Ryan & Ana On MIA
Ryan and Ana cover all things Miami development and real estate, the good, the bad the drama.
Ryan & Ana On MIA
Miami's Real Estate Reality Check: Dissecting Headlines, Condo Trends, and Transit Developments
Can you really trust the headlines? Find out as we dissect a misleading Newsweek article that claims Miami's home prices are plummeting by 11%. We’ll share our analysis, revealing a 10% year-over-year increase in single-family home prices using MLS data. Our new producer, Ronar, helps us bring these critical insights to light, emphasizing the importance of scrutinizing data sources and their context.
Ever wondered about the latest trends in Miami’s real estate market? This episode sheds light on the growing practice of condo terminations, paving the way for ultra-luxury developments on the waterfront. We explore the significant boost in multifamily inventory and a slight dip in rent prices driven by increased supply. Learn how the innovative Live Local Act is transforming Miami’s urban landscape, with developers now incentivized to include workforce housing in their projects.
Stay updated on Miami’s transit and construction scene with our latest insights. From the efficiency of Brightline and Tri-Rail to exciting new express services, we discuss how public transit is shaping the city's future. Plus, get the scoop on major construction updates like the Mercedes Tower, Waldorf, and Aria Reserve’s second tower. We also highlight environmental advancements at Port Miami and ponder the broader implications of political trends, drawing parallels with Brazil’s landscape. Join us for a comprehensive look at the forces shaping Miami today and in the immediate future.
Welcome.
Speaker 1:Episode 21,.
Speaker 2:I believe yes, no 22. 22.
Speaker 1:22, and we are live.
Speaker 2:Yes, excitement, and we have our producer here today, which is amazing. Yes, thank you, ronar, thank you. Ronar is our new podcast producer guy at OfficeLogic and you can actually hire him to do your podcast here. Amazing, he's really good at what he does.
Speaker 1:I'm happy I don't have to do it for once, because I'm always the one who's always having to do the stuff.
Speaker 2:Ryan is usually the mastermind behind this, but yes, we have much to talk about this week.
Speaker 1:We have a little bit of a scoop here. First of all, yes, I've been saying for some time that the mainstream press, which is often based in jurisdictions from which we are poaching taxpayers, is being less than kind in their headlines towards Miami. I've talked about the Wall Street Journal before other things, and Ryan sent me a link to an article from Newsweek. This came out in the 26th I believe, and Newsweek, I think, gets quite the wide distribution, does it not? It does. It's like it's a whole national thing. Lots of people read it, right. All right, newsweek had this headline. Their headline says Miami's home prices are plunging.
Speaker 2:Plunging.
Speaker 1:Plunging. That is the entire headline. Miami's home prices are plunging. That sounds dramatic, does it not?
Speaker 2:Can I just add something? I saw this and I was like I have sent this to Anna.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So they go on to say prices of homes in Miami fell by more than 11% last month this is for the month of May, I believe they're saying helped by declining interest in blah, blah, blah. So this 11% number they're quoting, right, yes, as a year-over-year drop and I said, wow, I didn't quite see this reflected in the data, because I do big quarterly reports but I also check monthly and I haven't seen these huge drops.
Speaker 2:And analytics.
Speaker 1:And so I said, huh, this is interesting. And, ryan, it's late at night and I said where is the reference, where are they getting this data from? And they mentioned realtorcom. So I Google this and I find an article on realtorcom which says home prices falling cities where prices dropped most past year. That's the URL and it's an article where they go through all these cities in America and they have a table and they show you how much the median the price has fallen year over year. Great. So I look at this article and it has lots of text. This article references another Realtorcom article which was Realtorcom forward slash research forward slash May-2024-data. That's the page that has the data that everything else referenced from. So now we're two nested deep from broken telephone from this Newsweek article.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:So we go to this data source on Realtreecom and what do they have here? They have a table. The table has metro areas. It lists a whole bunch. It lists 50, 50 largest metro areas and then it has some data points. It has five data points. It has median listing price, year over year change. Median listing price per square foot change. So all five are based on median listing price. First of all, not the resale price.
Speaker 2:This was never made clear in the Newsweek article and this is combined single-family home and condo.
Speaker 1:Correct. And not only is it that, but in this table of the original data set it doesn't even have the city of Miami. It has Miami-Fort, Lauderdale-Pompano Beach.
