Fort Lauderdale Condo Inventory Surged Over 66% during Last Decade

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According to Condo Vultures, nearly 5,100 new condominium units were added in Fort Lauderdale's Downtown and Beach neighborhoods during the last real estate boom, increasing the existing inventory by 66 percent in less than a decade.

Since 2003, developers constructed and converted 47 projects of 15 units or more in a stretch of central Fort Lauderdale from Sunrise Boulevard south to State Road 84/Southeast 24th Street, Northwest 7th/Southwest 4th Avenue east to the Atlantic Ocean, according to Condo Vultures.

The surge in new condo construction increased Fort Lauderdale's total inventory in the Downtown and Beach neighborhoods to nearly 12,800 units located within 180 projects that feature a combined 1,500 floors of residential living.

"Fort Lauderdale experienced tremendous growth in the number of new condos constructed in the city's Downtown and Beach neighborhoods during the last real estate run up," said Peter Zalewski, a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based Condo Vultures, LLC. "If not for the controlled-growth approach, relatively speaking, by the city leaders at the time, the condominium markets in Fort Lauderdale's eastern corridor would likely be in the same state as the markets to the south in Greater Miami.

"By our early accounts, it looks as if less than 15 percent of the new Fort Lauderdale Downtown and Beach condos are unsold."

At the end of March 2010, some 30 percent of the 22,250 new condo units in Greater Downtown Miami were unsold.

Across Biscayne Bay in Miami Beach, some 25 percent of the 5,600 new units in the popular South Beach neighborhood were unsold.

To the north in Sunny Isles Beach, some 22 percent of the 6,300 new condo units were still unsold.

Greater Miami's new condo oversupply could have been worse if not for the lenders slashing prices to more about 850 units in the first quarter. With the exception of South Beach, the price cuts have been in the 40 percent range, according to Condo Vultures.

An analysis of the Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the Beach condo resale market using Florida Association of Realtors data shows 929 units are available at a median price of $301 per square foot and an average price of $337 per square foot. On a total price basis, the median asking price for a unit is $399,000 and the average amount is $592,000, according to Condo Vultures.

In Greater Downtown Miami, there are currently 2,043 condos for resale at a median asking price of $306 per square foot and $335 per square foot. On a total price basis, the median asking price is $325,000, and the average is $503,500.

The resale condos are in addition to the new, unsold units still owned by the developers and/or lenders. Most developers do not list inventory on the Multiple Listing Service with the Florida Association of Realtors.

A noteworthy fact from the Fort Lauderdale research is the focus that developers have had on large units with multiple bedrooms in eastern Broward County dating back to the 1950s.

More than half - 52 percent - of the overall units in Fort Lauderdale's Downtown and Beach neighborhoods have two bedrooms. An additional 11 percent of the inventory is comprised of three bedrooms, and one percent has four bedrooms or more. Studios and one-bedrooms account for the remaining 36 percent of the total condo inventory, according to the report.

Of the 5,100 new units created in Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the Beach, some 50 percent of the condos have two bedrooms and 17 percent have three or four bedrooms. Studios and one bedrooms account for the remaining 33 percent of the new condo inventory built since 2003, according to Condo Vultures.

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