces on the waterfront. It also has marble floors, 20-foot ceilings, electric storm shutters, a Jacuzzi, Swedish-style showers with a steam room and a home theater. Fabian Dominguez of Fortune International Realty has the listing. (Condo Vultures [more]
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| Related to break ground at BeachWalk project, with several condo developments nearly complete |
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Several Miami projects helmed by luxury condo developer the Related Group are making progress, the South Florida Business Journal reported. A 22-story project in Hollywood called Apogee Beach is slated to finish construction in the next few weeks. The group plans to begin construction on a 30-story BeachWalk project in Hallandale Beach tomorrow, the Business Journal said. As for condo projects still in the works, the 42-story 1100 Millecento in the Brickell neighborhood broke ground [more]
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| Edgewater rising as Miami’s next trendy district |
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The revival of construction in Edgewater is turning a once-blighted Miami neighborhood into the next hip spot, the Miami Herald reported. As property values steadily climb, developers have been launching several high-rise condominium and apartment projects. The bayfront neighborhood, offering views of Biscayne Bay, unofficially spans Northeast 17th Street north to the Julia Tuttle Causeway at 36th Street and from Biscayne Bay west to the railroad tracks. Developers are drawn to the permissive zoning that [more]
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| Miami real estate red-hot, Oren Alexander says |
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A heated real estate market is fueling another boom in South Florida, with more than 120 projects underway in Greater Miami, broker Oren Alexander said on television to Fox Business. Like its basketball and weather, Miami’s real estate market is ablaze, he said. “On the high end specifically, we have all of the whole world’s wealth out here trying to vy for a handful of properties,” Alexander said. The 20-something Douglas Elliman broker and Miami [more]
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| Sunny Isles Beach sales slow as inventory builds |
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While some 1,200 new condos have been proposed for Sunny Isles Beach, sales are slowing at the barrier island city, according to a new Condo Vultures report. In the first quarter, developers sold 35 units for $20.3 million compared to 70 units for $67.8 million during the same period in 2011, Miami-Dade County records show. New construction could eclipse existing inventory, leaving already standing units shelved, according to Condo Vultures principal Peter Zalewski. “It remains [more]
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| Flippers helping South Florida real estate recover |
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Home flippers are playing a role in South Florida’s real estate comeback, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Buyers are picking up distressed homes at big discounts, sprucing them up and selling them off within two years. They’re getting credit for helping the market to recover after the 2008 crash, the paper said, by improving homes – landscaping and upgrading the interior with new floors and appliances. “When I put a house back up for sale, it usually [more]
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| Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ Miami imprint |
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Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch architect behind the Faena renovation of Miami Beach’s Saxony Hotel, leads one of two firms vying for the $1 billion redevelopment of the city’s convention center. Koolhaas has joined a circuit of Pritzker Prize-winning architects working in South Florida, already assuring his stamp on the region. Bold designs made Koolhaas among the 20th century’s most iconic architects and urban theorists. He has written and published a wealth on cities while designing [more]
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| Beachfront benchmarks: South Florida’s real estate records and notable firsts |
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From the May issue: The year isn’t even half over and already there has been plenty of big real estate news about South Florida — mostly good, some not so good. A few of the noteworthy items are records: the nation’s biggest home and highest foreclosure rate, the region’s most expensive remodeling project and Miami’s first mega-construction loan since the housing bubble burst. We figured you might have missed a tidbit or two, so we
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| Top stories |
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Top stories over the weekend on The Real Deal: 1. Competing visions fuel boom in South Florida 2. Miami’s tallest condo tower to-be nearly sold out 3. Steve Witkoff revealed as “friend” of indicted Russian mobster [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a four-bedroom, five-bathroom condominium asking $7.5 million. The 4,466-square-foot home is located at 321 Ocean Drive, Unit 201, in Miami Beach. It features a balcony and two private gardens. The building, designed by architect Enrique Norten, contains 21 residences. Veronica Cervera of Cervera Real Estate has the listing. Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as [more]
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| Foreclosure settlement check blunder hits North Palm Beach |
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North Palm Beach residents were among the 96,000 U.S. borrowers feeling cheated after receiving errant checks for foreclosure abuses this week, the Palm Beach Post reported. Rust Consulting, a Minneapolis-based paying agent with an office in Palm Beach Gardens, issued a statement Wednesday about the error, saying it would mail supplemental checks to the bilked borrowers “as soon as May 17.” Regarding foreclosure abuses in 2009 and 2010, regulators hired Rust to distribute funds using [more]
