The latest condo building proposed for the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market is slated to be a boutique project with a limited number of large units, as has been the trend during this cycle. As the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach residential real estate boom continues to gain momentum, this new condo — the 50th that has been announced in the market — would increase the number of proposed units in Broward County’s largest city to nearly 3,300 during this cycle that began in 2011.
A year ago, developers had announced plans to build 24 new condo buildings with less than 2,600 units east of I-95 in the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market as of the week of Dec. 8, 2014, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)
A Hollywood-based development corporation called 124 Hendricks Isle LLC with managing member Dror Tohar plans to build the new five-story building with six units called One 24 Residences. The property is on a site located in the 100 block of Hendricks Isle in the Las Olas Isles neighborhood of Fort Lauderdale, situated between downtown and the beach, according to Fort Lauderdale Planning & Zoning Board records.
Developers have now announced plans to build 13 new boutique condo buildings with less than 115 units — including the One 24 Residences — in the Las Olas Isles neighborhood. The area currently represents about 3 percent of the entire Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach pipeline of new projects during this cycle, according to CraneSpotters.com.
Even though South Florida’s current real estate cycle is entering its fifth year, the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market appears to still be in the relatively early stages of development compared to the more active market of Miami-Dade County to the south.
Currently, five new condo buildings with 52 units have been constructed in the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market as of Monday. An additional 16 buildings with less than 450 units are currently under construction, according to CraneSpotters.com.
Combined, the number of new units completed and under construction represents about 15 percent of the total pipeline of new condos slated for development during this cycle in the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market.
Nearly 30 new condo buildings with less than 2,800 units — some 85 percent of the total pipeline announced — are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in the market, according to the data.
Overall, South Florida developers have already completed 51 new condo buildings with nearly 4,000 units east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. An additional 126 new condo buildings with nearly 12,200 units are currently under construction in South Florida.
A combined 227 new condo buildings with more than 32,600 units — about 67 percent of the total tri-county pipeline — are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in South Florida.
The announcement of another condo project being proposed for the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market comes at a time when less than 700 resale units are available for purchase as of Monday, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.
In the first 11 months of this year, buyers purchased nearly 1,035 resale condo units in the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market, according to the data.
At the current condo resale pace of 94 transactions monthly, the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market has about 7.3 months of supply of units available for purchase.
A balanced residential real estate market is considered to have about six months of supply of units. More months of supply of resale units typically suggests a buyer’s market, and less months of supply indicates a seller’s market.
The unanswered question going forward is how many more boutique condo projects will be announced for the Las Olas Isles neighborhood of the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and Beach market during this current South Florida real estate cycle.
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.