Hedge funders make a deal: Faena House condo trades for $15.5M

UPDATED, May 11, 9:53 a.m.: A London investment manager sold his condo at Faena House in Miami Beach after upgrading to a more expensive unit at Four Seasons Residences at the Surf Club in Surfside, The Real Deal has learned.

Hedge fund manager Leonard Licht, of HG Capital, and his wife Judith Licht sold their 4,730-square-foot, four-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom oceanfront unit at Faena House to Arvind and Shilpa Sanger for $15.5 million, according to sources and property records.

Unit 6A at 3315 Collins Avenue (Redfin)

Arvind Sanger is founder and managing partner of Geosphere Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund. The couple relocated to Miami Beach from New York in January, listing a unit at Mosaic as their Florida domicile, records show. Sanger sold one of two units that he owned at Mosaic Miami Beach, a few blocks north of Faena House, last year for about $3 million.

In March, the Lichts paid $18.5 million for a unit at the Surf Club, an ultra luxury oceanfront condo and hotel development at 9001 Collins Avenue, records show. They listed unit 6A at Faena House, at 3315 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, in January for $17.5 million.

Unit 6A at 3315 Collins Avenue (Redfin)

Toni Schrager of Brown Harris Stevens represented the Lichts in the sale of their Faena House unit. Bryan Sereny and Bill Hernandez of the Bill & Bryan Team at Douglas Elliman represented the buyers, the Sangers.

The asking price was reduced in March to $16.9 million, before it sold last week. The Lichts acquired the unit from investor Alex Blavatnik in 2017 for $13 million. (Blavatnik’s brother, billionaire Len Blavatnik, is the financial backer of Alan Faena’s mixed-use Faena District.)

Sereny said his clients “looked up and down the coast” at condos in newer buildings on the ocean that are larger than 4,000 square feet.

“There is high demand for condos in this price range, and there is actually very limited supply,” he said, adding that “we’re still seeing many people relocating from New York and also California.”

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Condo sales have climbed as single-family home sales decline in parts of South Florida. In Miami Beach and nearby towns, including Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, Sunny Isles Beach and Surfside, condo sales increased 47 percent annually to 1,476 closings in the first quarter, according to Douglas Elliman’s reports. Inventory of condos declined 56 percent to 1,893 listings.

Luxury condo sales, defined as the top 10 percent of the market, performed similarly, rising 48 percent annually to 178 closed deals in the first quarter.