Tech investor Keith Rabois paid a record $28.9 million for a waterfront mansion in Miami Beach, as the wave of Silicon Valley buyers intensifies in South Florida, The Real Deal has learned.
Rabois, a member of the “PayPal Mafia,” who has invested in companies such as PayPal, LinkedIn, Square and Yelp, has been vocal on Twitter about his move from California to Miami.
He acquired the roughly 15,000-square-foot Venetian Islands home on a 0.6-acre lot at 1429 North Venetian Way from the former CEO of Bolthouse Farms, Andre Radandt.
The nearly $29 million closing beats the previous Venetian Islands record of $22 million for the spec mansion at 212 West Dilido Drive in 2017. It comes as a wave of tech executives and CEOs, as well as wealthy buyers from the Northeast, buy waterfront properties in Miami Beach.
Business Insider in 2014 estimated Rabois’ net worth at $1 billion.
The Venetian Islands property was on the market with Douglas Elliman agents Bryan Sereny and Bill Hernandez. Judy Zeder of The Jills Zeder Group at Coldwell Banker represented the buyer. She could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sereny declined to comment on the sale, but said, “There’s an unprecedented level of interest in people relocating to Florida from the West Coast and the Northeast.”
The four-story home has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, five half-baths, and a 4,868-square-foot rooftop garden. The 5,600-gallon saltwater aquarium was imported from Japan and requires a scuba diver to maintain. It cost $1 million to import it from Japan, Elliman said when it hit the market in June for $34 million.
Radandt, the seller, paid $9.2 million for the property in 2015. The home, completed this year, was designed by Dufner Heighes with landscaping by Urban Robot, and a screen wall by Erwin Hauer, an Austrian-born American sculptor, who died three years ago.
The rooftop garden includes a wet bar and Bradford-tiled spa tub. The property also has a gym with NFL turf on an adjacent terrace, two master suites, an infinity edge pool, boat lift, outdoor kitchen and outdoor shower, and a four-car garage. The mansion features a 1,112-bottle wine cellar.
The inventory of waterfront single-family homes for sale in Miami Beach is dwindling quickly, with out-of-state buyers picking up properties on a daily basis, according to brokers and property records.
Jonathan Oringer, the billionaire businessman who founded the stock media company Shutterstock, paid $42 million for a waterfront mansion on North Bay Road in Miami Beach in October, setting a new record for the high-end street.
Earlier this month, software company SEO Mark Sutcliffe paid $15.8 million for a waterfront spec mansion on Di Lido Island, one of the Venetian Islands.
““The numbers are eye-popping,” Sereny said. “2019 was a record year for single-family home sales. In July, we passed the record.”