A third new condo project in the high-end South-of-Fifth neighborhood of Miami Beach has been completed during this South Florida real estate cycle that began in 2011.
To date, nine transactions in the newly completed Marea South Beach condominium project in the 800 block of South Pointe Drive have been recorded since Oct. 15. The average price is nearly $1,500 per square foot for a combined $25 million as of Monday, according to Miami-Dade County records.
Individual unit transactions in the Marea South Beach have ranged in price from less than $1.5 million to as much as $7.9 million, each. On a price-per-square-foot basis, individual unit transactions have been recorded between about $963 and $2,875 each, according to government records.
Currently, three units in the Marea South Beach are listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service at an average asking price of more than $2,200 per square foot as of Tuesday, according to data from the Southeast Florida MLXchange.
Developed by the Related Group, the Marea South Beach is a condo complex consisting of three buildings with a total of 21 floors and 30 units. It is located at the intersection of South Pointe Drive and Washington Avenue near the southern tip of the barrier island in Miami-Dade County, according to government records.
The completion of the Marea South Beach comes about six months after the completion of the 321 Ocean project with two buildings and 22 units, in May. A month later, in June, the 350 Meridian boutique condo with four units was completed.
In total, developers have announced plans to build 11 new condo buildings with nearly 150 units in the South-of-Fifth neighborhood of Miami Beach. Overall in Miami Beach, developers have announced plans to build 43 new condo buildings with more than 1,925 units in the barrier island city.
For the Related Group, the Marea South Beach is the first of two new condo projects being developed in the South-of-Fifth neighborhood. A couple of blocks to the east, construction is currently underway on the planned One Ocean condo complex that is to consist of two buildings with a combined 50 units, according to government records.
Overall, the Related Group is involved with plans to develop 39 new condo towers with more than 9,800 units east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties during this cycle, according to the preconstruction condo projects website CraneSpotters.com. (For disclosure, my firm operates the website.)
In the tri-county region, developers have announced plans to build a total of 381 new condo buildings with more than 45,300 units east of I-95, as of Monday.
In completing the Marea South Beach project, developers have now constructed 47 new condo buildings with more than 3,700 units east of I-95 in the tri-county South Florida region since 2011.
An additional 119 new condo buildings with more than 11,600 units are currently under construction in South Florida, according to the data.
The new condo projects that are under construction or recently completed account for nearly 34 percent of the total units announced for South Florida during this latest boom.
The unanswered question going forward is whether flip-oriented buyers of new condo units in the pricey South-of-Fifth area can achieve their profit objectives given the growing number of preconstruction projects now on the market, combined with the recent slowdown in transactions by foreign investors who are being hampered by a strong dollar.
Peter Zalewski is a real estate columnist for The Real Deal who founded Condo Vultures LLC, a consultancy and publishing company, as well as Condo Vultures Realty LLC and CVR Realty brokerages and the Condo Ratings Agency, an analytics firm. The Condo Ratings Agency operates CraneSpotters.com, a preconstruction condo projects website, in conjunction with the Miami Association of Realtors.