Speaker 2:It's like the statistical area.
Speaker 1:Yes, correct. And then it says there was an 11.2% drop aggregate for those three areas of the median listing price year over year. So this Newsweek article that says Miami prices plunging and it says 11% drop is referencing this data point, which is not for the city of Miami and it is not for sale prices. It is for listing prices of this aggregate metro area.
Speaker 2:Wow, isn't that fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then I said you know what, I'm even suspicious of that because while I don't follow Fort Lauderdale as closely as Miami, I do, and Pompano as well I follow all of South Florida. And so I said you know what? I'm going to try to replicate this data. Okay, so I go on the MLS and I took an aggregate and you could select multiple cities. So I took this city and again, I'm not sure if this is county data, I'm not even sure what they're using, right.
Speaker 1:But I took city of Miami, I took Fort Lauderdale, I took Pompano Beach and then I broke it up by single family condo and I took the aggregate of both to try to see if I can replicate this 11.2% drop. And I could not.
Speaker 2:An increase.
Speaker 1:Yes, but now not to dwell on Pompano Beach and Fort Lauderdale, because this theme is Miami. So I dug into Miami because we're refuting the Miami headline. Now this is MLS data. Again, I doubt there's an error in the MLS. Perhaps Newsweek or somebody has data that I don't from the MLS, but I highly doubt it. City of Miami single-family home data we have.
Speaker 1:Median sale price for the month of May 2024 was $667,000. January was 640. So we're up 4% since January and last May was 605. So we're up 10% year over year. We're not done. We're up 10% for single family. Yeah, and we're up 78% versus pre-COVID when it was 375. Now, to be fair, the Newsweek article did not make it clear that they were talking about the listing price versus the sale price, but I said let's look at the listing price too, since that's what the Realtorcom study talked about. So I looked at the median listing price for single-family homes. It's the City of Miami data, may of 2024, $749,700. January 2024 was $699,000. So we're up 7% for the year and May 2023 was $699,000. So we're up 7% for the year and May 2023 was 650. So we're up 15% year over year for median listing price 15%, that's still huge.
Speaker 1:Which is quite different than being down 11%. Yeah, and we're up 84% versus pre-COVID May. Now looking at condos. Now I want to bore with exact numbers of May 2024, median sale price today in Miami 430. Last May it was 435. So we're down 1%. For condos for median sale price today in Miami $430. Last May it was $435. So we're down 1% for condos.
Speaker 2:For the median sale price and that is mostly due to the older stock coming.
Speaker 1:And even given this influx of older stuff that people want to sell because we have this law change coming up, we're still down only 1%. I'm just saying. And then, versus May 2019, pre-covid, we're up 75%. Now looking at the list price again, because Realtorcom referenced list price for the city of Miami, condos, median list price is up 18%. I love it. It's Newsweek. This is wow. This is an egregious misrepresentation of what is going on. The headline says Miami. Let's read that headline again, shall we? Miami's home prices are plunging. Prices of homes in Miami fell by more than 11% last month. None of this is true. It references data from Realtorcom that talks about the listing price for an aggregate area that is not Miami. I couldn't replicate that data anyway, and the Miami data doesn't reflect this at all. Everyone, this is incorrect. I'm going to be publishing a PDF with all this over the weekend, emailing it to everyone, emailing it to the press, but you heard it here first Long Miami.
Speaker 2:Ronar, could you pull up the screen capture, please, of this. I want to actually bring up the thing here, because this is here's what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, isn't that dramatic Miami home places are plunging. And then everything you just refuted, and they referenced the Realtorcom study which they completely obfuscated One may say misrepresented yeah.
Speaker 2:The person they interviewed said it right here. They said condos tend to be priced significantly lower than single-family homes in Miami.
Speaker 1:Well, that's true.
Speaker 2:Which means the overall median listing pricing will move lower as the condo share increases.
Speaker 1:This is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, correct means the overall median listing pricing will move lower as the condo share increases. This is true. Yeah, that's true. But that doesn't go with the headline. Of course, not at all.
Speaker 1:Not at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the original data set again was not for the city of Miami. Yeah, Yep, Amazing. You would think that for something with as wide distribution as Newsweek, one would not misrepresent their data sources when they create headlines Just saying Well.
