Young New Yorkers pick South Florida for second homes

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One Thousand Ocean in Boca Raton

Many New Yorkers have found their second homes in South Florida. And they’re younger than ever before, several brokers told Real Estate Weekly.

Replacing a buyer clientele of mostly retirees are a hipper crowd that is “looking at Miami like they are looking in the Hamptons,” said Jacky Teplitzky, a managing director at Douglas Elliman who specializes in sales in both the New York and Miami markets.

People in Manhattan, as well as New York City suburbs, such as Scarsdale, N.Y., Bronxville, N.Y. and Greenwich, Conn., are looking for Sunshine State properties, where the amenities of a second home are more extravagant, Teplitzky said.

The features of homes include two swimming pools, tennis courts, a parking space or a spa, Teplitzky told Real Estate Weekly.

Stephan Cotton, who handles sales at One Thousand Ocean in Boca Raton for LXR Realty, said that New Yorkers make up the largest percentage of his customer base. They prefer the retail services in Florida to the Caribbean, specifically the luxury shopping that has blossomed beyond the Miracle Mile of Coral Gables, the newspaper said. [REW] –Mark Maurer

Homebuyers paying top dollar for new trophies

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The duplex penthouses at Ian Schrager’s Residences at the Miami Beach Edition sold for $34 million, or $3,800 a square foot, a new Miami Beach record.Ultra-wealthy homebuyers are snubbing resales of some of Miami’s most prized properties but setting records on extravagant new penthouses designed with them in mind, the New York Times reported.

Responding to an influx of wealthy buyers from Russia, Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere, Schrager and other South Florida developers up the ante with each new project, crowning condo towers with penthouses featuring exclusive amenities.

Nearly $500 million in units have sold pre-construction in Porsche Design’s first residential tower in Sunny Isles Beach, where a smart car elevator will deliver drivers directly into their sprawling condos.

“Everywhere there is a grand property, we have these great buyers, and there is no end to them,” Mark Zilbert, the president of the Zilbert Realty Group in Miami Beach, told the Times.

“It is sort of build it, they will come,” Zilbert said. “We didn’t have this a few years ago. But now developers are building these exceptional properties.”

Meanwhile, the former home of Italian designer Gianni Versace now owned by telecom mogul Peter Loftin, has been reduced twice from its original $125 million asking price, and is now listed for $75 million.

One Thousand Ocean penthouse condo sold for $7M

www.vipoceanrealty.comOne Thousand Ocean in Boca Raton (Credit: Niki Higgins)

A 4,628-square-foot penthouse at the oceanfront condominium building One Thousand Ocean in Boca Raton has sold to an undisclosed buyer for $7 million, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

Known as “The Sky,” the unit marks the third sale of a penthouse there since March. The last of the five penthouses remains unsold – at a $12.9 million asking price – as do two other condos in the 53-unit complex. Its developer, LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels, said the building may sell out in the next few months.

The unit also features a three-car garage, private poolside cabana, a private elevator and two terraces that add an extra 2,343 square feet.

Stephan Cotton, who handles sales at One Thousand Ocean for LXR Realty, told Real Estate Weekly earlier this month that New Yorkers make up the largest percentage of his customer base.

Last month, a unit there sold for $5.8 million. At $1,425 per square foot, the unit netted the highest resale value at the project for a home re-sold in less than 190 days, as previously reported.

High-end home sales smash records as South Florida market catches fire

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From left: A-rod, 4358 North Bay Road and the Jills team at Coldwell Banker

The very high-end of the South Florida market is seeing a spurt of record-breaking sales, such as the $30 million deal for slugger Alex Rodriguez’s Miami Beach “party pad” to beer distributor Stephen Levin, the Miami Herald reported.

The home, at 4358 North Bay Road, was the most expensive sale ever in Miami Beach, the paper said. But it is representative of the white hot luxury market in South Florida in general, too.

“The market is on fire here,’’ Jill Eber of “the Jills” team at Coldwell Banker, who represented the buyer in the deal, told the Herald.

Her partner Jill Hertzberg agreed: “The luxury market used to be more seasonal. But now there’s such an influx of people from around the world, some of our biggest sales are happening in summer.”

And last Friday in Fort Lauderdale, an eight-bedroom, eight-bath house at 2400 Del Lago Drive in Harbor Beach sold for $17.5 million — a Broward County record.

