Every cycle produces a set of towers that were announced, marketed, sometimes sold and never built. The pattern behind them is consistent enough to be useful.
This page covers the pattern. Project-specific diligence comes from the desk. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
The 2008 downturn left Miami with announced towers that never broke ground, projects that stalled part-built, and buyers waiting on deposits.
The market recovered and many sites were eventually developed by different sponsors, sometimes a decade later.
The lesson is not that Miami is unusually risky. It is that announcement, marketing and sales are not the same as delivery, and the gap between them is where buyer money sits.
No closed construction financing. The most consistent common factor. Projects funded by presales and equity alone are the ones that stall when either falters.
A sponsor without a delivery record in this market. A first project, sometimes with a strong brand licensed onto it, which reads as reassurance and is not the same thing.
A site acquired at the top of a cycle. Land basis too high for the project to work when pricing normalises, so it cannot be financed and cannot be repriced.
Extended sales periods without construction. Two years of marketing and no groundbreaking is the clearest visible signal available to a buyer.
Buyers with properly escrowed deposits and clear contract terms largely recovered their money, slowly.
Buyers whose deposits had been lawfully released for construction were in a materially worse position, holding a claim against an insolvent developer rather than a segregated fund.
Buyers who had waived protections or signed contracts with weak or indefinitely extendable outside dates did worst.
The variable was almost never the buyer’s judgement about the building. It was the paperwork.
Has construction financing closed, and who is the lender.
What has this sponsor actually delivered in this market, and when. Delivered, not announced.
How long has the project been selling without breaking ground.
What proportion of my deposit can be released, and what is the outside date and its extension ceiling.
A project that answers all four well is not guaranteed. A project that answers none of them well is telling you something you should hear.
Financing, sponsor record, time spent selling and the outside date answer the delivery question. Ask the desk at Miami Dossier and we will get all four.
We hold no inventory of our own and we are not the developer. Ask the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what applies to your situation, what does not, and where we would not proceed. Here that starts with financing status and what the sponsor has delivered. Where the question is legal, tax or immigration, we will introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.