The shine is back on South Beach.
“You know the Murano Grande building?” Vanessa Grout, president of Douglas Elliman Florida, asks, referring to the Related Group-developed, 270-unit condo tower in South Beach’s desirable South of Fifth area. “Two years ago, 20 percent of it was on the market due to foreclosures and distressed assets. Now it’s down to 5 percent.”
Pietro Belmonte of Douglas Elliman, which has expanded from 70 agents to more than 160 since Grout took over in October, recently sold a 1,548-square-foot two-bedroom at Murano Grande, in an all-cash deal, for $950,000.
And broker Mark Zilbert of Zilbert Realty Group, who himself lives in Murano Grande, has made some of his biggest recent deals there. Zilbert has closed three separate, three-bedroom residences, all about 3,000 square feet and priced at more than $1.9 million, at the building since September.
“The demand for waterfront is very high, and buyers want the better buildings,” Zilbert says. “Continuum, Setai, Murano Grande — all the usual suspects are doing well.”
Continuum and Murano Grande, along with Icon and Apogee, are among South of Fifth’s most coveted developments. A three-bedroom, 3,103-square-foot unit at Apogee closed for $4.995 million, more than $1,600 per square foot, in March. And Douglas Elliman’s Carlo Gambino has the listing for a $35 million triplex penthouse at Apogee — with 8,000 square feet inside and 13,000 square feet of exterior space, including a 6,000-square-foot roof deck with a pool.
The other ultra-pricey cluster of South Beach is from 20th to 22nd streets, where the Setai and W South Beach have both seen a $3 million-plus unit close for more $1,700 per square foot since March.
But pricing is tricky all over Miami. There are still foreclosures and short sales, which means all-cash buyers can sometimes swoop in and buy apartments for less than half the price of other units in the same building.
And just because some buildings are hitting sky-high prices doesn’t mean the market is close to Miami’s pre-bust days.
“This rebound is very building-specific, very neighborhood-specific,” says Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger Wooten Maxwell (EWM) Realtors. “It’s a nice rebound, but we’re not seeing it across the board. We have a lot of foreclosures.”
According to data provided by Shuffield, 15 percent of all South Beach condo inventory is classified as a foreclosure or a short sale, but the market is certainly stronger than it was last year. In February 2010, there were 1,617 South Beach condos on the market. In February 2011, it was down to 1,283. And sales of condos priced at more than $1 million have increased from an average of 10 a month to an average of 15 a month.
So, it’s not surprising that firms like Douglas Elliman, which now has South Beach offices at the Herzog & de Meuron-designed 1111 Lincoln Road and South of Fifth on Ocean Drive, are trying to make a big splash on the beach.
“The Miami market has become exciting again,” Grout says. “While we may still see some softening, the unsold inventory is absorbing at a much faster rate.”
Another beneficiary of the better market is Walid Wahab of Wahab Construction, a high-end residential builder who tricks out Miami apartments with elaborate kitchens and bathrooms, smart-home technology, rooftop gardens, pools and outdoor dining areas with their own kitchens.
Wahab, who has worked on Murano Grande, Continuum and Setai units, creates interiors ranging from $400 per square foot to $1,200 per square foot and outdoor flourishes for “about a third of the price of building an interior.” This is all, of course, in addition to the initial cost of purchasing the apartment.
“Being a small company that focuses on upscale, we haven’t seen a complete meltdown of upscale construction,” Wahab says. “We only take five projects at a time. You can always find five wealthy people in Miami — 50 people you can’t find, but you can always find five.”