“The prices have obviously come back in the luxury tier and have now exceeded their highs,’’ a president at One Sotheby’s International Realty, Beth Butler, told the Herald. “Last to drop, first to rally.’’

A-Rod sees $15M profit from Miami Beach home

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Alex Rodriguez’s Miami Beach mansion

UPDATED, 12:47 p.m., May 24: Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez sold his contemporary Miami Beach mansion for $30 million, netting a $15 million profit and setting and sales record for a home on the city’s North Bay Road, The Real Deal confirmed.

Rodriguez bought the property at 4358 North Bay Road in May 2010 for $7.4 million and poured in an additional $7.6 million to renovate it, Miami-Dade County records show.

The two-story house has nine bedrooms, 11 full and two half bathrooms and an indoor batting cage spread across 19,861 square feet, according to One Sotheby’s International Realty, which represented Rodriguez.

The property also boasts a four-car garage, 16-camera security system and a Zen garden.

“The demand for trophy homes worldwide, especially those contemporary in design, has never been greater,” Mayi de la Vega, chief executive and founder of One Sotheby’s International Realty said in a statement.

The house, which Rodriguez listed last August for $38 million, was sold to a celebrity who lives in Palm Beach, the site said.

Christian Slater picks up $2.2M Coconut Grove villa

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From left: 3618 St. Gaudens Road, Christian Slater

Christian Slater has paid $2.2 million for the Villa Dolce Far Niente, a three-bedroom home at 3618 St. Gaudens Road in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood, the Daily Business Review reported.

Built in the 1920s, the home hit the market in January, priced at $2.59 million and listed with Antonio Rios of Shelton and Stewart Realtors, according to Zillow.

The actor, best known for his role in the black comedy “Heathers,” was represented by Taylor Corey of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, which first announced the deal. The sale has not yet appeared in public records in Miami-Dade County.

The villa last sold for $1.8 million in August 2011, but the most recent owner renovated the home with updated plumbing, air conditioning and a pool, the listing said. The two-story property also features a guesthouse, a misted pool and patio area, and marble floors.

“It was a genuine pleasure to work with Christian and his fiancée Brittany [Lopez] to find them their perfect home,” Corey told the Daily Business Review.

Today’s priciest listing

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Continuum on South Beach (Credit: Condo Vultures)

Today’s priciest listing is a three-bedroom, five-bathroom condominium at Continuum on South Beach asking $12.6 million.The 2,872-square-foot home is located at 50 South Pointe Drive, units 2601 and 2602, in Miami Beach. Carol Ann Rodriguez of Continuum South Beach Realty has the listing. The building has a 23,000-square-foot sporting club, two heated pools and spas and three tennis courts. ( Data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Monroe County that are newly listed. Listings are taken from the South Florida MLS.)

$5.2M penthouse sale raises the bar on Brickell

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Four Seasons Residences in Miami

UPDATED, 1:46 p.m., May 8: The sale of a 70th-floor penthouse at the Four Seasons Residences for $5.2 million has shattered the record amount paid per square foot in Miami’s Brickell corridor, according to the seller’s broker.

A “highly recognized European tennis” player paid more than $1,500 per square foot for the apartment in the tallest tower south of New York, where residents live with hotel-style amenities, the broker, Nelson Gonzalez, told The Real Deal.

The penthouse became the most expensive unit in the building, selling for  as much as three times the average per square foot for housing in the fast-growing Miami enclave.

“It’s going to blow open the market on Brickell Avenue,” Gonzalez said, adding that residential real estate prices in neighboring buildings were hovering between $500 and $1,000 per square foot.

The buyer “really has faith because of what is happening in Brickell that the unit will gain a lot of value in the coming years,” Gonzalez was quoted earlier as telling Daily Business Review.

The seller, Miami spinal surgeon Ronald DeMeo, paid $4.15 million in July 2005 for the 3,452-square-foot unit, the newspaper reported, citing county records. The top-floor unit features a master suite and room-sized bath, as well as daily housekeeping and access to the hotel’s spa.

Howard Stern buys $40M Palm Beach mansion

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Howard Stern

Shock jock Howard Stern has purchased an oceanfront home appraised at $40.8 million on “Raiders Row” in Palm Beach, according to Gossip Extra.

