Elliman hits Midtown to pitch Boca Raton penthouse to New Yorkers

Brokers yesterday from the recently opened Boca Raton division of Douglas Elliman flew to New York and hosted a wine tasting at the French restaurant Le Cirque in Midtown to promote a Boca Raton luxury penthouse listed for $9.85 million.

While it may seem unusual to market a Palm Beach County property in a city more than a thousand miles away, Senada Adzem, director of the Boca Raton division of Douglas Elliman, told The Real Deal that her office will begin making a habit of marketing select South Florida properties in New York.

With so many foreign buyers descending on South Florida’s high-end condo market, brokers are frequently heading to where the international buyers are, according to Adzem. New York and South Florida have international buyers in common. Wealthy buyers from Russia, the Middle East and throughout Europe have scooped up so many high-end properties in the last six months that inventory is only barely keeping up.

Adzem said that this was the first time Douglas Elliman Florida had promoted a South Florida property in New York and that they will continue to bring listings to the city if the event proved successful. “I see this property as a second home for a New Yorker,” Adzem said. Another Elliman agent added that “99.9 percent” of their luxury buyers are from out of state.

As The Real Deal previously reported, the European-style penthouse, which is located at the Toscana North condominiums at 3700 South Ocean Boulevard, is the largest penthouse in Palm Beach County and the second largest in all of Florida. It has been on the market since July 2011 and Adzem took over the listing from Scot Karp of Premier Estate Properties this May.