Jorge Perez, How are your condo’s selling? By geniusofdespair

Matt Haggman did a smashingly good doom and gloom real estate expose in the Miami Herald on Sunday. Not to be outdone, I did my own, albeit “less is more” in my case. I am not a real reporter just in case you might be tempted to think of me as one: don't. No real reporting on my pages. I digress.

I was curious, I wanted to see how the twin waterfront towers called Aventura Marina, LTD were selling. The reason I choose these two towers was because The Condo King Jorge and his developer buds finished one around the turn in the market and the other was finished after the market tanked (selling started before the tower was finished).

I looked at one unit right before Katrina hit when the market was hot – yes, I was nosy. The sales office staff were so cocky, they were selling units sight unseen. The apartment square footage was very generous but the buildings were the run of the mill yellow-gold colored, sort of ugly towers you see all over the place. There was no designer furnished model to see, just an office apartment with desks — and they were selling the unfinished tower with that interior! You could see that there would be a nice water view of the intracoastal waterway but you couldn’t go up in the towers. They had some crappy pool arrangement -- you shared it with another building.

So how are these babies selling in the bad market is the point I am finally getting to.

Well, there were even a couple of sales in February! I was surprised, I thought the market would have dropped off more because Aventura is the definition of condo glut.

Don’t know what incentives The Related Group is offering, but these units appear to be selling briskly. According to the clerks website of DEED transfers, in November ‘06 they sold 46 units, in December ‘06 they sold about 36 and in January ‘07 they sold about 47. To give you a perspective on this: In December 2005 they closed on 37 units. Some of these units were under contract before Wilma hit in late October which was the beginning of the great real estate dive. Go figure.

Some recent sales - these are real sales, mortgages were taken out on most of them: (I could not get square footage on them all so you will not be able to tell much from these numbers)

Apt. 1504 12/2005 $610,000
Apt. 1609 2/2006 $441,00
Apt. 1607 4/2006 $595,000
Apt. 308 3/2006 $470,000
Apt. 1808 2/2006 $695,000
Apt. 1707 2/2006 $530,000
Apt. 1416 1/30/07 $502,833
Apt. 816 1/30/07 $484,833
Apt. 2711 1/29/07 $527,843