Downtown Miami

From the South Florida website: Sao Paulo. Caracas. Mexico City. Toronto. Buyers from cities like those have been driving Miami’s residential market since the worst of the condominium bust. And although it was largely overshadowed in the foreign buyer shuffle, New York City residents are heading back to Florida with money in hand.

“[New York buyers] are very, very real and very active,” said Phil Spiegelman, principal of brokerage ISG. “It’s tangible, and it’s happening at properties across the board.” [more]

The Ritz-Carlton Residences Palm Beach

From the South Florida website: New York and South Florida’s residential market was buoyed by an influx of foreigners last year. But a new player could be emerging from the Far East: China. Generally, Chinese buyers like to purchase where there is already an entrenched Chinese community, with Chinese people and Chinese restaurants — something which New York has, but South Florida lacks right now, said South Florida-based Coldwell Banker Realtor Jeanne Nicastri. But they’re also influenced by their friends, she said, and the more Chinese buyers that decide to make the move, the more that could join them. “Although [South Florida is] a long way from China, we have become very trendy, and we’re on the trendy map,” Nicastri said. “Since they’re already involved in New York, and Miami is an offshoot of New York, that’s what’s driving them to come here.” [more]

From the South Florida website: The New York metro area has the nation’s second-highest level of
interest in Miami real estate after Fort Lauderdale, according to
Trulia’s Metro Mover Index. While more Miamians are looking to move out
of the city, New Yorkers have their hearts set on the Magic City,
according to data on Trulia.com page views. Fort Lauderdale is the top
search destination on Trulia.com for people living in Miami. [Miami
New Times] [more]

From the South Florida website: On the heels of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Howard Lorber announcing a Miami expansion to a new office at the 1111 Lincoln project in South Beach, The Real Deal met with Elliman’s SOBE Luxury Homes brokers Christian Kawas and Ivan Hernandez at one of their listings, 1900 Sunset Harbour in Miami Beach. We talked to the brokers about the improving South Beach market, how downtown Miami is performing better than people think and the way they work with their Elliman counterparts in New York. [more]

While hotel occupancies are up, it’s been a rough go of it for
Florida’s lodging industry of late. But a few new hotels are due to open
on Miami Beach, and they all have one thing in common: Luigi Vitalini. The
Italian-born architect moved to Miami as a teenager and studied at the
University of Miami. He operates VC Architects in Coral Gables with
partner Pablo Corazzini, and has designed the already-open Sense Hotel,
along with the soon-to-open Prime Hotel and Villa Italia, which will
open in the fall. The hotels are low-scale, between 14 and 18 rooms
each. Vitalini spoke with The Real Deal about his projects and
the state of design in Miami.  

How does Miami hotel design compare with New York?
I do
think a lot of the hotels that we’ve been getting here in Miami are
starting to become comparable, in terms of creativity, with some of the
New York hotels. They’re starting to do a lot of design, more quirky
than in New York. I think in Miami with the sun and the beaches you can
get a little more playful in general. [more]

The New York metro area has the second-largest backlog rate for bad loans among the country’s top 10 markets, according to a recent Barclays Capital report. With 21 percent of its loans still in the delinquency pipeline, the region, which thus far hasn’t been hit as hard as others by price declines, could take longer to recover as the dud loans work their way through the system. The Miami market also bears the weight of a substantial foreclosure backlog, the report says, having worked its way through just 18 percent of the process of liquidating its delinquent loans. The common ground likely stems from the judicial foreclosure process in states like New York and Florida. Since judges have to sign off on all foreclosures there, the process is more prone to delays. [WSJ]

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]

Tibor Hollo and One Bayfront Plaza, the Opera Tower, and the Sonesta Mikado Hotel Miami on Biscayne Bay.

From the South Florida Web site: He helped shape modern Miami, and that makes developer Tibor Hollo a world figure of sorts. Last week, that was confirmed when Hollo, the president of Florida East Coast Realty, was named “Global Citizen of the Year” for 2009 by the City of Miami and the Greater Miami Host Committee.
Eighty-two-year-old Hungarian-born Hollo, who has spent 55 years in the development game, was chosen for his ability to bring Miami to the world and the world to his adopted city.
On Thursday, the Miami City Commission formally recognized his contributions when it bestowed the award.
“Mr. Hollo has committed to concepts of sustainability which, of course, are global issues,” said Corky Dozier, executive director of the Greater Miami Host Committee. “By focusing on sustainability, he is actually restoring what was traditionally part of the landscape of Downtown Miami…. He is the father of Downtown Miami real estate development.” [more]

Infamous landlord Larry Gluck is in hot water again. His
company, Stellar Management, which owns the Riverton Houses in Harlem,
faces imminent default a loan on a Silver Spring, Md. residential
development. The 890-unit Georgian Towers had just undergone a $35
million renovation when its $58 million loan went to a special
servicer. This spells bad news for Gluck, who recently refinanced
Riverton Houses with $225 million of mortgage debt, only to see the
complex later appraised at $52 million, putting it deep underwater.

Last week, Steven Gaines, best-selling author of “The Sky’s the Limit:
Passion and Property in Manhattan,” answered readers’ questions about
covering high-end real estate in Manhattan, the Hamptons and South
Beach, on Twitter. Gaines has interviewed some of the most high-profile brokers selling
real estate in New York City, the Hamptons and South Beach. He is also
author of New York Times bestseller “Philistines at the Hedgerow:
Passion and Property in the Hamptons,” and “Fool’s Paradise: Players,
Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach.” He lives in Long
Island. Today, The Real Deal is sharing some of Gaines’ best responses. TRD [more]