Coming Soon – Bayview Market in the Arts District of Miami
Earlier this week, the Miami Today News reported that construction is scheduled to begin on Bayview Market in the first quarter of 2010. The commercial development will consist of up to 535,000 square feet of retail and office space and cost approximately $200M. The 7.35 acre site will be located in the Arts District of Miami on the corner of NE 17 Street and NE Second Avenue and will include big-box retailers and a supermarket.
Bayview Market has been a highly anticipated commercial development in Miami and will be a great boon for the Arts District as well as Downtown. Both neighborhoods currently lack quality retailers and a nice supermarket. Lowe’s, the home improvement store, will act as one of the anchor stores at Bayview Market. It is estimated that the development should take about 18 months to complete.
New & Improved South Florida MLS Property Search for Condos
Many of you have already noticed that a much improved Miami condos search has now taken the place of the old property search. New search parameters have been added to allow your search experience to be more powerful and effective. For example, you can now search by year built, number of parking spaces and distressed sales (foreclosures and short sales), as well as many other parameters. Additionally, you can now draw a shape onto the map to restrict the search to condos located within that shape. For example, in the picture above, I drew a shape around Brickell Key to restrict the search to only condos located in Brickell Key. Enjoy!
South Beach Vacation + Bargain Condos = Miami Condo Investments Tour
I’ve been kicking around this idea in the back of my mind for quite some time. I guess the timing just never felt right. Prices have now fallen to a more realistic level, however, and it may be time to at least discuss the idea to see if there would be any interest.
I’m proposing to hold a two-day tour of Miami and South Beach condos in June of this year. The tour would focus on the best condo deals in Brickell, Brickell Key, Downtown Miami, the Arts District of Miami and South Beach. The objective would be to educate nonlocal buyers, who may not be familiar with the various neighborhoods and condo developments, but may have an interest in buying here at some point in the future. It’s also an opportunity for local buyers to take a first-hand glimpse into the best condo investment deals in Miami. Weather-wise, June may not be the best time of the year to visit South Florida, but I expect the deals at that time to be even better than they are now.
The condo tour would be held on a Friday and Saturday, in which time we would visit 10 buildings and about 30 condo units. The tour package would include a 3-night stay at the Loews Hotel, a 4-star/4-diamond oceanfront hotel in South Beach; 3 breakfasts; 2 lunches; and the 2-day chartered bus tour. The cost would be $900 for one person or $1,500 for 2 people staying in one room. The 2-day chartered bus tour would also be open to local buyers who do not require hotel accommodations at a rate of $300 per person. To those who close on a condo that was placed under contract within 3 months of the tour, I would credit half the cost of the condo tour package at closing for those requiring hotel accommodations and the full cost to those paying the $300 rate.
I’d love to get your feedback about this idea, and I’m open to suggestions regarding the buildings that will be included in the tour. Please add your thoughts in the comments section and use the second poll below to vote on the buildings that you’d like to see on the tour (you may select multiple buildings when voting). I’m hoping to get around 20-25 interested parties in order to set this plan into motion.
[poll id=”7″] [poll id=”5″]
Drive Down Brickell Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard – Video
I must say that I’m very impressed with how far video technology has come along over the past year. Gone are the days of YouTube’s grainy video quality. YouTube now allows people to upload and view HD videos. Don’t expect the HD quality that you see on your HD TV but it’s still a big leap for Internet video.
Here are a couple of videos that I shot Friday night while driving down Brickell Avenue and Biscayne Boulevard. (It may take a while to load if you’re using a slow Internet connection). You’ll notice Icon Brickell, Epic and One Miami in the video below:
Downtown Miami has changed tremendously within the past 4-5 years. I just wanted to share a few pictures that I took earlier this week. As you can see, the construction cranes are gone from the Downtown Miami skyline.
New Downtown Miami condo developments 50 Biscayne, Vizcayne, Marina Blue, 900 Biscayne Bay, Ten Museum Park and Marquis can be seen in the pictures above and directly below. The American Airlines Arena, Bayside Marketplace and Bayfront Park appear in the picture above as well.
(Below) A look south down Biscayne Boulevard.
(Below) The view east from a Downtown Miami condo high-rise.
New Miami Condos – Closing Rates for February 2009
It’s been a few months since my last Miami condo closing rate update. The percentage of closed units for 25 major condo developments are provided below, starting with the first development to begin closings. Four condo developments have been added: Icon Brickell, Everglades on the Bay, Infinity at Brickell and Epic. You’ll find these towards the bottom of this post.
Below, you will find the date that each condo development began closings followed by the number of closed units in each condo development:
With the exception of Onyx on the Bay and 50 Biscayne, the first group above has remained unchanged. Onyx on the Bay was able to close one additional condo while 50 Biscayne was able to close two.
Quantum on the Bay and Plaza on Brickell once again were able to show a decent improvement in their closing rate. Quantum on the Bay closed an additional 14 condos while Plaza on Brickell was able to close 21. 1800 Club did not have any new closings but I did find another deed that had been recorded twice. This is the reason why the total number of closed condos in this update is one less than the total stated in the December 2008 post for 1800 Club. It needs just 7 more closed condos to hit the all-important 70 percent mark.
As a result of the 60-unit bulk sale, Marina Blue showed the most improvement of the above five condo developments since the last update. I did, however, find re-recorded deeds for Marina Blue that I had previously missed. The developer of Marina Blue has now closed around 82% of the total number of units.
