Foreign Buyers Heat Up Miami's Condo Market

Sporting an olive blazer and a hard hat that’s too big for his head, Martin Melo proudly looks up at his almost-finished condo tower. Brandishing a roll of blueprints, the 33-year-old Argentine developer declares, “This is Miami. We are 10 minutes from the airport, 10 minutes from South Beach. We found—some would say we ‘stole’—good land.” Melo says he acquired the 28,000-square-foot waterfront parcel in late 2010 for $1.4 million. A bit more than a year later his family-owned company, Grupo Melo, is about to complete the 18-story building, marketed as 23 Biscayne Bay. It’s sold out. “Now,” says a breathless Melo, “is the time for people who know how to win!”

In 2008 and 2009, with prices and the economy tanking, Miami’s new high-rises ended up with so many condos in foreclosure—and unoccupied—that a fishing boat captain said the city looked like a luxury war zone. Today the canyons of downtown, South Beach, and route A1A are hot again as international buyers rush to acquire pied-à-terre in what has long been considered the gateway to Latin America. Across the city, home sales jumped by a record 46 percent last year, the Miami Association of Realtors reports. And median monthly rents are up by 30 percent from 2009, to $1.97 per square foot, according to Condo Vultures, a Miami real estate consulting firm.