Montreal investor picks up Miami Beach Art Deco apartment buildings for $7M

A Canadian investor paid $7 million for a pair of Art Deco apartment buildings in Miami Beach, in an off-market deal.

An investment group led by Michael Fischer of Montreal bought the Flamingo Apartments complex at 2456 Flamingo Drive and 320 West 25th Avenue, according to the brokers who handled the deal.

Fischer’s group paid $269,230 per door for 26 units in two buildings completed in 1938 and 1940. It is his first real estate purchase in South Florida, the brokers said.

The seller, an entity managed by Tony DiPiazza in Deerfield Beach, paid $3.6 million for the combined properties in 2015, according to records.

Jacob Serure with SRE Commercial Group represented DiPiazza’s entity. Techrin Hijazi and Seth Cohen with Brown Harris Stevens represented the buyer.

Flamingo Apartments has a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. Serure said the two-building complex is fully occupied and that rents are below market.

Serure, who also represented DiPiazza in 2015, said Fischer’s brokers contacted him to make a deal. “After a couple of weeks of back and forth, the buyer and the seller agreed to a price of $7 million,” Serure said. “We signed the contract around Thanksgiving, so it took a couple of months to close.”

Hijazi said Fischer was initially looking for multifamily properties in Miami Beach with “a significant cap rate,” but could not find any. “He still wanted to be in Miami Beach, so he bought this [apartment complex] because of the property value and the location,” Hijazi said. “It is only a block away from the water.”

Fischer will increase the rents, Hijazi added. He is also under contract to purchase another Miami Beach multifamily property, she said.

While trades of larger multifamily projects garner the most attention, deals under $50 million are dominating the South Florida market, according to a year-end report by Cushman & Wakefield. The firm completed $4.5 billion in South Florida multifamily sales last year, with 16 deals closing under $50 million each, the report states.

The report found that the South Florida multifamily market is “arguably the hottest commercial real estate market in the U.S.,” as the region continues to experience record population growth that is fueling demand to record highs. Last year, South Florida multifamily sales hit a record $11.4 billion, the report states.

Among other recent multifamily sales, North Miami Beach-based Treevita acquired Victoria at Lauderhill, an 88-unit apartment complex in Lauderhill, for $12.8 million; and Global Horizons Group, also based in North Miami Beach, sold a 71-unit multifamily portfolio in Fort Lauderdale for $13 million.