We often work with buyers from all over the world who have questions regarding the buying process in the United States because it often varies from country to country. In today’s video, Michael discusses a few misconceptions or questions that foreign buyers sometimes have when shopping for real estate here.
In the above video, Michael discusses the recent 14 unit bulk sale at Epic as well as the microbrewery that will occupy the southeast corner of the first floor commercial space at Marina Blue.
Last Thursday, we acquired a new listing at Marina Blue. It’s a beautiful 2 bedroom/2 bath condo on the 51st floor with breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean, Biscayne Bay, the Miami Beach skyline and Downtown Miami. The condo has 1,208 square feet of interior, 138 square feet of balcony, porcelain tiled floors throughout, Wenge California-style closets, window shades and 10-foot ceilings. The purchase price also includes two assigned parking spaces. As many of you know, it is rare for a 2 bedroom or even a 3 bedroom condo in Miami to include a second parking space. Additionally, the condo includes a 55 square foot storage room which is pictured below.
Marina Blue is located in Downtown Miami across the street from the American Airlines Arena at 888 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132. Please give us a call if you or someone you know has an interest in viewing this Marina Blue condo in person. 305-428-3860
Late Wednesday afternoon, we launched the Miami Photos and Images Blog. The new site gives us the opportunity to share great shots of Miami with locals and people from across the world as we capture the pictures throughout the week. As real estate agents constantly on the move, we consider ourselves ideal candidates to establish a grand collection of Miami photos. I can’t tell you how many times I am taken aback by a view or scenery and wish I could encapsulate the moment to share it with others. The Miami Photos and Images Blog will allow us to do just that. Our goal is to post at least one photo per day to the blog. That shouldn’t be a difficult endeavor to tackle given the advancement in mobile/cellular technology and the ease of sharing those pictures.
Every Friday, to keep the mood light and fun, we will post a “Funny MLS Picture of the Week” like the one below. You would be surprised by what some agents upload onto the MLS to “showcase” their listing. Then again, maybe we should be grateful that they were able to find the time in their busy schedule to actually upload a picture. It drives me crazy when I see a listing without any pictures. Anyway, my intention is to give you a laugh or two every Friday.
As mentioned in our last post, we’re planning to unveil the new Miami Condo Investments website some time next week. The Miami Photos & Images Blog will be one of the new features but we will also be introducing a way for visitors of the site to share their own photos with others.
The Brickell Condo Index is back! It has been a year and a half since I last published the Brickell Condo Index. Fortunately, eighteen months is a good reference point and definitely enough time where one would expect a lot to have changed with the condo market. For those of you who haven’t followed this blog that long, the Brickell Condo Index is an in-depth look at the various condo buildings in Brickell with various statistics included to illustrate the health or weakness of each building.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but this will be the last Brickell Condo Index to appear on this blog. From here on out, the Brickell Condo Index, as well as other neighborhood indexes, will only be made available via email. Early next week, I will unveil a new version of the Miami Condo Investments website. The new website will be much easier to navigate, have a lot more content, load considerably faster and, most importantly, allow you to register to our Miami Condo Investments weekly newsletter. The weekly newsletter will contain the best condo deals of the week, relevant news stories and exclusive market data such as the neighborhood condo indexes. The neighborhood condo indexes will be emailed the Sunday following the 15th of each month, the day that I have chosen to collect and compile the data. Each neighborhood will be represented every six months as follows: Brickell this month, Brickell Key next month, Downtown Miami in October, the Edgewater in November, South Beach in December and the Miami River area in January. The cycle will then start all over so a neighborhood update is provided twice per year. In the meantime, if you’d like to be included on the newsletter list then simply send us an email at [email protected] and convey your interest to be placed on the list. The blog will not change and will continue to be updated but the market data reports will only be made available via our newsletter.