Speaker 2:I think that goes just along with. We've been saying this for the whole, almost whole year. It's almost a year. That we've been saying is that most of these places are based in the Northeast in Los Angeles, in San Francisco and they just can't fathom that Miami is doing well or better than they expect it in their headcanon.
Speaker 1:No, they cannot Correct.
Speaker 2:That's what it comes down to, yep, and because we are so far out, we're like that kid where the teacher has to adjust the curve on the grade because we're so far out of whack that they can't grade us to the rest of the country. That's right. And so when they do that, their brains, these journalists and whoever they cannot say, they can't comprehend it, so they write articles like this. To be like this is the way I make sense of it, even if it is not based in reality.
Speaker 1:They want it to be this because what's actually happening is somehow generating an identity crisis for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, correct. You would think after four years that they would have. They would have figured out that Miami's reality has been permanently shifted. Yes, it will change and still have ups and downs, but the baseline reality has permanently shifted.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing that troubles people the most, because the pattern that's held in this post-COVID reality it's a very clear migration pattern for the wealth and talent redistribution in the country. This is one thing that I've been talking about a lot. I always preface it by saying that I'm a registered independent and I dislike both political parties, so it's not a political statement.
Speaker 2:Preach sister.
Speaker 1:Yeah, preach, my reality is not beholden to anyone's platform or pretense of a platform or my sense of truth, but the pattern of what's happening is super clear If we juxtapose a map showing the migration patterns of actual taxpayers just migration patterns in general next to a map of just tax rates across your country. That's it. It's clear as day. So high tax states that tended to be blue states that tended to be high lockdown states are the ones that are losing actual taxpayer population, and it's really messing with people's realities, and this is also part of why we're getting headlines like this. They want it not to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very interesting. This is along the same lines. I used to work for Microsoft back in the day, and Microsoft has had their good days and their dark days, based on the products that they sell. About 10 years ago or so, microsoft started to come out of the woods as far as their product and whatever, but the tech press had the same effect that Newsweek had here. Even though Microsoft was making good products and doing good things, they couldn't fathom that it was happening. Microsoft could have announced that they were curing cancer. They'd be like no, with all the data points to back it up, and the tech press would have been like this is incorrect, whatever Correct. And so it's the same sort of effect. Miami in this case is Microsoft, and people just cannot fathom that we're doing better than they expect us to.
Speaker 1:Correct, Because in many cases we're spousing viewpoints that are contrary to their belief systems.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In many cases, and that's part of it. Yeah, yeah, exactly, but sorry everyone. It is what it is, and there's also tons of articles right now coming out on a national level showing that there's inventory surges across the nation. Austin is suffering all these things. We are not. Our inventory levels across the board are far below where they were pre-COVID.
Speaker 2:And right now in Miami, what's coming on the board is old condos. Correct, that's what's coming on the board.
Speaker 1:Absolutely right. Single family inventory below the median price point is basically a disappearing thing. It's going away, just dropping, dropping. Condos are lower price points. We have seen this uptake in the curve for the reasons that you just said. It's because people are scared of having huge increases in their HOAs all these things next year. So we are still at the lower end of the condo market, absolutely right. But that's it, and it's still below where it was pre-COVID, by the way, even with that little recent bump.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Speaking of news stories, I was watching one I think I sent to you last night about assessments that are coming because we're getting close we only have about six months People weren't in denial about it forever.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there was one in, I think it was up near Orlando area. There was an older condo and they were getting $100,000 assessments per unit, Wow. And the story, the framing was weird because it was like we can't afford this. You also can't afford to have your building collapse. So I feel for the people, but it's one of those things where they put it off for so long and for so many years that I really can't have that much sympathy for them.
Speaker 1:Correct, it didn't happen overnight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and yes, I understand it might be older folks who want fixed incomes. I get it and that's terrible, but that goes back to the HOAs and then putting it off for 20 years Exactly. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen, but I still think I've been saying this for months or a year now we're going to see a massive amount of condo terminations. Yep, a massive amount, yep.
Speaker 1:What may save them again is just this influx of people. They might get bought out, yeah, and that would be their best hope.
Speaker 2:All these older ones that are getting these assessments are basically on the water or very close to the water, and we're not making any more waterfront land, exactly except when it rains sometimes.
