Disney family-backed development group finishes first of three new Miami Beach condo projects

A ninth new condo project — Peloro — has been completed in the internationally known barrier island city of Miami Beach during this current South Florida real estate cycle that began in 2011.

Developer sales in the Peloro condominium project that features an eight-story building with 114 units and more than 125,500 square feet of sellable space began to be recorded on March 28, according to Miami-Dade County records. The development is located in the 6600 block of Indian Creek Drive fronting the Intracoastal Waterway. (For disclosure, a firm that I founded brokered a deal in the project.)

To date, at least nine units in the Peloro project — developed by a Delaware corporation led by Meir Srebernik in conjunction with the family fund of the late Roy E. Disney — have traded for a combined $5.6 million, which works out to a price of nearly $626,000 each for an average of about $561 per square foot as of Monday, according to government records. (For disclosure, my firm has provided consulting services for the development group but not this project.)  

Peloro is one of three new condo projects — along with the five-story Palau Sunset Harbor with 45 units and the 18-story L’Atelier with 20 units — being developed in Miami Beach by the developer, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

Individual units in the Peloro project have transacted at prices ranging from $350,000 to nearly $1.1 million each. On a price-per-square-foot basis, individual condos have traded from less than $375 to as much as nearly $710, according to government records.

Currently, a pair of units in the Peloro project are listed for sale at a price of nearly $975,000 each for an average of more than $775 per square foot as of Monday, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

Miami Beach — an international destination for foreign investors and domestic buyers alike — is the seventh most active market east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, based on nearly 2,125 total units announced during this cycle, according to CraneSpotters.com.

On the Miami-Dade County barrier island, Sunny Isles Beach — where 21 new condo towers with nearly 3,175 units are in the pipeline this cycle — ranks as the most active market. The Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands market — located between Miami Beach to the south and Sunny Isles Beach to the north — ranks third on the barrier island based on a pipeline of 35 new condo buildings with nearly 1,650 units announced as of Monday, according to the research.

To date, 14 new condo buildings — including the Peloro project   — with more than 500 units have been constructed in Miami Beach since 2011. An additional 17 buildings with nearly 420 units are currently under construction, according to CraneSpotters.com.

Combined, the number of new units completed and under construction represents about 43 percent of the total pipeline of new condos slated for development during this cycle in Miami Beach.

At least 22 new condo buildings with more than 1,200 units — some 57 percent of the total pipeline announced — are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in the Miami Beach market, according to the data.  

Aside from the pipeline of new condo projects, the Miami Beach market currently has more than 2,600 units being marketed for purchase at an average asking price of nearly $1.3 million each or more than $820 per square foot, according to the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

In 2015, buyers acquired more than 2,265 condo units at an average price of more than $650,000 each or nearly $535 per square foot, according to the data.

Based on the 2015 resale transaction pace of about 189 units trading monthly, Miami Beach currently has nearly 14 months of supply of condos available for purchase, according to the data.

A balanced market is considered to have about a six-month supply of units available for purchase. More months of condo units available for purchase suggests a buyer’s advantage, and less months indicates a seller’s advantage in negotiating transactions.

The unanswered question going forward is whether the demand for barrier island condos will be strong enough to absorb all of the units that are currently available for purchase at a time when the South Florida region is heading into the hot and humid summer months of the year.

Peter Zalewski is a real estate columnist for The Real Deal who founded Condo Vultures LLC, a consultancy and publishing company, as well as Condo Vultures Realty LLC and CVR Realty brokerages and the Condo Ratings Agency, an analytics firm. The Condo Ratings Agency operates CraneSpotters.com, a preconstruction condo projects website, in conjunction with the Miami Association of Realtors.