Before we get into this month’s numbers, let me discuss a few changes that I made to the Brickell Condo Index since the last update in February 2009. First, I excluded One Miami from the index. One Miami will be included in the Downtown Miami Condo Index in October. Second, Latitude on the River and Neo Vertika were also excluded. Both will appear in the Miami River Condo Index in January 2010. Third, I decided to include 1060 Brickell, 500 Brickell, Brickell on the River South and The Plaza on Brickell. Each has had enough closed resales to warrant their inclusion in the Brickell Condo Index. Fourth, I decided to bring back The Sail on Brickell. As of late, I’ve seen much more interest in the building due to its price point and it is much healthier than it was in October 2007 when I dropped it from the index. I guess you can say that it’s officially off the pink sheets. There are now a total of twenty buildings in the Brickell Condo Index whereas before there were eighteen. Last, but not least, I decided to round the price per square foot calculations. I think it makes everything easier to read and I honestly don’t think excluding the two decimal points makes the figures any less insightful.
As per the MLS, the average of the asking prices of the twenty condo buildings that now represent the Brickell Condo Index is $376 per square foot. The average asking price per square foot for each Brickell condo building individually can be found below:
At the bottom of this post, I included a chart that shows how each of the above figures compares with those published in February 2009. Solaris at Brickell experienced the largest drop with average asking prices there falling slightly over 40 percent. Three of the buildings saw a slight increase in their average asking price per square foot within the past eighteen months. These were Bristol Tower, Four Seasons Residences and Villa Regina.
Below, you’ll find the average price per square foot for Brickell condos sold in the MLS within the six month period from February 1, 2010 to July 31, 2010. I decided to do it this way because I’ve noted that oftentimes it takes agents a few weeks to change the status of a listing in the MLS from pending to closed. The neighborhood as a whole sold at an average price per square foot of $285 during that time period.
The biggest surprise in the figures above when compared to those in February 2009 is Jade Brickell. The average price per square foot for closed sales during the previous six months increased a little over 14 percent when compared to the figures published eighteen months ago. Other buildings that experienced an increase are Skyline on Brickell, The Mark on Brickell, Villa Regina and Vue at Brickell. With the exception of Villa Regina, these buildings were some of the hardest hit in Brickell when the market collapsed mainly due to the large amount of mortgage fraud that took place in these buildings. The Club at Brickell Bay and Solaris at Brickell are two other buildings in Brickell that were heavily victimized by mortgage fraud. The Club at Brickell Bay saw about a 1 percent decrease in average closed sales prices while prices at Solaris at Brickell fell slightly over 9 percent. This actually makes sense since the fallout at Solaris at Brickell didn’t take place until about a year after the others. Also worth mentioning, prices at Santa Maria fell a little over 4 percent within the past eighteen months but the numbers were a bit skewed due to Penthouse 4901 recently selling for $1,100 per square foot. The average for the past six months would have been much lower had it not been for that sale.
Below you will find some additional statistics. Click on the image to enlarge it.
The first column to the right of each condo development name is the difference in the average sales price and list price for this month, expressed as a percentage. A high percentage indicates that there is a large discrepancy between the average asking price for condos currently on the market and what has actually sold within the past six months. In other words, many of the sellers in these buildings are delusional and are in need of a reality check. For example, 1060 Brickell has a very large discrepancy because there are quite a few units asking over $400 per square foot and even some asking over $560 per square foot while closed sales have averaged around $208 per square foot within the past six months.
The second column shows the number of active listings currently in the MLS for each condo development. The third column shows the percentage that these listings represent over the total number of condo units in each development. The cells highlighted in green reveal those condo developments that have active listings that that represent less than 10 percent of the overall units in the building. This is typically one indication of a sound condo building. When I first started doing the Brickell Condo Index in 2007 many of the cells in this column were highlighted in red, indicating that active listings represented over 20 percent of the building. This was always a good indication that prices would fall further in these buildings. For example, in February 2009, active listings at Solaris at Brickell represented slightly over 20 percent of the building. That was the largest percentage of listings at that time and it is not a coincidence that eighteen months later prices fell the most at Solaris at Brickell of all the buildings represented in the Brickell Condo Index.