Speaker 1:Brickle shots, yeah, right here Downtown. Sorry.
Speaker 2:Right here. But yeah, you're not making any more and these old condos from the 70s and 80s have to go, and so you're going to get people going in and putting ultra-luxury condos, because that's what people want now.
Speaker 1:It's also what pencils out. Yes, that's the issue which brings us to live local. Yes, and also there's articles recently that Miami's rent the surge in rent has subsided, which is a very good thing. We've been talking about this now again for almost a year. We're not afraid to build and we have more multifamily inventory in the pipeline as a percentage of existing inventory than any other city in America, which is a great thing.
Speaker 2:Yep, I cannot pronounce his name, but my friend is this founder and CEO of Zumper. That's who that was from, and they track that. And it was 2% less rents, right, right. But it's one of those things where you can both. When someone tells you that my first thought there was, I looked outside my balcony window and I was like, yep, that tracks, because there is so much incoming and not even all of it has hit yet. No, there is much incoming and not even all of it has hit yet. No, there is. I did my scooter ride around Wynwood yesterday and my brain was just like whoa, it's hard to keep up.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:And I keep finding new projects that I didn't know about. They're just like there Just overnight yeah, not overnight, but you can catch my drift. I mean relatively speaking, relatively speaking. And so I'm like, yeah, the rent has come down 2%. It needs to come down more, but there's just so much inbound that it's just simple math.
Speaker 1:Supply and demand.
Speaker 2:That's all there is to it. And he even followed up when he said the decrease in rents was not a decrease in demand, it was an increase in supply.
Speaker 1:Which is great. How awesome is that we're actually building things to accommodate people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, live local. I know we've talked about it a lot, but I think it's one of the best things Florida has ever done. Agree, I think it might be the only thing like it in the entire country.
Speaker 1:I don't know of anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's other YIMBY laws, but nothing that has the sort of things that go with live local.
Speaker 1:Correct, correct, and the announcements keep coming. It's still early days of this law, so it's unfolding right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was one. Do I have it? Oh, if you can pull it up here on the screen, there are at least three live local apartment towers for Postman Wood at least Fantastic and they will all be above the 12-story cap. On the current thing, the most ridiculous one is the one I'm looking at here right now.
Speaker 1:Obviously is the 48 stories, and by ridiculous he means ridiculous in the best way possible. Ryan loves these things.
Speaker 2:No, I'm very much for it. We talked about it a week or two ago, but it's really. I hope it happens. I really hope it does. I was driving by yesterday and they're building a 12-story building next to it. For reference, this building's podium would be about 12 stories.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic.
Speaker 2:So it's like yeah, and the views would be absolutely. Right over the neighbor, clearly, and the views would be killer. This particular one is by Baz Baz, and then there's at least three more that equate to looks like about 1,500 units in Wynwood. And that's in addition to everything that's happened before Live Local, because everything Wynwood that's happening now was way previous to Live Local.
Speaker 1:Yep Now developers are like I can go 48 stories. And so, for our audience, live Local lets you build. You can match the zoning kind of another structure that's within a mile radius of your proposed project, overriding the local neighborhood zoning laws. Yes, so, whereas before you could build 12 floors in Wynwood, now you can build 48.
Speaker 2:Podium can be 12 floors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a If you include 40% workforce housing. That's the.
Speaker 2:Correct and I think it can go up to 120% AMI. Oh, I think that's what it is.
Speaker 1:Is that the defined?
Speaker 2:workforce, yeah, which is still low, because in Miami it's not high, it's not high, yeah. So I think 120% is like 110,000 or something like that. Right right, it's not a lot, but anyways it's great. Also, there is a Crazy Live Local project far out west, the one with the five stories, the five towers in West Little River.
Speaker 1:Oh no, it's seven or nine towers.
Speaker 2:Oh, seven or nine towers yeah.
Speaker 1:The real deal said it was seven towers but it might be more. Wow, the real deal said it's 3,200 plus units.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, but yeah it's that it's like far that's a five.
Speaker 1:No, it's more than that. I was like what is he talking about?
Speaker 2:It's like far west of 95.
Speaker 1:Correct and right now it's on a quarter. Right there it's with transit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's right now. It has two story buildings on it.
