Brickell, the so-called Manhattan of the South, was supposed to be Miami's next hot spot. Developers fully bought into the idea, and for a while it seemed a new luxury condo high-rise was breaking ground every other month. Then, whoops, the housing bubble burst, the recession hit, and many of those condo units now sit empty.
Miami Today reports the number of unsold condos in the relatively small Brickell neighborhood represent 51 percent of inventory in the entire county. In fact, there are 3,546 units sitting unsold and empty as we type this. Lavish properties such as Icon, Infinity, and Mynt, in particular, have had a hard time unloading condos.
During the boom, 10,402 units in 32 buildings were put on the market. Only 66 percent have been sold. Many of the remaining units are high-end properties priced at more than $500,000. Units listed at less than a half-million are selling much quicker than their pricier counterparts, and very few units under $300,000 remain.
But sales have recently begun to pick up, and buyers have been paying more per square foot. At the current pace, all the condos could be sold in the next 16 months.