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| Prices climb for vacant lots in South Florida |
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Demand for waterfront property in South Florida is so high that the price for vacant parcels of land is rising along with it, the South Florida Business Journal reported. Available lots are not all snapped up, but they are getting scarcer. In Coral Gables, a vast and exclusive vacant lot at 20 Casuarina Concourse in Gables Estates has a $13.5 million asking price, the Business Journal said. The trend can be seen in Miami-Dade and [more]
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| Electric car-charging stations part of Le Parc’s luxury green design |
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South Florida condo developers are competing for cash-rich buyers by upping the ante in luxury amenities. Le Parc, a 12-story “boutique” condo tower in Brickell, is being marketed as the height of green chic. Among a small cluster of LEED-certified residential buildings in Brickell, Le Parc will be “set off the beaten path” of Simpson Park Hammock, one of the few remaining green spaces in Miami’s urban core. The building will offer energy-efficient, stainless steel [more]
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| Steve Witkoff revealed as “friend” of indicted Russian mobster |
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Real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, whose company is behind glitzy new condos at 10 Madison Park and 150 Charles Street, has a reputation for not being shy about betting the rent in his business ventures. And now there’s evidence that he’s a bit of a risk-taker in his personal life, too. New documents obtained by The Real Deal show Witkoff submitted a recommendation for indicted Russian mobster Anatoly Golubchik more than two years ago when
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| Chabad-Lubavitch properties set for July auction |
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The Lubavitch Education Center, the first rabbinical college, or yeshiva, in the southeastern U.S., could be sold in a foreclosure auction set for July, the South Florida Business Journal reported. A Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge awarded Alabama-based Regions Bank a $15.1 million foreclosure judgment against Friends of Lubavitch of Florida and 17330 NW 7 LLC, the owners of the property, in addition to two other properties that provide Jewish education from pre-school to high school. [more]
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| Elliman’s Florida CEO on her nine new offices and what’s up with buyers |
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From the May issue: Vanessa Grout was a Miamian living and working in the heart of Manhattan when she got the call to head Douglas Elliman Real Estate’s Florida operation. Grout didn’t have to think about the offer long. She knew the brokerage from her job as a vice president of its parent company, Vector Group Ltd. She knew her hometown, of course. And she knew real estate would give her the chance to use
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| Competing visions fuel boom in South Florida |
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Competing visions for South Florida are fueling a building boom here, with starchitect skyscrapers rising over Biscayne Bay and ritzy hotels and name-brand condos crowding into the ocean-side suburbs north of Miami Beach. Cash-paying, mainly overseas buyers putting half down as a security are helping to finance various urban experiments across South Florida, with some developers selling the sophistication of a bustling city while others promise exclusivity and space. Carlos Rosso, head of Related Group’s [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Miami’s tallest condo tower to-be nearly sold out 2. $5.2M penthouse sale raises the bar on Brickell 3. Stephen Ross, Dolphins’ owner and Related founder, pledges half of $4.4B fortune to charity [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest listing is a six-bedroom, six-bathroom condominium asking $6.7 million. The 9,498-square-foot home is located at Residences at Vizcaya, 3535 Hiawatha Avenue, Unit 702 penthouse, in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. It features a pool, two spas and cabana areas. The listing agent is Paola Garcia-Carrillo and listing broker is Residence Realty Inc. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm [more]
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| Fannie Mae pays $58.7B in dividends to U.S. |
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Fannie Mae will pay the Treasury Department $58.7 billion in dividends by the end of June, Forbes reported. The mortgage finance firm recorded $8.1 billion in pre-tax income in the first quarter. Its payment to the feds is enabled by a $50.6 billion valuation allowance on deferred tax assets, the magazine said. Then, the total dividends reimbursing the Treasury for the 2008 bailout will hit $95 billion. Yesterday, Freddie Mac reported a quarterly net income [more]
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| Newgard, designer strive for sustainability with new Miami tower Centro |
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UPDATED, 2:00 p.m., May 10: The new 37-floor residential tower project Centro in downtown Miami is one step closer to its vision for sustainability.Newgard Development Group has tapped award-winning entrepreneur and sustainability advocate Yves Béhar to design its new 37-floor residential tower in downtown Miami, according to the company. Newgard intends Centro to be environmentally friendly by encouraging alternative modes of transportation. Centro will offer Car2Go smart cars, a bike-share program and a valet, but [more]
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| Miami’s tallest condo tower to-be nearly sold out |
