Investors clamored to Florida in the middle of the last decade, rushing to buy commercial real estate with rapidly rising values. They’re back again, this time to pick up the pieces of a broken market.
Paul Bubny’s story at GlobeSt.com about Spanish developer Espais Promocions Immobiliàries pursuing US expansion mentions an eye toward distress opportunities in South Florida. Barcelona-based Espais established a beachhead in New York City in 2006 by acquiring a successful Manhattan condo project.
“On the Miami side, we’re more focused on doing joint-venture partnerships with local banks,” says Andres Hogg, the New York-based head of US operations for Espais. Banks with vacant land “still believe they can make some of those projects work by bringing a new face to the table. We’re seeing that they’re getting their hands on a lot of projects where they need our help.”
Plenty other foreign investors are looking at Florida again in a different (low) light, though experts say those folks are being very meticulous and aren’t interesting in buying distressed assets based on pricing alone. Some sellers are confident that the international investors will completely make up for the domestic side because the economies wherever they come from are so much better than ours.
The interesting thing about all this is, when worldly investors were looking for opportunities before, they broadened their scope beyond South Florida to the state’s other markets that don’t always get as much global exposure. Wonder if they’ll do it again?
Wow! A spanish developer getting involved with Miami real estate! It’s about time someone from our “mother country” finally realized that Miami real estate will bounce back in the near future. Miami makes an excellent connection for real estate investments for Espais!
Very true, Miami has quite an influx of Foreign Investors. It will be interesting to see if Foreign Investors start to look at Tampa Bay or Jacksonville with these distressed deals available.
So many has blamed them for the huge troubles in Florida in regards to real estate. I know that it makes sense to buy low sell high but they are at it again. They’ll buy lots of properties from builders and then turn around and sell it to house hunters for a huge profit. When you’re too greedy, bad things happen!
This market cycle is presenting once in a decade if not more oppurtunitie to buyers to purchase very class of commercial real estate at bargain prices. If you have access to capital now is the time to buy and hold. I have several clients that that are very agressively looking. The due diligence required for distressed assets purchases is more complex. However it is well worth the time and effort.