International buyers scooped up nearly half of more than 5,400 new construction condos for sale in South Florida over the past 18 months, a new report shows.
Consumers abroad bought 2,688 of the 5,460 units sold in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties for the period ending in June, according to the Miami Association of Realtors. The vast majority of the international buyers were from Latin America, the analysis found.
While the Miami area has long been a destination for foreign buyers, the report underscores the notion that South Florida's new construction condo market is increasingly out of reach for Floridians and other U.S. residents, according to Ken Johnson, a longtime housing analyst and a finance professor at the University of Mississippi.
The report didn't include prices, but units in many new buildings are listed for millions of dollars. The rising costs of land and construction materials have prompted developers to build more expensive luxury projects, and strong demand from overseas buyers, many of whom pay cash, helps push values to levels that even upper-middle-class Americans can't touch.
"They are bidding up prices that make it difficult for the typical U.S. household to enter that market," Johnson told Homes.com.
The Miami Association of Realtors worked on the report with a handful of brokerages to analyze new construction sales data that builders traditionally have held close to the vest. Monthly figures from Florida Realtors and other trade groups statewide measure only existing home and condo sales.
Downtown, Brickell dominate sales
The Miami new construction analysis dovetails with a recent study from the National Association of Realtors that shows Florida is the most popular state for foreign homebuyers.
Of the 5,460 South Florida condo sales since January 2024, nearly 80% were in downtown Miami or the city's Brickell neighborhood, the data showed. In the downtown region, the share of foreign buyers was 43%, while in Brickell, it was 60%.
The Miami trade group, the nation's largest with nearly 60,000 members, said it aggregated the data from 37 new condo projects across South Florida. New construction condos aren't subject to a Florida safety law that governs buildings at least 30 years old. It took effect July 1.
Political and economic turmoil in their home countries is prompting more foreign nationals to buy in South Florida because they see it as a way to protect and build wealth, according to Daniel de la Vega, president of One Sotheby’s International Realty, one of the firms that partnered on the report.
“This is especially true for buyers from Latin America, who also feel an immediate cultural and lifestyle connection to the region,” de la Vega said in a statement.
The Miami Realtors group hopes this is the first of more new construction condo reports to come in South Florida, chairman-elect Alfredo Pujol told Homes.com.