North County Road, nicknamed for the high number of corporate tycoons living there, is home to talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh and Nelson Peltz, the billionaire founder of Trian Fund Management.

The sellers are New Hampshire textile mogul Martin Trust and his wife, Diane, the blog reported.

The Trusts purchased the house in 1986 for $4.6 million, Gossip Extra said, citing property records. Floor plans show 12.5 bathrooms, an elevator and a manicured croquet lawn.

Stern’s wife, former model Beth Ostrofsky, fell in love with the 19,800-square-foot manse when she traveled to Palm Beach to look at several properties earlier this year.

Stern confirmed on his show a previous Gossip Extra report that said he was property shopping in Florida, but denied it was to escape New York’s high income tax.

Today’s priciest listing..305-484-2559

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5817 Riviera Drive in Coral Gables

Today’s priciest new listing is a five-bedroom, five-bathroom single-family home asking $2.7 million. The 5,454-square-foot French colonial home is located at 5817 Riviera Drive in Coral Gables. It features marble floors, a fireplace and tall ceilings. The fifth bedroom is currently a den and library, but can be converted. (Data include condos and single-family listings in the main metropolitan areas of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Monroe County that are newly listed. Listings are taken from the South Florida MLS.)

A buyer from Russia picked up the 4,134-square-foot Grand Millennium pad at 1965 Broadway, near 67th Street

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From left: Gary Green, interior images of his home and Ryan Serhant

The Upper West Side condominium unit belonging to the son of Stephen Green, chairman of the board at SL Green Realty, has gone into contract, The Real Deal has learned.

A buyer from Russia picked up the 4,134-square-foot Grand Millennium pad at 1965 Broadway, near 67th Street, on April 19, according to the listing agent and StreetEasy.

Green’s son, Gary Green, bought the 28th-floor unit for $3.81 million on February 5, 2001 and then an adjacent unit for $949,518 on November 22, 2004, according to StreetEasy. He is the CEO of Manhattan-based building service company Alliance Building Services.

Ryan Serhant, an executive vice president at Nest Seekers International, took over marketing for the combined unit on March 23 from Maxwell Jacobs’ Max Kozower and Stephania Brown. The duo listed the spread for $10.5 million in September 2012 before dropping the price to $9.999 million this January.

The most recent listing price was $9.895 million, but the Russian buyer paid “far over $10 million” in all cash, sight unseen, Serhant said.

The agent and his team targeted Russians who were pulling their money out of Cyprus following uncertainty over that country’s banking crisis.

Serhant, who can be seen tomorrow on the season two premiere of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” spruced up the listing with new photos, a marketing plan and a reduced price.

“Sometimes it just takes the right broker to make a sale,” Serhant quipped.

The deal is slated to close in July.

Kozower said that the seller only got serious about unloading the property until after he had the listing.

“As I’m sure you can appreciate, it’s tough to lose a listing,” Kozower said. “At the same time, I’ve also been the second broker on listings and similarly benefited. The adage ‘It’s all in the timing’ is certainly appropriate in these situations!”

Green was not immediately available for comment by press time.

Star broker’s son inherits real estate legacy

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1000 Museum and its architect, Zaha Hadid

Mayi de la Vega, the founder of One Sotheby’s, and her 30-year-old son Daniel are brokering some of South Florida’s biggest real estate transactions, according to Haute Living.

Launching the company in 2008, amid the housing crisis, One Sotheby’s now operates eight offices and employs about 300 agents, the magazine said.

Despite his youth, Daniel said he has already accumulated 12 years of real estate experience and, as a managing partner at One Sotheby’s, presently manages a $1 billion property portfolio.

Both major art enthusiasts, the mother-son duo is also in the midst of launching the de la Vega Collection, a combination of pieces from both of their private collections, with a focus on emerging, midcareer Latin American artists, according to the magazine.

Their latest project is 1000 Museum, a tower on Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard designed by the Pritzker prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. “The building itself is a work of art,” Daniel said.

Two decades later, ‘Glass’ tower will finally rise

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Glass, 120 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach

The tower formerly known as Kallisto and later as 120 Ocean will finally rise as Glass, exMiami reported. Over two decades, the building’s blueprints have changed hands three times, from Arquitectonica to Bermello Ajamil and finally to Rene Gonzalez, according to the site.

