Developers have sold 85 percent of the condos built in South Florida during the building boom beginning in 2002, according to a report released this week by Bal Harbour-based consultancy Condo Vultures.
The report, which studies condo markets from South Beach to West Palm Beach, found that developers have sold 41,258 condos in the last eight years, with the largest chunk of sales taking place in downtown Miami.
``People are certainly taking advantage of the fact that [condos] are affordable and available both to live in and also to invest in,'' said Leo Zabezhinsky, manager of business development and real estate for the Miami Downtown Development Authority.
While many of the boom-time buyers were speculators , many of today's buyers are investors and vultures, hoping to capitalize on the troubled market by renting out the units.
That explains much of the shift in sales activity taking place between South Beach and downtown Miami, as rental demand is up in places like Brickell and purchase prices are lower in the city than by the ocean, said Peter Zalewski, principal at Condo Vultures.
``An investor comes in, they look in South Beach, and they get sticker shock,'' he said. ``If they want to be on the sand, they go up to Sunny Isles Beach. If they're looking for investment value, new construction, they go to downtown Miami.''
Spurred by bulk buyers and lender takeovers, condo sales in downtown Miami reached 3,675 in 2010, up 57 percent from 2009, according to the report, based on county records. Condo sales in South Beach totaled only 123 last year, up from 107 in 2009. At the current sales pace, it would take about a year to sell out the remaining developer inventory in downtown, and more than a decade to sellthe 1,300 new condos in South Beach.
Areas like downtown Fort Lauderdale benefitted from good timing, as developers completed most of their condo projects before their housing market crashed. There are only 160 new condos yet-to-sell in downtown Fort Lauderdale, where more than 5,000 units were built during the boom.
Condo Vultures focused its report on seven housing markets in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, concentrating on areas east of I-95 and near bodies of water. During the 8-year span covered in the report, 244 new condo projects were created in those markets, for a total of nearly 50,000 units.
The epicenter of the building, sales and developer default activity has been in downtown Miami and Brickell, where more condo units were built in the 2000s than in the previous four decades combined.
About 18,675 new condos have sold in the downtown area in the last 8 years, totaling about 84 percent of the inventory, according to the report, based on county records.
Developers ``built 23,000 condos, and when over 80 percent have been sold and occupied, clearly it tells you that this is where people want to live and invest,'' said Zabezhinsky. ``The condos have single handedly helped lead the transformation of downtown Miami into a 24/7 global city.''
The Point Aventura
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Condo inventory detailed in new report - 85% of boom era condos have sold
Friday, January 7, 2011
Real Estate: South Florida's still a national leader in mortgage fraud
South Florida remains a national hub for mortgage fraud, as a new federal report shows the region led the nation in reports of suspicious activity in the third quarter of 2010.
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA
TOLORUNNIPA@MIAMIHERALD.COM
South Florida's mortgage market had the nation's highest number of suspicious activity reports in the third quarter of 2010, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's third-quarter mortgage fraud report released Thursday.
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties logged 3,039 reports of questionable mortgage loan activity between July and September, about 33 per day, and more than any other metropolitan area in the nation. Florida's 5,404 suspicious activity reports, or SARs, during that time period ranked it second in the nation, behind California. On a per capita basis, Florida ranks ahead of California.
Miami-Dade County had the lion's share of South Florida's fraud reports, with 1,784 in the third quarter, second only to Los Angeles County, which had 1,967.
Jonathan Heller, a Miami defense lawyer defending a client who he believes was a victim of mortgage fraud, said he is not surprised by South Florida's ranking.
``When you have mortgage brokers who are unsavory, who are fueled by irresponsible lenders, it's like the perfect storm,'' he said.
Nationwide, there were 16,693 suspicious activity reports in the third quarter of 2010, up 2 percent from the same period in 2009. Florida was responsible for 32.3 percent of the nation's mortgage loan fraud reports that quarter, the report found.
The top types of mortgage fraud reported were false statements, debt elimination scams, identity theft and money laundering.
Most reports of mortgage loan fraud occur more than two years after the original loan was made. Of Miami-Dade's 1,784 reports logged in the third quarter of last year, only 404 involved loans made after Jan. 1, 2008.
That is consistent with the national trend, as those reporting fraud are focusing more on older incidents.
In the third quarter, 76 percent of SARs occurred before 2008, compared to 54 percent in 2009.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/07/2004440/south-floridas-still-a-national.html#ixzz1AN8OfBbs
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Short sales in region rose sharply in 2010 - Business - MiamiHerald.com
Short sales -- transactions where a home is sold for less than the outstanding mortgage amount -- increased 49 percent in South Florida last year, a new report from Condo Vultures shows.
There were 16,800 short sales in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties in 2010, up from 11,300 in 2009, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. That was about 22 percent of all transactions.
Short sales -- which take longer to close than traditional sales because mortgage holders have to approve -- were able to sell at a faster pace in 2010. The average 2010 short sale was on the market for 195 days before selling, down from 203 days in 2009. The average time on the market for all sales was 121 days.
-- Toluse Olrunnipa
Source: Miami Herald - Residential Real Estate