Condo king of Miami Jorge Perez bets big on Fisher Island
Just off the coast of Miami Beach, on ultra-exclusive Fisher Island, there is one crane on one construction site. It is the last plot of land available for development and an unlikely bet on luxury real estate at a time when the housing market appears to be in freefall.
Jorge Perez, also known as “the condo king of Miami,” and his Related Group are behind the 10-story, 50-unit project that boasts a sell-out price of $1.2 billion. They paid $122.6 million for the land, at the top of the market.
Units start at $15 million. The project includes a $90 million, 15,000 square foot penthouse and a $55 million ground-floor villa with a half-acre backyard. The building will also have its own slip for mega yachts. Sales just started last month.
“Almost 30% of the units are spoken for,” said Perez. “Contracts have gone out for over $300 million, and we haven’t really done any marketing. Nevertheless, should the market slow down a little bit, we’re in a fortunate position.”
Buyers have to put down a 50% non-refundable deposit for pre-construction sales.
Perez said initial buyers hail from Brazil, New York, Canada, Mexico and Israel. He said he is seeing far more domestic interest than in the past, as Miami had traditionally been a haven for foreign investors. That appears to be echoing all over the city.
The view from South Florida
“Miami is an international-focused market – 80-90% international – but it flipped during pandemic,” said Danny Hertzberg, a luxury real estate agent with Coldwell Banker and the Jills Zeder Group. “We’ll continue to have this domestic demand for tax reasons, but at some point political instability or a weaker dollar will pull [international] people in.”
Miami has been an outlier in the recent decline in both home sales and prices, with prices still quite strong in the city. The high end, however, has not been as resilient. Pending sales of homes priced above $5 million were down 89% in December year over year, according to Miller Samuel, a real estate appraisal firm.
“But the one thing to keep in mind in terms of Miami is that inventory is down 60% since pre-pandemic, so what’s different is inventory is extremely limited,” noted Jonathan Miller, CEO of the firm. “That throws out a lot of conventional wisdom on pricing.”
Miller added that the Fisher Island project, “may not sell in five minutes but it’s not out of the realm of possibility even in this market.”
The property and its location are both unique. Fisher Island is a 216- acre, ultra-exclusive community, only accessible by ferry or yacht and only open to residents, their guests and guests of the small luxury hotel there. The last condo that sold on the island last year went for $40 million, according to a representative of Related Group.
Hertzberg said Perez’s new building “checks a lot of boxes” for wealthier buyers who have a new mentality since the start of the pandemic.
“They want amenities, privacy and security. That’s a major factor there. They want convenience. There…
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