With just more than a week into the new year, there are already a dozen new listings available for sale on the MLS in the South of Fifth neighborhood. These units, all condominiums, range in price from under $300,000 to over $3,000,000, from 423 SF to 2,508 SF. They include Studio, 1BR, 2BR and 3BR units. Five of the new units available are priced under $1 million and three are over $2 million. For a description and photos of each, click the link below.
Every year I like to see how the Luxury Waterfront Towers in the South of Fifth Neighborhood stack up against each other. They are among the most desirable buildings in Miami Beach and typically units in them command the highest prices. Still, they tend to sell at different paces-some able to reduce inventory almost as fast as it appears, and others struggling to have it absorbed over multiple years.
The Chart above shows this quite clearly with the Continuum North Tower and Icon Condominiums each projected to sell the units currently on the market in the next five months based on their sales pace over the past 6 months. Compare this to the Continuum South Tower and the Murano Grande Condominium (respective neighbors to the Continuum N Tower and Icon) which have 57 and 48 months worth of inventory based on their most recent sales pace. The Murano also shares a similar absorption rate with these two buildings.
In a normal market an absorption rate of 6-9 months is considered balanced, neither favoring the Buyers or the Sellers. That said, there does not seem to be a balanced market in any of the buildings surveyed. The Continuum North Tower and Icon Buildings represent a Sellers Market with an Absorption rate of just 5 months, while the other six buildings more dramatically represent a Buyers market with it taking from 18-60 months for their inventory to be absorbed based on the most recent sales data.
The data for the chart above was compiled from the MLS at the end of 2023.
CONDOMINIUM ACTIVE LISTINGS RECENTLY SOLD
Apogee 6 2
Continuum N 5 6
Continuum S 19 2
Murano Grande 8 1
Icon 6 7
Portofino Tower 14 4
S. Pointe Tower 7 2
Murano 10 1
It’s almost the end of May and I’m looking at the last six months of Sales activity in the primary Luxury Towers in the South of Fifth neighborhood. Today there are 82 units on the market and 39 have sold in the past six months. At that rate it would take about 12.5 months for the existing inventory on the market to be absorbed. (the logic is that if 39 units sold in 6 months, 78 would then sell in 12 months, etc).
In a balanced market it would just take between 6-9 months for all the inventory to be absorbed. Because it is taking longer than average for units to sell, it is a Buyers Market. If it were taking less than 6-9 Months for units to sell, it would be considered a Seller’s Market. In the seven Condominium Towers depicted in this snapshot, 5 of them exhibited signs of a Buyers market, while two of them reflected a balanced market. None reflected Sellers Market activity.
The three buildings with the lowest absorption rates (S. Pointe Tower, Murano Grande, and Icon) also are selling at the lowest price per square foot, on average, at about $1,200/SF. Also, two of the buildings, with an absorption rate of about 7 months, exhibit qualities of a balanced market. The three buildings with the highest absorption rates (Murano and both Continuum Towers) are also selling at the highest price per square foot on average, over $2,200/SF for Murano and a combined average of $2,900/SF at the Continuum Towers. All three of these buildings exhibit qualities of a Buyers Market with absorption rates ranging from 16-22 months much higher than what would occur in a balanced market.
In the month of March, 2023, 30 condominiums in the South of Fifth Neighborhood were recorded as sold through the MLS. They were not all multi-million dollar units in in the Waterfront Towers. They did not all have unobstructed water views. In fact there was quite a range in almost every metric for which they could be measured. Here are some of the bullet points that I noticed:
The 30 Units that Sold ranged in price from a low of $300,000 to a high of $10,800,000.
16 of the Units Sold for over $1 million
5 of the Units Sold for under $500,000
9 units Sold for between $535,000 and $950,000
6 units Sold between $1-2 Million
3 units Sold between $3-5 Million
6 units Sold between $5-10 Million
1 unit Sold for over $10,000,000
13 Units Sold for less than $1,000/SF
12 Units Sold for between $1,000-2,000/SF
4 Units Sold for between $2,000-4,000/SF
1 Unit Sold for over $4,000/SF
21 of the units were on the Waterfront
9 of the units were not waterfront
8 units had an address on S. Pointe Drive
8 units had an address on Alton Road
6 units had an address on Ocean Drive
5 units had an address on Washington Avenue
3 units had an address on Meridian Avenue
12 of the units Sold had a Living Area of under 1,000SF
18 of the units Sold had a Living Area of over 1,000 SF
3 units contained between 2,000 and 3,000 SF
3 units contained between 3,000 and 4,000 SF
1 unit contained more than 4,000 SF
7 units Sold in less than 10 days
5 units Sold between 11 and 30 days
6 units sold between 35 and 100 days
6 units sold in between 100 and 200 days
5 units Sold in between 200 and 317 days
1 unit was on the market for 836 days before it Sold
The single Studio unit Sold contained 605 SF of Living Area
The 11 1BR units Sold contained between 621-850 SF of Living Area
The 11 2BR Units that Sold contained between 1010-1862 SF of Living Area
The 5 3BR Units that Sold contained between 2340 and 4510 SF of Living Area
The 2 4BR Units that Sold contained between 2393 and 3979 SF of Living Area
