Spec home developer Peter Fine just dropped the price of his waterfront lot on Palm Island, marking a 27 percent cut since putting it on the market last year, amid the slowdown in luxury sales.
The 30,000-square-foot lot at 158 Palm Avenue in Miami Beach is now priced at $6.15 million, down from $8.45 million when it was first listed in May 2016. The price includes approved plans for a modern mansion. It’s the third price change for the property, down from $6.95 million in September and $7.5 million in July, according to Redfin.
Nelson Gonzalez of EWM Realty International has the listing for the site, which sits on the southern side of Palm Island and faces the downtown Miami skyline.
The vacant lot
“He’s not into building a house on this lot, and he has a couple of other properties in the process of building or finishing up on North Bay Road,” Gonzalez said. “He just wants to finish those and sell them.”
At the new price, he calls the vacant lot the least expensive in Miami Beach. “We haven’t seen prices that low in close to 10 years,” Gonzalez said. Another lot of the same size at 135 Palm Avenue sold for $9 million in September.
County records show Fine’s company, 158 Palm LLC, paid $5 million for the lot in 2014. That price breaks down to about $167 per square foot. Now, he’s asking $205 per square foot for the land.
Fine launched his South Florida spec home development firm To Better Days Development in 2015, with a goal to develop ultra-luxury waterfront mansions in Miami Beach on North Bay Road and Palm Island.
He originally planned to build a spec home at 158 Palm Avenue, with about 10,000 square feet. It was to have an asking price of $18 million, with an estimated completion date of fall 2016.
Fine, who lives in New York and Miami Beach, built his first Miami Beach spec mansion at 6440 North Bay Road. It is now on the market for $29 million, down from its original $30.5 million asking price. The 15,000-square-foot mansion is listed by Darin Tansey of Douglas Elliman.
He also has spec homes planned for 6010 North Bay Road, a site he bought for $6.25 million in 2013; and 6342 North Bay Road, which he purchased in May 2015 for $9.5 million. He is completing the home at 6010 North Bay Road and has not yet begun construction at 6342 North Bay Road, Gonzalez said. Fine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In recent months, luxury spec homes have lingered on the market and seen price cuts, as high-end properties experience a slowdown in sales. According to a an Elliman report released in January, the median sales price of single-family homes priced at $1 million or more in Miami Beach and the barrier islands dropped by 56.4 percent in the fourth quarter, year-over-year, to $5.45 million. Among other local developers with spec homes on the market are Todd Glaser and Palos Developments’ Brett Palos, whose newly built mansion at 6466 North Bay Road is priced at $25.5 million.
Fine has a long history in real estate development and management in the New York area, where he has developed about 9,000 multifamily units over the past 20 years, mostly under the banner of the Atlantic Development Group, where he is the managing member and CEO. The company’s holdings also include 300,000 square feet of retail space in New York.