The money is real. The timing is the part that catches people.
This page is about lining up two schedules before anything is signed. What a specific developer will actually agree to is not published anywhere. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
After a company goes public, shares usually become sellable in stages rather than all at once. A Miami preconstruction contract is paid in stages too: a piece at contract, a piece at groundbreaking, a piece at one or more construction milestones, and the balance at closing.
Deposit dates are negotiable before signing and fixed afterward. That single fact is most of what this page is about.
The rest is a calendar exercise, done once, before anything is signed.
The number on the screen the morning a company lists is not money anyone has yet. Most employees cannot sell for a set period after the listing, and when that period ends, shares typically become sellable in tranches. Options have to be exercised. Many sellers move through a preset plan agreed in advance.
So the position is common and specific. A large amount is coming, the timing is roughly knowable, and the exact dates are set by someone else.
That is the same shape whether the money comes from a listing, a fund payout, the sale of a business with payments over years, or deferred compensation. The source changes the vocabulary. It does not change the mechanics.
A preconstruction apartment is not paid for at once. Payment is spread across roughly two to four years, tied to contract, groundbreaking, construction milestones and closing.
That shape sits closer to money arriving in stages than a resale purchase does, since resale is one payment for an apartment that exists today.
This is worth understanding, not acting on. The mechanics fitting is a reason to know how they work before somebody explains them across a sales gallery table. It is not a reason to sign.
Developers set a payment schedule because it funds construction, not because those particular dates matter to them. On a larger unit in a building still selling, there is usually room to move a date or attach it to a different construction milestone.
Almost nobody asks. Most buyers accept the schedule as printed, then spend the next two years managing a mismatch created on the first day.
A first deposit is usually a small fraction of the purchase, and later deposits fall months or years out, so signing before shares can be sold is common rather than unusual. What has to be checked is dull and decisive: whether the later deposit dates fall after the point the shares can actually be sold, with room for that to take longer than expected.
Most large Miami towers deliver later than first announced. Slippage of ~12 to 24 months is common rather than exceptional, and the causes are largely outside anyone’s control: permitting, labour, materials, litigation, a change of general contractor.
A payment tied to a construction milestone moves when the building moves. A payment tied to a calendar date does not. Same building, same percentages, entirely different exposure.
The largest payment is the last one, and it falls at closing, which follows the certificate of occupancy. Anything timed to that date has to survive the date changing.
Worth asking of any developer: what did their last three buildings deliver, against what was announced at launch. That record is public, and a developer who has landed close to schedule three times is telling you something a brochure cannot.
Who buys. Personally, or through an entity or a trust. This changes liability, estate treatment, disclosure at closing, and how borrowing works. Decided with counsel, not by preference, and the right answer varies enough that a general one is worth nothing.
Whether there is borrowing. Income concentrated in one asset and arriving unevenly underwrites badly through a standard application. Better routes exist and take longer to arrange than people expect. Where borrowing is part of it, that starts before the building is chosen, not after.
The most common mistake here is not choosing the wrong building. It is buying because the money arrived. Miami is a good reason to buy in Miami. A share sale is not.
Where the timing is genuinely uncertain rather than merely staged, resale removes the scheduling problem completely: one payment, an apartment that exists, a higher price per foot, and no calendar to manage.
And waiting a year costs nothing. The money will still be there. A signed contract is considerably harder to undo than a decision to wait.
Deposit dates are the one term that is easy to move before contract and impossible to move afterward, and almost nobody raises it in time. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what a specific developer has actually agreed to, including when the answer is that they will not move. Where a question is legal, tax or compliance, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
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Nothing here is advice on when or whether to sell a position, and nothing here says to buy. It describes how two payment schedules interact, so the question can be asked at the only moment it can still be answered. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover. Where a question is legal, tax or compliance, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