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Although Echo Brickell is not set to be completed until 2017, all but the priciest units in the planned 60-story condo tower have been snapped up. A month after the condos went on sale, only about 50 units on the tower’s top floors of a total 190 units remain, and these will be sold in a second, exclusive release, Ryan Shear, developer Property Markets Group’s managing partner in South Florida, told The Real Deal. “We’ve [more]
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| U.S. hotel construction loans back, hoteliers say |
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Big-time hoteliers are seeing construction lending come back strong, but less-established developers are struggling because of the strict standards that banks still have in place, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hotel construction is a risky venture for lenders, but Marty Collins of Gatehouse Capital Corp. told colleagues at a conference this week that Gatehouse and other hotel developers are seeing support in financing. A key factor for change in lending is the issuance of commercial
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| Miami’s Power Studios sold for $8M for retail |
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A gargantuan retail complex is planned for the site of Miami’s iconic Power Studios, where Emilio Estefan produced his first music video and where photographer Bruce Weber shot the late fashion designer Gianni Versace’s last catalogue, the Daily Business Review reported. The Design District two-story building, purchased by sculptor Ross Power for $90,000 and opened as Power Studios in 1989, was sold for $8 million to a partnership led by Chariff Realty Group, which plans [more]
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| Retailers on a rampage: Stores of all kinds hunt for space, driving up rents |
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From the May issue: South Florida’s residential brokers aren’t the only ones singing a song these days. So are their retail counterparts. Boutiques, discount giants, supermarkets, restaurants, department stores — they all need space, and they’re leasing it in Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties. [more]
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| South Florida drops title as foreclosure king, according to listings monitor RealtyTrac |
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South Florida is no longer the national leader in foreclosures, the Sun-Sentinel reported, citing April figures from RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based listings monitor. After holding the ignominious title for two consecutive months, the tri-county metro area slipped to third last month, behind Akron, Ohio and Ocala, Florida. One in every 269 homes in South Florida was in foreclosure, with one in every 211 homes in foreclosure in the Akron area, in April, according to RealtyTrac. [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. $5.2M penthouse sale raises the bar on Brickell 2. Stephen Ross, Dolphins’ owner and Related founder, pledges half of $4.4B fortune to charity 3. Investors vy for the waterfront as condo prices rise [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom condominium asking $9.8 million.The 3,731-square-foot home is located at Apogee at 800 South Pointe Drive, Unit 1101, in Miami Beach. It features an outdoor kitchen as well as a 2,400-square-foot terrace that offers views of Fisher Island, Cruise Ship Alley and the Atlantic Ocean. Marcello Agostini is the listing agent and AG Real Estate Advisors LLC is the brokerage firm. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family [more]
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| Opportunity real estate funds now target riskier investments |
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Opportunity real estate funds are increasingly testing out a new profit-making strategy, investing in riskier real estate — such as distressed properties or those with large vacancies — in the hopes of yielding larger returns, the Wall Street Journal reported. During the downturn, private equity and pension funds generally invested in safe properties in healthy markets. But the increased demand for these assets has driven up prices, according to the Journal. As a result, the [more]
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| Miami area home prices up 8.6 percent from last year |
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Home sale prices in the greater Miami area increased 8.6 percent in March year-over-year, according to numbers from CoreLogic. Compared to the previous month, prices in the area — which includes Miami, Miami Beach and Kendall — were up a mere 0.3 percent, including distressed sales, the data provider said. Not including distressed sales, the CoreLogic Home Price Index found prices went up by 15.6 percent year-over-year and 2.8 percent month-over-month. Across the U.S., March [more]
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| Suit accuses missing attorney of investor fraud |
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A Palm Beach attorney who vanished nearly six weeks ago is being sued in the county’s circuit court by a couple who say he looted their trust in order to pay off his own mortgage, the Palm Beach Post reported. The suit, filed last week, is believed to be the first client action taken against attorney Timothy McCabe, who vanished in early April, leaving his law firm’s bank accounts emptied of millions of dollars, the [more]
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| Miami’s top builders let go of bad memories and step up to meet demand |
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From the May issue: It’s anybody’s guess whether real estate in South Florida is headed for another bust, but the boom is clearly on. All the demand, especially for condos, is drying up inventory. And developers are ginning up projects, refusing to be haunted by the bad times of only a few years ago. [more] [more]
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| Investors vy for the waterfront as condo prices rise |
