A dozen apartment buildings in Miami Beach traded for $31 million, as demand for multifamily assets in the city’s North Beach neighborhood heats up.
Records show the entity Kerem North Beach Apartments bought the 12 properties between Byron and Carlyle avenues from 75th Street to 84th Street. Kerem is an affiliate of another similarly named entity managed by Brooklyn-based real estate investor Yonason Greenwald.
The seller is New York investor Elliot Sohayegh, according to records.
Sohayegh sold the North Beach portfolio for 45 percent more than his price two years ago. In 2019, Sohayegh shifted his attention away from New York as a result of rent regulation reforms passed in the Empire State, according to previous comments by Arman Amirianfar of Douglas Elliman. At the time, Amirianfar represented Sohayegh, who paid about $16.6 million for eight of the 12 properties in July of last year. He bought three more properties for a combined $4.8M on different dates.
According to property records, the buildings were completed between 1940 and 1958. The largest one, at 7745 Harding Avenue, has 26 units. The other 11 buildings have between 7 to 16 units, each. The deal involved individual transactions for each property. Kerem picked up a total of 141 apartments at $219,858 per unit.
Rosewood Realty Group, a Manhattan-based brokerage that recently launched a national division, handled the latest off-market deal. Rosewood founder and CEO Aaron Jungreis represented Sohayegh. Jonathan Brody, Rosewood’s president of national investment sales, represented the buyer.
Brody would not confirm the buyer’s identity, but described the buyer as a New York family office that is accumulating a “pretty large” portfolio in Florida, specifically in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale markets.
“They are long-term holders,” Brody said. “They will go in and renovate and increase the rents. They have bought other properties in North Beach and are under contract to buy more.”
The end goal is to own thousands of units the family office can hold on to for generations, Brody said.
Developers are flocking to North Beach where they can now build, in some cases, twice the density that is currently allowed.
LeFrak bought the 108-unit Marina Del Rey Apartments at 1006 and 1022 Bay Drive in May for $24.5 million. The Finvarb family sold the waterfront complex.
In April, Sentinel Real Estate grabbed a 452-unit multifamily portfolio mostly in Miami Beach for $96.6 million. The same month, the Gaeta family put a 1-acre development site on the market for $18 million.