Transactions underway at new Brickell City Centre Reach condo tower

Some two years after launching presales on a speculative development, the newly completed Reach tower has begun to record unit transactions. It’s one of two 43-story condo buildings, with 390 units each, being constructed in the first phase of the $1 billion-plus Brickell City Centre mixed-use project in Greater Downtown Miami.

Developer sales in the Reach condominium tower, located at 68 Southeast Sixth Street in the Brickell Avenue area of Greater Downtown Miami, began to be recorded on April 12, according to Miami-Dade County records.

Developed by a Swire Properties-controlled Florida corporation led by Stephen Owens, at least 10 units in the Reach condo tower have transacted for nearly $8.5 million, which works out to an average price of about $845,000 each, for a blended rate of more than $665 per square foot as of Monday, according to government records.

Individual units in the Reach condo tower have transacted at prices ranging from more than $560,000 to at least $1.3 million each. On a price per-square-foot basis, individual condos have traded from less than $575 to more than $700, according to government records.

Currently, four units in the Reach tower are listed for sale at an average asking price of more than $1.2 million, for a blended rate of nearly $660 per square foot as of Tuesday, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

Transactions have not yet begun to be recorded at the nearby Brickell City Centre Rise condo tower, located a block west at 88 Southwest 7th Street. But eight units are currently listed for sale at an average asking price of more than $878,000 each, or $672 per square foot as of Tuesday, according to the Southeast Florida MLXchange.  

The completion of the Reach building comes 24 months after condo presales were started in April 2014. At the time, the Reach and Rise condo towers were already under construction.

The completion of the Reach tower means that 10 new condo buildings with nearly 2,400 units have now been constructed in Greater Downtown Miami since 2011. An additional 25 buildings — including the Rise tower at Brickell City Centre — with about 8,250 units are currently under construction, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)

Combined, the number of new units completed and under construction represents about 45 percent of the total pipeline of new condos slated for development during this cycle in Greater Downtown Miami.

At least 45 new condo buildings with more than 12,775 units — some 55 percent of the total pipeline announced — are currently in the planning or presale phase of development in the Greater Downtown Miami market, according to the data.  

Overall, developers have announced plans to build at least 417 new condo towers with more than 51,000 units east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach during this cycle that began in 2011, according to CraneSpotters.com.

The Greater Downtown Miami market is the most active area east of I-95 in the South Florida region, based on more than 23,400 total units announced during this cycle, according to the data.

Aside from the pipeline of new condo projects, the Greater Downtown Miami market currently has more than 3,300 units being marketed for purchase at an average asking price of nearly $681,000 each or more than $490 per square foot as of Tuesday, according to the Southeast Florida MLXchange.

In the first quarter of this year, buyers acquired about 340 condo units at an average price of more than $447,200 each or about $386 per square foot between January and March, according to the data.

Based on the 2016 resale transaction pace of about 113 units trading monthly, Greater Downtown Miami currently has more than a 29-month 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 Greater Downtown Miami can attract enough buyers at the current prices to acquire all of the new and existing condo units that are available for purchase at this point of the 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.