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Investors paid $11.2 million last month for a pair of waterfront development sites on a once-sleepy and now-booming barrier island in Northeast Miami-Dade County, the latest sign of developers’ race for land in South Florida’s heated real estate market. A group of local and international developers are planning nearly 1,000 new condo units for the 20-block stretch of Bal Harbour, Surfside and Bay Harbor Islands, a trio of tiny communities north of Miami Beach, according [more]
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| $5.2M penthouse sale raises the bar on Brickell |
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UPDATED, 1:46 p.m., May 8: The sale of a 70th-floor penthouse at the Four Seasons Residences for $5.2 million has shattered the record amount paid per square foot in Miami’s Brickell corridor, according to the seller’s broker. A “highly recognized European tennis” player paid more than $1,500 per square foot for the apartment in the tallest tower south of New York, where residents live with hotel-style amenities, the broker, Nelson Gonzalez, told The Real Deal. [more]
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| Stephen Ross, Dolphins’ owner and Related founder, pledges half of $4.4B fortune to charity |
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Miami Dolphins’ owner Stephen Ross, the billionaire co-founder and chairman of the closely held luxury condo developer, the Related Group, pledged half his $4.4 billion fortune to charity, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Ross became on Tuesday one of nine new members of the Giving Pledge, created by investor Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates in 2010 to encourage the largesse of fellow billionaires. The group has 114 signatories. “As a very young boy my uncle [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Affordable developer Carlisle accused of fraud 2. Renters getting crushed by U.S. housing costs 3. LNR Corp. HQ sold to Parkway for $66 million [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a five-bedroom, five-bathroom single-family home asking $2.7 million. The 5,454-square-foot French colonial home is located at 5817 Riviera Drive in Coral Gables. It features marble floors, a fireplace and tall ceilings. The fifth bedroom is currently a den and library, but can be converted. The listing agent is Maria Cardenal and the listing broker is Mariana Martinez. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas [more]
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| For Miami subsidized housing developer Carlisle, bank suit court date set on top of grand jury woes |
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Carlisle Group Inc., the predecessor to the Carlisle Development Group, a Miami-based subsidizing housing developer with more than $1 billion in completed projects, has a trial date set for a supposed $5.1 million loan default at Alabama-based Regions Bank. The court action preceded last week’s disclosure that Carlisle Development Group is facing a grand jury investigation into allegations that it defrauded taxpayers by padding construction costs for public projects in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The grand jury [more]
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| Fontainebleau hotel quits hospitality association |
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The Fontainebleau hotel has parted ways with the Greater Miami & The Beaches Hotel Association amid a disagreement over redeveloping the convention center district, the Miami Herald reported. The famed 1,500-room Miami Beach resort was the largest hotel member of the association before it opted not to renew its membership. But the city’s billion-dollar plan soured the relationship. “The Fontainebleau Miami Beach has always advocated an immediate renovation, expansion and upgrade to the Miami Beach [more]
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| Fla. attorney general considering New York’s mortgage settlement banks complaint |
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Florida’s attorney general Pam Bondi said her office is considering claims that Wells Fargo and Bank of America are violating the terms of last year’s nationwide, five-bank mortgage settlement. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has notified a national oversight commission created to enforce the agreement, which requires banks to respond to mortgage modification requests within 30 days, and pledged to sue if the group took no action. Bondi said in a news release this [more]
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| Palm Beach’s most expensive oceanfront homes are lingering on the market |
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From the May issue: For more than a century, ever since Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler put up a 55-room Beaux-Arts mansion to spend his winters, Palm Beach has had a reputation for luxury real estate. Today, a nine-bedroom, newly constructed home on the market for $74 million shows the city is as popular as ever with the richest of the rich. [more]
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| ‘Harriet’ tunnel-making machine at journey’s end |
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Construction workers emerged from the darkness, climbing over chunks of debris pushed by a giant $45 million boring machine Monday as it completed the final leg of forging a westbound tunnel to Watson Island in Miami, the Associated Press reported. The machine, nicknamed Harriet, finished boring a $1 billion tunnel connecting the Port of Miami with nearby expressways. The tunnel won’t open to traffic for another year, the AP reported. Harriet began the underground journey [more]
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| LNR Corp. HQ sold to Parkway for $66 million |
