South Florida Summit Highlights
One more look back (we may need a neck massage after), this time at ourr recent Bisnow South Florida State of the Market. There we heard that residential is doing as well as everyone thinks, retail has come back strong, and industrial is showing real strength. Office, not as much. Investors from all over the world still sustain the residential market, and that influx helps retail keep humming. (If you're buying a home, you need to stuff it with stuff.) Industrial isn't benefiting from major infrastructure improvements as much as predicted—not yet, anyway—and office isn't all it could be, since that sector still depends on job growth in professional services.
At the Second Annual Multifamily Summit—done theater-in-the-round style—the question of whether multifamily is being overbuilt in South Florida, as it was before 2007, came up almost immediately. The short answer: no. Lenders and equities sources have long memories. (As people usually do, when it comes to money.) The projects being financed now have to justify themselves by proving the demand is there. Which it is: Buyers are coming from Latin America, the Northeastern US, and elsewhere, and job growth (60,000-plus in Miami/Dade in 2013) is expanding the pool of renters.