The original 1993 Architectonica design for the 18-story, 10-unit tower on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach’s South of Fifth neighborhood included a boxy parking garage encased in a color palette that resembled an open crayon box. Gonzalez appears to have scrapped the colors in favor of more glass panels, according to a video by developer Terra Group.

“What was important to us was that the building dematerialize as it goes up, so it becomes lighter, then it starts to almost disappear into the sky,” Gonzalez said. “The building becomes almost a barometer of the environment.”

The project’s landscape architect Sebastian Junger said the design minimizes the use of “hardscape.”

Glass’s motto: “We don’t like barriers either.”

Dolphins’ stadium plans halted after bill sidelined

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Sun Life Stadium

The Miami Dolphins halted plans to renovate Sun Life Stadium after Florida lawmakers failed to take up a bill that would finance part of the renovation with public subsidies, the franchise’s chief executive Mike Dee told a Miami CBS affiliate Sunday.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was hoping to win legislative approval for $289 million over 30 years from an increase in mainland Miami-Dade’s hotel tax rate and $90 million over the same period in sales-tax subsidies, the Miami Herald reported.

“I don’t think Steve or any of us knew the condition of the facility was as desperate as it was when he bought the team,” Dee said in a live interview on “Facing South Florida with Jim Defede.”

After a heated debate over whether to invest public funds into a professional sports facility, Florida’s House of Representatives ended the annual lawmaking session without taking up the team-backed bill, the Herald said.

The Dolphins had argued a public-private partnership was needed to make crucial repairs to the Sun Life Stadium if the team hoped to compete in a bid to host the 2016 Super Bowl.

“I wouldn’t want to prognosticate what the future holds but it’s clearly bleak,” Dee said.

Foreclosure cases clog South Florida courts

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Foreclosure cases mount up

Clearing the dockets of foreclosures can appear a Sisyphean task for South Florida’s courts as new filings keep apace with closed cases, the Palm Beach Post reported.

From July 1 through the end of March, judges moved 168,589 cases out of the system statewide, but 143,772 cases were added during the same period, the Post said, citing a new report by the Office of the State Courts Administrator.

Broward County has the highest backlog of cases in the region with 42,992; Miami-Dade is second with 41,681 and Palm Beach County’s caseload stands at 30,272.

A bill passed the last day of Florida’s annual legislative session that needs the governor’s approval gives $16 million over the next two years to keep staff on hand to manage the foreclosure backlog. A separate bill would make it easier for lenders to foreclose on defaulted borrowers.

Forty-one percent of the cases cleared statewide were dismissed, an indication that more homeowners are working out ways to avoid foreclosure, defense attorney Greg Clark told the Post.

Last year’s $25 billion National Mortgage Settlement required banks to boost short sale approvals and loan modifications.

“In my own practice there is a new spirit of cooperation and settlement, in an even and measured pace, that we haven’t seen before,” Clark said. 

Renters getting crushed by U.S. housing costs

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Share of working households with a severe housing cost burden by state, 2011

In the grand scheme of personal finances, your take home pay is like an apple pie. Your bills are the hungry flock of kids banging their fists on the table to get their share.

For renters in America, housing is usually the hungriest of the bunch. Ideally, it would gobble up one-third of the pie –– anymore than that, and you likely wouldn’t have enough to feed the rest.

Unfortunately, one in four working renters watched housing devour more than half of their paycheck pie in 2011, according to the latest Housing Landscape Report from the Center for Housing Policy. The report analyzed the period between 2008 and 2011, when the rate of renters putting more than half their income toward housing jumped nearly 4 percent.

“The growing rate of severe housing cost burdens among renters is not a new trend, but it is clearly an unsustainable one,” said lead report author Janet Viveiros. “While rental costs have steadily risen over the last few years, wages for these working families have not fully recovered from the hit they took between 2008 and 2009. Spending most of your paycheck on rent means cutting back on other necessities, including health care and even food.”

Among working households earning less than 30 percent of their area’s median income (AMI), a whopping 80 percent spent more than half their pay on housing alone. Among the toughest states for renters are usual suspects like New York, California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona (see map above).