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Parkway Properties signed a deal to buy Lincoln Place, an office and retail building on Washington Ave. in South Beach, for $66 million in debt and stock, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The publicly traded, Orlando-based company said the building is fully leased by LNR Corp., the commercial-property arm spun off from U.S. homebuilder Lennar Corp. LNR is headquartered there in a deal that runs through June 2021. The building’s current owner, 16th Street [more]
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| ‘A tenant’s market’ in Broward, CBRE report says |
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Office space in Broward County, Fla., dropped in the first quarter to a vacancy rate of 18.6 percent while retail and industrial space vacancy hovered around 8 percent, according to a CBRE research report released today. The county north of Miami-Dade saw new tenants absorb 118,000 square feet of additional office space since January, but construction remained at historic lows, with no projects starting in the first quarter of 2013. It’s a tenant’s market for [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Affordable developer Carlisle accused of fraud 2. Renters getting crushed by U.S. housing costs 3. Inside Indian Creek, site of Miami’s priciest homes [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a five-bedroom, five-bathroom penthouse condominium asking $20 million. The 6,000-square-foot home at Bentley Bay is located at 520 West Avenue, Unit 2301, in Miami Beach. It features a private rooftop pool, private entrance, staff kitchen, entertainment area with pool table, private gym and steam room. Janne Keskinen has the listing. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, [more]
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| Developers relying more on alternative financing |
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Despite the rise of construction and demand, commercial and residential developers are still lacking a steady source of funding for projects. However, there are alternative financing options — including private mortgage lenders providing bridge or hard money loans and other alternative lending models — in place to fill gaps, GlobeSt reported. Borrowers are increasingly relying on alternative funding to enable a residential or commercial property purchase or the start of new development, said Jeff Bartel [more]
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| Financial group buys offices at big discount |
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Financial solutions firm Bankers Health Group purchased three office buildings in Davie for $3.5 million — 46 percent off their foreclosed mortgage, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The 39,298-square-foot space at Diamond III Office Park in the Broward County town has been vacant since the buildings were finished in 2008. EverBank seized the buildings last year after foreclosing on a $6.5 million mortgage originated by the now-defunct Bank of Florida — Southeast, the publication said. Bankers [more]
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| Renters getting crushed by U.S. housing costs |
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In the grand scheme of personal finances, your take home pay is like an apple pie. Your bills are the hungry flock of kids banging their fists on the table to get their share. For renters in America, housing is usually the hungriest of the bunch. Ideally, it would gobble up one-third of the pie –– anymore than that, and you likely wouldn’t have enough to feed the rest. Unfortunately, one in four working renters [more]
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| Foreclosure cases clog South Florida courts |
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Clearing the dockets of foreclosures can appear a Sisyphean task for South Florida’s courts as new filings keep apace with closed cases, the Palm Beach Post reported. From July 1 through the end of March, judges moved 168,589 cases out of the system statewide, but 143,772 cases were added during the same period, the Post said, citing a new report by the Office of the State Courts Administrator. Broward County has the highest backlog of [more]
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| Dolphins’ stadium plans halted after bill sidelined |
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The Miami Dolphins halted plans to renovate Sun Life Stadium after Florida lawmakers failed to take up a bill that would finance part of the renovation with public subsidies, the franchise’s chief executive Mike Dee told a Miami CBS affiliate Sunday. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was hoping to win legislative approval for $289 million over 30 years from an increase in mainland Miami-Dade’s hotel tax rate and $90 million over the same period in sales-tax [more]
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| Inside Indian Creek, site of Miami’s priciest homes |
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From the South Florida issue: The most expensive home in Miami-Dade County is in a neighborhood that those in the know consider perhaps South Florida’s most exclusive: Indian Creek. A foreign investor — a Russian who wished to remain anonymous — paid $47 million for a five-pavilion compound that sits on two acres of manicured grounds, including a private beach of imported Bahamian sand, and a 100-foot infinity-edge pool with underwater speakers. [more]
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| Affordable developer Carlisle accused of fraud |
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A Miami federal grand jury is investigating South Florida’s preeminent developer of affordable housing, the Carlisle Group, on accusations of fraud, the Miami Herald reported. The company is suspected of padding construction costs to boost tax subsidies, the Herald said, swindling the U.S. government out of millions of dollars in low interest loans used to finance construction of affordable housing in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The grand jury is focusing on two of Carlisle’s chief [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories over the weekend on The Real Deal: 1. Sales to launch at 43-story Brickell condo tower 2. Related’s Jorge Pérez puts his stamp on the skyline — again 3. Two decades later, ‘Glass’ tower will finally rise [more]
