South Florida eclipses 40K new condo units milestone

Peter Zalewski
Peter Zalewski

The South Florida preconstruction condo market surpassed the long-anticipated symbolic milestone of 40,000 units this cycle in the final days of 2014 with a flurry of announcements by competing developers planning a series of projects east of Interstate-95 in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

To date, developers have announced plans for 311 new condo towers with more than 40,500 units during this real estate cycle, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

During the last South Florida real estate cycle from 2003 to 2010, developers created less than 250 new condo towers with 49,000 units in the tri-county region’s seven largest coastal markets, according to an analysis of government records.

If all of the proposed condo projects of this current cycle are actually built, Miami-Dade would be home to 202 new towers with more than 29,000 units. Broward is slated to see 63 new condo towers with nearly 7,800 units built within its boundaries. An additional 46 new condo towers with nearly 3,700 units have been proposed for Palm Beach.

Greater downtown Miami represents the largest number of new condos announced with nearly 18,400 units to be developed within 71 towers. The greater downtown Miami market represents more than 45 percent of the total number of preconstruction units announced for South Florida.

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The Hollywood-Hallandale Beach market in southeast Broward County is the second most active market with 21 new condo towers with more than 4,750 units announced. The downtown Fort Lauderdale and beach market ranks third with 26 new towers with nearly 2,600 units announced.

Rounding out the top five South Florida preconstruction markets based on the total number of new units announced are Sunny Isles Beach with 19 new towers with nearly 2,500 condos, and West Palm Beach with a dozen towers and more than 2,100 units.

Some of the other active areas where developers are busy plotting new condo projects are Aventura with 13 new towers and 2,100 units; Miami Beach with 33 new towers and nearly 1,500 units; and the Bal Harbour-Surfside-Bay Harbor Islands market with 29 new towers with nearly 1,300 units.

The unanswered question going forward is whether buyers’ enthusiasm for the South Florida preconstruction condo market will match that of the developers who have announced these new projects.

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.