Wealthy Foreigners Are Setting Miami’s Real Estate Market On Fire

Miami’s real estate market is not in a bubble, according to Douglas Elliman real estate agent Oren Alexander.Instead, it’s on the rise, and sits on a solid foundation of cash, he said.

The numbers are proof: home prices were up 21.4 percent in the third quarter and rose 11.6 percent in the past year, according to Miami’s Downtown Development Authority.

“Miami has made quite the surge in the past six months,” said Alexander, who recently sold a $47 million property in Indian Creek, the most expensive home ever sold in the area. “It’s a market, on the high end, driven by foreigner buyers, and what’s going on abroad is helping Miami’s resurgence.”

Alexander said he had seen an influx of Argentine citizens looking to make investments in the Miami market since Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s re-election last year.

Venezuelan and Russian buyers are also flocking to Miami for investment properties. Russians spent more than $1 billion on overseas real estate last year, and Florida is especially popular destination, loved for its warm weather, private mansions, and limited disclosure requirements, according to CNBC’s Robert Frank.

“I think right now we’re seeing the luxury market like it’s never been before,” said Jill Eber, one half of the Miami real estate duo known as The Jills and a 25-year veteran of the Miami market. “I’ve never seen prices like we’ve seen this past year. We had the record sale in the history of Dade County and in Ft. Lauderdale, for $47 million.”

And there are a ton of trophy properties on the Miami market, including Gianni Versace’s former mansion, which is selling for $100 million.

Eber said most of the deals she sees are done in cash, but with mortgage rates so low, some high-end buyers are taking them out so they can remain liquid.

She also said she’s seen an increase in the market for high-end condos, and that prices for those properties were hitting new highs. The Jills currently hold the record for the most expensive condo in the city, which sold for $25 million.