From the South Florida website: There are 20 condominium towers currently being proposed in South
Florida, including two downtown and another in South Beach, according to
a report from Condo Vultures. The 20 towers could have as many as 4,000
units in the area east of I-95. The moves come in part from a surge in
foreign buyers prepared to pay with cash, the report said. The first condo tower near the
coast to assemble a crane for vertical development is the 23 Biscayne
Boulevard project in Miami. — Alexander
Britell
[more]

New Yorkers are buying at Canyon Ranch in Miami

From the South Florida website: In a departure from the general trend of foreigners purchasing in Miami, Canyon Ranch Miami Beach has seen a surge in sales, led by a substantial number of buyers from New York City. According to Michael Sadov, the sales director at Canyon Ranch, the property has sold 82 out of 433 units since October 2010, roughly a year after the project changed hands. Although he would not release the exact sales figures, Sadov estimated the total volume at around $75 million. [more]

From the South Florida website: Eight months after purchasing a condominium unit at the Ritz-Carlton Residences
Singer Island, a New York-based entity called Singer Island Tower Suite
has resold the unit for around $650,000, according to a Condo Vultures report, less than the original purchase
price. Buyer Daniel Rifkin paid $3.76 million for the four-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom suite at the project, which was formerly known as 2700
North Ocean Drive, according to the report from Condo Vultures. The
property had been listed for $4.25 million. TRD [more]

Icon Brickell

The sales have come from a variety of sources — from high-end
parties with partners like Versace to real estate fairs in South
America to — yes, an iPad app. But Icon Brickell, the massive project
at the edge of Brickell Avenue in downtown Miami, has seen strong sales
after taking
over marketing from Related [more]

From the South Florida website: Reluctant
banks have led to a new wave of buyers in Miami Beach real estate –
those looking for quick, all-cash deals. With financing not just
difficult to obtain but also time-consuming, sellers are looking to
move their homes faster, and buyers, with cash lining their pockets,
are ready to move on deals. As has been the trend in Miami Beach, the
new all-cash buyers are Europeans armed with easily accessible funds
and are eager for quick deals on higher-end properties. “With the state
of the market being what it is, it’s typically a 30- to 60-day process
for financing,” said Peter Zalewski, founder of Condo Vultures Realty.
“If you want to come in with financing, you’re going to have to put in
a 15 to 20 percent premium. The seller would rather take less money and
move it in 20 days.”

[more]

2390 SW 106th Terrace

The South Florida home to see the biggest price cut today is a
five-bedroom, five-bathroom single-family home at 2390 SW 106th Terrace
in Davie, according to data from Condo Vultures Realty. The $3.1
million Broward County home saw a $290,000, or 9 percent, price cut. It
was originally listed for $3.6 million when it hit the market last
June. The price was last cut to $3.39 million in December 2009. The
10,548-square-foot home features an equipped workout room, a sports bar
and coral stone balconies. Kimberly Slorp of Ion Realty has the
listing. (Condo Vultures
data includes condos and single-family home listings in the main
metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Key
West that are priced at $1 million and above, and that include
photographs. Listings are taken from the South Florida MLS.) TRD

[more]

From the South Florida Web site: South Beach residential real estate prices are staying strong at the high end as buyers fork over cash to buy ultra-luxury condominium units. Upper-echelon properties, especially those in the South of Fifth neighborhood, are holding their own and, in some cases, fetching more than expected. “In South Beach, I would say prices are holding, prices are coming back,” de Solminihac said. “I saw a few transactions where the buyers expected to get lower prices, and the sellers got even higher prices than the first bids.” He cited one example at the Portofino tower, where the first offer for a $2.2 million unit came in at $1.5 million, and that was out-bid by a $1.55 million offer. Finally, a buyer came and offered $1.725 million and the deal closed in 15 days. [more]

Dwyane Wade and his home in Pinecrest, a suburb of Miami

From the South Florida Web site: Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade missed the mark when he sold his 9,000-square-foot Pinecrest, Fla., mansion last week at a $1.5 million loss, according to research firm and brokerage Condo Vultures. The basketball star bought the nine-bedroom spread with wife Siohvaughn Wade at the height of the housing market, paying $3.98 million, or $440 per square foot, in August 2005. The couple is now reportedly going through a divorce. Last week the home, on Southwest 59th Place, sold for just $2.5 million, or $277 per square foot. Wade’s home was originally listed for $8.9 million in March 2007 and has a long history of price reductions. The price was first slashed to $6 million in August 2007, then to $4.99 million the following April. It was taken off the market in January 2009 and relisted in May 2009 at $3.3 million. The final price cut, to $2.9 million, was in Feburary 2010. TRD [more]

From the South Florida Web site: A recent situation where a buyer purchased 19 units in a Miami condo, then sold them in 20 minutes for a $200,000 profit may not be house flipping per se, but it is a trend Condo Vultures Realty calls “condo arbitrage.” There have been multiple examples in recent weeks of similar quick-flipping of bulk purchases of condos, and could be a sign the market is bottoming out. Many of the purchases are now in cash, and could be due in some part to the Federal Housing Agency’s lifting of the ban on using FHA-insured mortgages to buy homes that had been sold less than 90 days before. [more]

Prices for Miami real estate have dropped as much as 43 percent from the 2006 peak

From the February issue:
For some Manhattan renters, buying a second home is coming before buying a first. While New York real estate has seen severe discounts (Manhattan prices are down roughly 20 percent from their peak), some New Yorkers are going to real estate markets like Miami or the Hamptons that have been burned by even deeper discounts. In the Hamptons, prices have dropped as much as 30 percent since 2006, said Barbara Weber, managing director of Nest Seekers International in the Hamptons. In Miami they have dropped as much as 43 percent, compared to the city’s historic high in 2006, according to Peter Zalewski, a broker with the Bal Harbour-based Condo Vultures Realty. “You can literally buy five condos in Miami for the price of one in New York,” said Ron Shuffield, president of EWM Realtors in Miami. New Yorkers are also taking advantage of foreclosures and short sales in the Miami-Dade area, said Alfredo Vizcarrondo, president of the AV Group in Doral, a real estate company. “In the last quarter of the year, there [was] increased interest from New Yorkers,” said Vizcarrondo. He said he recently closed on properties in Miami’s Brickell area and in Aventura for prices as low as $160,000.  [more]