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| Injunction filed in realty rivals’ court battle |
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Concierge Auctions, the Manhattan-based luxury home seller, filed for an injunction in a Florida court against rival Grand Estates Auction Co., alleging the firm has interfered in its business with One Sotheby’s International Realty. The motion comes five months after Concierge sued Grand Estates, based in Charlotte, N.C., in a Palm Beach County court alleging that Grand Estates conspired to ruin its business relationship with Sotheby’s and other firms. The suit comes less than two [more]
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| Today’s priciest listing |
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Today’s priciest new listing is a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom single-family home with a separate cottage asking $6.5 million. The 3,089-square-feet home is located at 56 South Hibiscus Drive on Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach. It features vaulted ceilings, a fireplace and a new pool. Esther Percal of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell has the listing. (Condo Vultures data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Monroe [more]
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| South Florida Market Report available on iPad app |
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The latest South Florida Market Report, included as a supplement in the May issue of The Real Deal magazine, is now available through our new iPad app. Our app provides a rich media experience with extended photo galleries, expanded charts and graphs — we know you love those — and a clipping tool, allowing users to crop articles, photos, and pull quotes to be posted quickly to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media sites. [more]
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| Big investors dominate Florida’s tax lien market |
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Since discovering Florida tax liens are a good way to make a quick buck, big institutional investors have flooded online auctions with shell companies to do their bidding, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Florida is the top state seller of liens, certificates that give holders the right to collect back state and local taxes on properties whose owners are behind on payments, the newspaper said. Lien buyers have to immediately cover the property owners’ tax bill, so [more]
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| Property Markets’ Kevin Maloney weighs in on prices, inventory and what’s next |
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From the South Florida issue: Developer Kevin Maloney had serious doubts about the housing turnaround. It just seemed to be happening too fast, especially considering the depth of the downturn. Was it for real? Was it solid? But Maloney decided to shove his skepticism aside. He had to if he wanted in on the action. [more] [more]
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| Shooting range planned for former citrus grove |
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A former swath of citrus groves in Palm Beach County once earmarked for a research lab may instead become a shooting range, the Sun-Sentinel reported. The county hoped to use the nearly 100-acre Mecca Farms for a biotech village anchored by the Scripps Research Institute, and sunk $100 million in public money into the failed project. Scripps’ labs ended up at Florida Atlantic University’s Jupiter campus, and the project was scrapped. A new state plan [more]
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| Fla. lawyers getting away with foreclosure fraud |
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Banks have paid millions of dollars to settle allegations that they wrongfully foreclosed on thousands of homeowners since the housing industry collapsed five years ago. Loan companies have been charged with submitting fake documents on banks’ behalf. Lawyers and law firms who served as middlemen in the same faulty transactions have not been adequately punished, critics told the Associated Press. Law firms that handled thousands of foreclosures have been accused of falsifying documents with fake [more]
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| For Hilton, wind power is symbol as much as tool |
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The breeze off the Atlantic Ocean will soon serve as a source of fuel for the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort, joining a handful of U.S. hotels with wind turbines, the South Florida Business Journal reported. “The turbines will help us visualize the hotel as a place to be conscious of energy use,” Randy Gaines, a Hilton vice president of engineering, housekeeping and laundry operations, told the Journal. The symbolism of the six turbines being [more]
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| South Florida’s working households hardest hit by housing costs, research center data shows |
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South Florida tops metro areas in the U.S. where working families are under the most strain from housing costs, according to a Center for Housing Policy report. In 2011, 41.2 percent of working households in the tri-county region, including renters and owners, spent more than half their incomes on housing costs, the report said. Despite falling mortgage interest rates and home prices far below peak levels, a robust rental market and anemic salary growth are [more]
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| Top stories |
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Top stories yesterday on The Real Deal: 1. Two decades later, ‘Glass’ tower will finally rise 2. Sales to launch at 43-story Brickell condo tower 3. Related’s Jorge Pérez puts his stamp on the skyline — again [more]
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