Most of the people buying new condos in Miami are not in Miami when they decide. They are in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Toronto, looking at a building on a screen. The whole purchase can be done that way. Whether it should be is a different question.
This page sets out what is done remotely and what is not, how the contract, the deposits and the closing work at a distance, and the two things that change depending on whether you are moving here or buying a second home. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
The search, the reading of the documents, the contract, the deposits and the closing can all happen without you in Florida. Contracts are signed electronically, deposits are wired to the escrow agent, and a Florida closing is done by a title agent with a notarised signature, which can be arranged where you are. A new building is bought from plans in any case, so a buyer in Chicago and a buyer in Coconut Grove are looking at the same drawings.
What cannot be done remotely is knowing whether you like it. The zone, the walk, the causeway, the sound of the beach at night. The desk will say plainly that one visit, timed to the season you will actually use the place, is worth more than any number of calls, and it will arrange the galleries in a sequence so the visit is a day and not a week.
Deposits on a new building go to a Florida escrow agent named in the contract, in stages set by the developer, and the desk confirms the wiring instructions by voice before any money moves, because wire fraud in real estate is real and it targets exactly this transaction. Your own bank may ask about the purpose of a large transfer; that is normal and answered with the contract.
A mortgage on a Florida condo from an out-of-state buyer is ordinary. A mortgage on a new building is arranged near delivery, not at contract, because lenders lend on a finished residence. The desk introduces lenders who do this routinely; it does not arrange loans itself.
If you are moving, the purchase is one exhibit in a larger change of domicile, and the state you are leaving is the audience. The pages for New York, California, Chicago and Michigan set out what each looks at. The condo is bought as your permanent residence, the homestead exemption follows, and the timing of the domicile change against the purchase is settled with a tax adviser first.
If it is a second home, none of that applies and two other things do. There is no homestead exemption, so the property tax rises with the assessed value each year, and the association may have rules on renting and on how long a residence may sit empty. Both are read in the documents inside the cancellation window.
Same building, same contract, two entirely different purchases. Say which at the start and the desk structures it accordingly.
This is the case a new building is built for. The staff, the management and the association maintain the building and, in most new towers, offer residence services for owners away for months: checking the residence, receiving deliveries, preparing it before an arrival. The desk reads what each building actually offers, because it varies, and says which buildings are run for absent owners and which merely tolerate them.
The desk at Miami Dossier is in Miami. It walks the galleries, reads the documents, confirms the current position on each building and puts all of it in front of you the same day wherever you are. When you come, it has arranged the day. When you close, it is there. And it works as your broker, paid by the developer at closing, so there is no fee to you for any of it.
This is the desk at Miami Dossier, a real estate desk covering the Miami market. It reads the developer’s documents, keeps the current position on every new building it covers, and puts the buildings that fit a brief in front of you the same day.
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Nothing on this page is legal, tax or investment advice, and the general Florida position above is not your position. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will go through the buildings that fit, the current position on each and what the next step actually is. Where a question is legal, tax or immigration, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