The fourth column reveals the number of condos currently pending sale in each building. The Club at Brickell Bay has a whopping 42 pending sales at this time and there are a total of 155 pending sales in all of the buildings combined. In February 2009, there were only 81 pending sales although a total of twenty buildings are now present in the Brickell Condo Index rather than eighteen. The fifth column displays the number of closed sales from February 1, 2010 to July 31, 2010. Once again, The Club at Brickell Bay leads the way with a total of 38 closed sales in that time period. It’s interesting to note that there were 20 more closed sales in the six months prior to February 2009 when compared to the current closing numbers even though the index now has two additional buildings.
The sixth column shows the difference in the average list prices from this month’s and February 2009’s, expressed as a percentage. Those highlighted in red reveal those condo developments which had a drop in their average list price while those highlighted in green show those that experienced an increase.
The seventh column reveals the difference in average sales prices from this month’s and February 2009’s, expressed a percentage. Once again, those highlighted in green represent an increase while those highlighted in red represent a decrease.
Well, that’s all for today. Have fun with the numbers. Time for me to get back to work on the new website.
While walking the parameter of Icon Brickell yesterday, I noticed that construction on Miami Circle Park had already begun. For those of you who don’t know, Miami Circle Park is located directly north of Icon Brickell along the Miami River. The purpose of the park is to preserve a 2,000 year old Tequesta Indian site that was discovered in 1998. Brickell is in dire need for green space and this will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.
Late last week, I showed a few condos at The Club at Brickell Bay to a client. On our way out, I noticed a pair of poster boards alongside a voting box in the lobby. The voting box urged condo owners to vote for one of two plans to renovate the building lobby with the following descriptions below each option:
Option 1: A royal blue scheme, referencing existing color tones, but done in a much more opulent and sophisticated manner, with new porcelain tile flooring, area rugs below new seating areas, wall covering, drapery feature wall treatment (while keeping the window wall unobstructed), reception/concierge desk, central feature table, ceiling treatments, light fixtures and artwork/accessories/greenery
Option 2: A neutral champagne scheme that is a more distinct color departure from the existing blue, but nearly identical to Option 1 in terms of architectural design treatment with the exception of a mirror installed in place of artwork, and circular rugs in lieu of square at the seating areas
The best news of all is that I heard that there’s enough money in the budget to undertake such a project. Maintenance fees will not increase as a result of the renovation project nor will a special assessment be levied. Looks like the building has come a long way since management was replaced a few years ago. I remember the days when The Club at Brickell Bay had difficulties paying its own operating expenses.
We get a lot of calls from people who are interested in buying a short sale condo but aren’t exactly sure what a short sale is or what the short sale process entails. On yesterday’s show we answer several frequently asked questions regarding short sales and also discuss how a short sale differs from a foreclosure, also known as an REO or real estate owned. At the beginning of the show, we discuss three Miami foreclosure condos that came on the market recently: One Miami #1426, Courvoisier Courts #203 and Solaris at Brickell #1601. This is our longest video to date but a lot of good information is provided.
We put the finishing touches on our Marquis Miami condos website earlier this afternoon. Once again, we’re delighted with the end result and are proud to officially launch it. The site is dedicated to condo news, listings and information specific to Marquis. There you will find Marquis available condo sales, available rentals, recent sales, recent rentals, floor plans, charts, videos, resident reviews and a blog dedicated to all news relevant to Marquis. Listings for Marquis condo sales and rentals are updated every 24 hours.
This is the third website that we’ve launched within the past month. We are very pleased with the success of our Marina Blue condos website. Within a month of launch Google has already ranked it number 12 for the keywords “Marina Blue condos”. I’m confident that it will continue to move up the rankings in the months to come. We’re currently working on a building specific website for 900 Biscayne Bay condos. That website should be finished within the next two weeks. Our plan is to then launch a website dedicated to Paramount Bay condos in preparation for when the building begins closings.