In my opinion, the five condo developments above are all likely candidates for some sort of bulk deal taking place in the future. Met 1 was able to close 7 additional units, Asia 2, 900 Biscayne Bay 13, 500 Brickell 17 and Axis 8. As a result of the new Fannie Mae guidelines, it is not likely that we’ll see significant improvement in any of the condo developments that haven’t thus far reached the 70 percent mark.
Above, you’ll find the four newly added condo developments which began closings within the past 3 months. Timing could not have been worse for these four. They’re going to need to find a plethora of cash buyers who are willing to pay dated prices. Ivy at Riverfront, which began closings back in June 2008, was able to close 14 additional condos since the December 2008 update.
The bright side is that the condo construction cranes of Miami are gone. The cranes that remain are for commercial developments. Marquis and Paramount Bay, which should begin closings within the next 3 months, will be the last of the newly constructed condos to hit the market in Miami. It does appear, however, that Met 3 has begun to lay its foundation. Hopefully, the condo market will reach some sort of equilibrium by the time that development has been completed.
Disclaimer: The above closing rate information was derived from public County records. There can be a 2-3 week delay from the time that a closing occurs and the time that the closing is recorded. The information above is not deemed 100 percent accurate as a result of delays in the recording of deeds and deeds being re-recorded.
Ten Museum Park HOA Fees Increase About 36%
Earlier this afternoon, I confirmed with the management office of Ten Museum Park that a significant increase in the monthly homeowners association fee was approved towards the end of December. The new monthly HOA fee, which is now in effect, increased from approximately 55 cents per square foot to approximately 75 cents per square foot. This represents about a 36% increase in monthly dues for condos owners of Ten Museum Park. This is something that potential buyers need to be aware of since I found only one or two listings in the MLS that stated the correct monthly HOA fee.
With the exception of Jade, Solaris at Brickell Bay and Emerald at Brickell, which have each been burdened with a high number of foreclosures, I can’t think of another major condo development in Miami built within the past decade that has such a high HOA fee. Ten Museum Park is a boutique condo development with only 200 units, which may be where the problem lies. Most of the new condo developments in Miami have over 400 units and can divide their monthly expenses among more condo owners. While the overall monthly expenses for larger condo developments may be greater, my assumption is that the costs for condo expenses such as staff salaries, building insurance and maintenance of the condo building and amenities is proportionally much smaller.
Marina Blue Bulk Sale – A Closer Look
As many of you have already heard, a 60-unit bulk sale recently occurred at Marina Blue. Two local newspapers published articles about the deal earlier this week.
An investment group, under the name Welcome Bay LLC, paid slightly over $13M for the 60 condos. The transaction was recorded on December 24, 2008.
The 60 condos included in the Marina Blue bulk sale sold for an average price of $200 per square foot. Below, you will find the bulk condo sale separated as per the 60 recorded deeds. As many of you have discussed in a previous post about the Marina Blue bulk condo sale, it is important for everyone to realize that these are not retail prices. An individual cannot and will not be able to purchase condos at Marina Blue at these prices. The 60 condos below were part of package deal with prices that were distributed accordingly to arrive at the $200 per square foot average.
Correction: I just found out that there was an error in recording the deeds with the county. Each unit was sold for exactly $200 per square foot.
Unit 411 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 610 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 703 – $196,400 – 982 SF – $200/SF
Unit 810 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 911 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1111 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1511 – $169,000 – 845 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1703 – $188,600 – 943 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1801 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1802 – $168,600 – 843 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1812 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1901 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 1906 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2007 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2009 – $264,600 – 1,323 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2012 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2104 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2106 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2202 – $168,600 – 843 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2204 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2312 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2404 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2503 – $188,600 – 943 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2512 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2709 – $264,600 – 1,323 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2805 – $239,600 – 1,198 SF – $200/SF
Unit 2903 – $188,600 – 943 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3002 – $168,600 – 843 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3201 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3202 – $168,600 – 843 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3304 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3306 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3401 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3404 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3405 – $239,600 – 1,198 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3407 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3412 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3509 – $264,600 – 1,323 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3704 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3804 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3901 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3905 – $264,400 – 1,322 SF – $200/SF
Unit 3909 – $264,600 – 1,323 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4002 – $168,600 – 843 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4105 – $239,600 – 1,198 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4107 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4204 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4212 – $263,600 – 1,318 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4303 – $188,600 – 943 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4305 – $239,600 – 1,198 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4307 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4407 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4409 – $264,600 – 1,323 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4504 – $241,600 – 1,208 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4506 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4601 – $263,000 – 1,315 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4705 – $239,600 – 1,198 SF – $200/SF
Unit 4807 – $166,600 – 833 SF – $200/SF
Unit 5006 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
Unit 5106 – $189,600 – 948 SF – $200/SF
CVS/pharmacy to Open at Everglades on the Bay
A few weeks ago, when I drove by Everglades on the Bay (now known as Vizcayne North) I noticed the “CVS/pharmacy Coming Soon!” sign hanging in the window of their large ground floor commercial space. This may not be jawdropping news but I do think that it is a good sign for Downtown Miami. It shows that the much needed infrastructure for this neighborhood is finally on its way. Large chains are starting to see that Downtown Miami is a viable neighborhood with enough residents to sustain a business despite the current economic downturn.
As far as I’ve heard, Everglades on the Bay has not yet begun closings but closings will begin shortly. It’s great to see that Everglades on the Bay was able to acquire such a strong commercial tenant so soon. There are condo buildings in Miami that began closings over a year ago that still have commercial space that is unoccupied.
