2 Pros Discuss Big-Ticket Miami Real Estate

Via Ocean Drive Magazine

MODERATED BY JULIA FORD-CARTHER

As the market continues to grow, buyers in the $10 million-plus price range have increasingly more options in the Magic City

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Peter Fine and Louis Birdman at the sales office for 1000 Museum, designed by the famed architect Zaha Hadid and developed by Birdman.

Louis Birdman, developer of famed Zaha Hadid building 1000 Museum, and Peter Fine, cofounder of To Better Days Development, a New York firm building single-family homes along the celebrity-heavy North Bay Road, discuss the big ticket items on the Magic City market and reveal what makes a high-end buyer close.

LOUIS BIRDMAN: We noticed a [buyer] trend where they were looking for larger properties. They don’t always want a home, but because they couldn’t find large units in a lot of the buildings that were built, other than the specialty units (a penthouse or a big duplex), very often they’d end up buying homes. In downtown, when the market started to pick up again, we noticed that the larger units in sought-after buildings were bringing premiums over the smaller units, which is counterintuitive to how things have traditionally been in Miami. When we saw that trend and noticed that the inventory of units over 3,000 square feet, especially in the downtown market, was pretty thin and they were trading at a premium, we thought it was a good opportunity to introduce a really luxury building with a limited number of units and make them all large so there also wouldn’t be a disparity in size and price of the units.

PETER FINE: Sometimes it might be the same buyer who looks at the kind of units that you are building and the homes that we’re building.

LB: [Those] buyers come in all the time. I sold a whole floor unit to a buyer out of Lebanon, and he was here in Miami looking at a house in that $10 to $15 million range. It’s about what fits their lifestyle.

PF: What we’re trying to bring to the market is a higher-quality product. That’s the niche for us. We have four houses that are all between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet—two are on North Bay Road, 6440 and 6010. One is about a 14,000-square-foot house; one’s about an 11,000-square-foot house. They’re all on the water. We’re going to get at least $2,000, if not north of $2,000 [per square foot].

6010 North Bay Road, shown from the front and back.

LB: When you start pushing $10, $15, $20 million, buyers are not necessarily looking at what they’re paying on a price per square foot. They look more at what they’re getting, and that absolute price that they’re comfortable with.

PF: We’re cost-conscious, but one of our design motifs is we’re trying to build new houses that feel like they’ve been lived in. We’re trying to combine the best elements of traditional Mediterranean-style architecture and modern.

LB: As a luxury condominium product, what really separates us from everything else is the design. Having Zaha Hadid design this project makes it extra unique. Our model for our building was to have very similar units in terms of size and price range, and to not be competing with other condominium buildings per se, but competing with the type of product that you’re building. Our smallest unit is 4,600 feet: four bedrooms, five and a half baths. Our largest typical unit is 10,000 square feet. In between that, we have a small number of duplex units that are 8,000 square feet, and then we have one large unit that’s around 16,000 square feet. The idea was to create these real residence-size condominiums. Instead of spreading them out on the land, we’re stacking them up. 1000 Museum Sales Gallery, 1040 Biscayne Blvd., Fifth Fl., Miami, 855-663-6873; To Better Days Development, Llc, 183 Madison Ave., Ste. 1601, NYC, 212-382- 2575
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