What’s driving billionaire buyers to Miami’s most expensive penthouses

A mystery buyer plans to spend over $120 million for the penthouse at the Shore Club, an Auberge-branded luxury condo development on the ocean in Miami Beach. 

The deal won’t close until the project is completed, possibly in 2026, but it will still likely set a record for the most expensive condo sale ever in Florida and most expensive price per square foot sale (more than $11,000 per square foot). 

It could also be the most expensive residential sale in Miami-Dade County history. The existing records for condo and single-family home sales in the county are held by billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who paid $60 million for two units at Faena House in 2015 and about $107 million for a Coconut Grove estate in 2022. 

The pending deal at the Shore Club, a Witkoff and Monroe Capital development at 1901 Collins Avenue, doesn’t speak to the entire condo market, but it is indicative of the continued migration of significant wealth to South Florida. 

Witkoff, Monroe and Douglas Elliman won’t comment on the sale. Witkoff rarely, if ever, will grant an interview regarding the Shore Club. That’s part of the development team’s strategy when it comes to marketing the project in the press. Exclusivity, privacy and secrecy drive their approach. Prices are not released publicly. Few renderings exist online. A small group of developers are using the same approach to capitalize on demand from the 1 percent of buyers, insiders say. 

“There’s this notion of getting what is not available to others,” said Douglas Elliman Florida’s CEO Jay Parker, who would not comment on specific projects. “It’s sort of the same as me speaking to an ultra-high net worth property owner and they don’t want to list [their property on the MLS]. Most people they know would rather buy something that hasn’t been marketed.” 

Some developers also want to know who else will be quoted in the media coverage — including this story — in their attempt to control the messaging surrounding their projects. 

“Because of the strong demand, there is no need to broadcast to the whole world what it is we’re doing,” said developer Michael Shvo, who is building the Rosewood-branded Raleigh Miami Beach a couple of blocks south of the Shore Club. “Buyers of that nature want to stay very, very private and very exclusive.”

Luxury broker Oren Alexander, whose firm, Official Partners, is leading sales and marketing at the Raleigh, said buyers at that level don’t want other people knowing where they live, what their units look like and what amenities they have access to. There’s also the “vanity play” factor. 

“There’s always one person who lives on top,” he said. 

The buyers are in finance or tech, or are billionaire entrepreneurs, developers and brokers say. Many are new to South Florida, and these purchases will mark their second, third or fourth homes. Billionaires are in some cases pushing out the millionaires. 

The population of millionaires has grown 75 percent over the past decade in Miami, Forbes reported, citing a wealth report from Henley & Partners. More millionaires, centimillionaires (those worth $100 million or more) and billionaires live in Miami than anywhere else in the U.S. 

“In the long run it will be very much appreciated for our buyers, that they’re going to be living in a place that the public doesn’t know about,” Alexander said. “It’s a very different approach to Miami new development marketing.”

Creating scarcity 

Record per-square-foot pricing can be traced back to resales at the Four Seasons-branded Residences at the Surf Club in Surfside, an oceanfront project that Fort Partners completed in 2017. Alexander said little to no inventory exists for billionaire buyers, which is why they’re looking at new developments. 

The majority of boutique, oceanfront condo projects now in the presales phase or under construction are concentrated in South Beach, but some are scattered north and south of that area. Vlad Doronin and Len Blavatnik’s Aman Residences, under construction at 3425 Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, will have just 22 units, according to the project website. Aman has been fully presold for years. 

The Shore Club Private Collection will have 49 condos once completed. Nearby at 1775 Collins Avenue, Shvo’s Raleigh Miami Beach will have about 40 units. The redevelopment of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, South Beach, calls for just 30 units with the penthouse potentially asking $125 million.

The planned penthouses may come with a private pool, large terraces, better appliance packages and access to five-star hotel services. The buildings often include private clubs and restaurants.

Most new projects at the highest end of the market will have fewer units, despite the fact that the sites are in most cases zoned for more units. This creates “organic scarcity,” Parker said.  

Shvo has said that deals are under contract for more than $10,000 a square foot at the Raleigh. Units are going into contract for more than $5,000 per square foot at other expensive projects, sources say. At Mast Capital’s planned oceanfront Perigon development in Miami Beach, the penthouse is under contract to trade for more than $7,600 a foot, according to sources, though Mast declined to confirm that. 

Many of the penthouses that are or will be available for sale don’t even have asking prices. Developers are releasing them to specific buyers “upon request.” The exclusive factor goes both ways. 

At the Raleigh, sales are by invitation only. 

“We do quite an extensive job scrutinizing who the buyers are,” Shvo said. He called that stretch of the ocean along Collins Avenue “Billionaires’ Beach.” 

Shvo had architect Peter Marino design a 7,000-square-foot hospitality suite to host buyers until the Raleigh is completed in 2026. Marino is designing the new project alongside Kobi Karp Architecture & Interior Design. The 3-acre Raleigh development calls for restoring and renovating historic hotel buildings and constructing a separate 17-story oceanfront condo tower. 

Developer Nick Pérez, who leads Related Group’s condo division, said he or his brother Jon Paul, president of Related, have met every buyer at their Fisher Island project. The private island, located off the MacArthur Causeway, has long been a magnet for wealth. 

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Related and its partners BH Group and billionaire Teddy Sagi launched sales of Six Fisher Island in 2022, with asking prices averaging $30 million and penthouses starting at double that. 

At Six Fisher, two penthouses are under contract to different buyers, Pérez confirmed. One will span nearly 11,000 square feet, while the other will be about 15,500 square feet — larger than your typical mansion. A penthouse at Related and Integra Investments’ planned St. Regis Residences in Brickell is recently available for sale asking $45 million. 

“There’s been a lot more [interest] than expected,” Nick Pérez said. 

Catering to these buyers includes hosting dinners, knowing their cocktail order for meetings at the sales gallery, and having the developer check in personally. The developer is typically involved “oftentimes because we don’t necessarily have [the penthouse] priced,” Parker of Elliman said. 

“At these higher price points, it’s a personal connection with these buyers [who want] the comfort of knowing and trusting the developer,” he added. 

Demand is unlike previous cycles, when penthouses were the hardest to sell.

Seth Kaufman, head of sales at One Sotheby’s International Realty, said privacy is also driving the way the priciest units are being marketed: quietly. 

“As the wealth continues to come to Florida and the population increases, people are concerned about security,” he said. 

Parker brought it back to Griffin, who bought his units after touring Faena House in person nearly a decade ago. Though Griffin ended up selling those units at a loss, never having combined them, that oceanfront condo building, home to the Who’s Who of buyers, was seen as the pinnacle of new condo development in Miami at the time. 

Now, “buyers coming into this market are wanting to secure their most valued assets as soon as they become aware of them,” Parker said. “Penthouses are trading earlier in the process than they would historically. Today, there’s many [buyers] in the $50 million market.”