Much of the strain on renters has to do with fallout from the housing crisis of 2009. Homeowners fled their underwater homes and flooded rental markets to downsize, driving up demand on a stagnant supply of properties and sending rental prices skyrocketing. At the same time, the job market floundered and people’s take home pays dwindled –– basically a perfect storm in personal finance hell.

Homeowners who stuck out the crisis haven’t fared much better, but their cost burden remained relatively stable throughout the economic recovery, according to CHP. One in five working homeowners experienced severe housing affordability challenges, versus one in four working renters. However, their income dropped 4 percent between 2008 and 2011.

Sales to launch at 43-story Brickell condo tower

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1080 Brickell

Apartments in the 43-story 1080 Brickell tower will go on sale this week, exMiami reported.

A Spanish investment group purchased the site for the proposed 328-unit building on Miami’s Brickell Avenue about a year ago, paying $17.37 million, a $7.87 million premium over what the seller, Rilea Group, paid for the property in 2006, according to the South Florida Business Journal.

The site was rezoned last year so that an existing parking garage could be torn down and the new tower put up in its place.

MDR Toledo, managed by Madrid residents Manuel Moratiel Llarena and Maria Moratiel del Pilar Entrena, control Miami-based MDR Real Estate, which purchased Brickell Station Lofts for $17 million in January 2012.

Planned Panorama would be Miami’s tallest tower Mixed-use project by Tibor Hollo to begin marketing next year

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A rendering of Panorama, a project that should be Miami’s tallest tower

A veteran Miami developer is planning to build a tower to tower above the rest. Tibor Hollo’s Panorama, which would go up at 1101 Brickell Avenue, would be Miami’s and Florida’s tallest building, Miami Today reported. 

Panorama would rise 830 feet, with construction to be complete by 2016. The 85-story structure would have 941 rental apartments, 300,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of ground-level retail, according to Miami Today.

Construction at the site began last year and Hollo plans to start marketing in summer 2014, Miami Today said.

By a height of 41 feet, Panorama would dwarf the nearby Four Seasons Hotel & Tower at 1435 Brickell Avenue, which, at 789 feet, has been Miami’s and Florida’s tallest building for the past decade.

Hollo is also planning Miami’s first “super-tall” tower at 1,010 feet, the paper reported. One Bayfront Plaza has been in the works at 100 South Biscayne Boulevard for years, but construction has not yet begun. Hollo said he would re-focus on that project — and was confident it could go forward — after the Panorama project is complete. 

Marina Palms Yacht Club unveils penthouse units

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A rendering of Marina Palms Yacht Club & Residences

The Marina Palms Yacht Club & Residences, a luxury condominium project in Miami, has unveiled four of its penthouse units, the building’s developer, the DevStar Group, announced today. 

Penthouse unit prices will start at $1.9 million, or $850 per square foot, and range in size from 2,200 to more than 4,300 square feet. The project is located at 172nd Street and Biscayne Boulevard. The building’s amenities include butler service, infinity-edge pools, a gym, spa, café, club room and 24-7 valet service.

“Condominium developments have recently made waves in the market with penthouses priced in the tens of millions of dollars – and thousands of dollars per square foot. Yet none come standard with the amenities and features available at Marina Palms Yacht Club and Residences,” Michael Internoscia, director of sales, said in a statement. 

Price of late designer Lilly Pulitzer’s Palm Beach chopped to $8.5M

April 11, 2013 11:00AM

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Images of Lilly Pulitzer’s Palm Beach home

The home of deceased Palm Beach socialite and dress designer Lilly Pulitzer got a price chop to $8.5 million, down from its $11.5 million ask in January of 2011, the New York Observer reported.

Known as “the Jungle” because of its flourishing foliage, the approximately 9,000-square-foot estate is on 1.4 acres of land and features a main house with four bedrooms, a “casita” with three bedrooms and a pool house with two bedrooms. According to the property’s MLS listing, it can be subdivided into two lots.

The property,  at 710 South County Lane in Palm Beach, is being marketed as “land” because of its valuable location in the interior section of Palm Beach. Potential buyers would have the option to tear down all three houses.

Brown Harris Stevens’ Peter McKim Pulitzer and his sister, Liza Pulitzer, the late Lilly Pulitzer’s children, have the listing. “We would hate to see the house torn down,” Liza said, “but the house is not landmarked.”