Goldman Sachs Sells Miami Condos for $113000 Each

gs took a 66% loss. right the real estate bottoms in and the smartest co on earth takes a huge lose


Goldman Sachs Sells Miami Condos for $113,000 Each (Update1) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By John Gittelsohn

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. sold 158 condominiums in a foreclosed project outside Miami for about $113,000 each, roughly one-third the cost of land and construction.

A partnership of Armco Capital Inc. and Southwest Properties Ltd. paid $17.9 million in cash for the apartments in Downtown Dadeland, a seven-tower residential and retail development in Kendall, Florida, about 6 miles south of downtown Miami.

“They took a big haircut,” said Peter Zalewski, principal of Condo Vultures LLC, a real estate brokerage and consulting firm in Bal Harbour, Florida, that reported the transaction on its Web site. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs confirmed the condo sales and declined to comment further.

Condo prices in the Miami area fell 37 percent from a year earlier to an average $137,900 in the quarter ending Sept. 30, the Florida Association of Realtors reported. The number of condo sales rose 43 percent to 1,763 units.

The Downtown Dadeland purchase comes to about $109 a square foot, compared with building costs of an estimated $250 to $300 a square foot, according to Zalewski and Jim Spatz, chairman and CEO of Southwest Properties.

Downtown Dadeland, which broke ground in 2003, is next to the Dadeland Mall, owned by Simon Property Group Inc. and anchored by the largest Macy’s store in South Florida. The development is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 1 southwest and Kendall Drive.

Rentals Planned

The condos range from studios to three bedrooms with an average size of about 1,100 square feet (102 square meters), Spatz said.

The new owners, both based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, plan to rent the condos until Miami prices rise enough for them to be sold at a profit. That may take three to five years, Spatz said in a telephone interview.

Goldman Sachs continues to own and operate retail stores in the Downtown Dadeland complex, which Zalewski estimated cost $224 million to develop and build. The bank acquired the property through foreclosure.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Gittelsohn in New York at johngitt@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 16, 2009 16:05 EST

 

I know that place. It is a big white elephant and it is empty and in an area that is not gonna attract people.