Speaker 1:I think it's like 20 acres or so.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is some serious density. Yeah, correct, wow, yeah, I think Live Local gives you the ability to do like 1,000 units per acre 19 acres.
Speaker 1:I think it's. I think yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, but no, it's crazy and the neighborhood out there is.
Speaker 1:They purchased it for $29 million last year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's a mysterious thing. No, everyone is, it's quite mysterious. Yeah yeah, it's not a developer that's well known in South.
Speaker 1:Florida. There's projects here, but going all in.
Speaker 2:I hope it all happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he built affordable, sustainable housing in Spain.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:According to the article I saw about him by UBS, he was at one point one of Spain's largest developers, and he does sustainable, affordable housing.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is interesting, and that's just one of many. Oh, another one that's my favorite, I think I talked about it last time, but the Sears they want to redevelop in Coral Gables it's not actually in Coral Gables, my apologies. It's like across the street and if you guys don't know, if you guys aren't from here, coral G, most NIMBY of all NIMBY's jurisdictions they literally tell you how your building has to look, and it has to look like a Mediterranean villa.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:It has to have like masonry we need columns, we need columns, and then all the street signs are on the floor. But whatever, but anyways, they are extremely NIMBY, extremely almost anti-development, unless it's for the ultra wealthy. It's a beautiful place. I enjoy going there, but there is it's actually you know what. It's the last Sears in South Florida.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know who goes to Sears now, but it's weird because most Sears were built attached to a mall. Okay, the Sears was actually standalone. Oh, so it's its own building. It had an auto repair place and all that.
Speaker 1:Is it still operational? I have no idea. I think it is.
Speaker 2:Okay, but it's like dying. Anyways, I think the guy bought it and he's going to put 1,200 units. It's on Coral Way and on this side of the street is City of Miami and this side is Cor, whatever they want, and Coral Gables really can only throw a hissy fit about it. Exactly, and that really is. I think any of Live Local's problems or whatever are overshadowed by just the sheer good that it is doing for the state.
Speaker 1:I agree A thousand percent.
Speaker 2:And I saw today I didn't get a chance to pull it up, but I saw they did Continue. And I saw today I didn't get a chance to pull it up, but I saw they did. I saw, like letters to the editor of the Miami Herald. Did you see the one about the end of Wynwood?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, so the article, not the letter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the article was a couple of days ago. They published a letter today, okay, and there was sorry I'm jumping all over the place, too much caffeine but they did a. The Herald published a article that said the end of Wynwood.
Speaker 1:It was talking about. We were joking about this and I said wait a second. Wynwood now is going to be its own preservation league to preserve 15-year-old buildings. What was in Wynwood 20 years ago? Relax everyone. The end of Wynwood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started a little bit of a mini flame war on Twitter for this, because people really maybe it's like a recency bias or something it's hugely.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I've learned. People have this enormous recency bias. That actually is a selfish impulse because they don't want their status quo to change. Okay, I have theories on this.
Speaker 2:But it's like an ultra super recency bias, because Wynwood Wynwood as it currently sits is less than 15 years old. Yes, correct, Less. Yes, 20 years ago you did not go there.
Speaker 1:No, you didn't get your cute gelato there Like it didn't exist.
Speaker 2:Sorry, yeah, I one of my friends back in the day she, one of her boyfriends, lived there and she didn't go there unless she was strapped. They did not go unless you were strapped up.
Speaker 1:So you want to go back to those days. I don't understand.
Speaker 2:And then here's a fun thing If you think Wynwood has any historical thing, go on Google Earth and do the street view and go back in time to the earliest possible version of it. I was doing that around the neighborhoods and it was wild. The earliest you can go back is 2008. Yep, and just walking around, it is literally abandoned warehouses and single family homes that are in disrepair.
Speaker 1:So the end of Wynwood is upon us.
Speaker 2:And what it's amazing. And then people keep talking about the character of Wynwood and I'm, like you do realize that Wynwood only has gotten character recently because Tony Goldwyn painted some art, had some art painted on Warehouse.
Speaker 1:Not that long ago. Yes, I have jeans older than Wynwood.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and just I was reading this article and my eyes were rolling back in my head. I was just like, oh my God.
Speaker 1:It's a human condition that I often talk about. It's that recency bias. Like you said, people think the present is sacrosanct and for some reason they latch onto it and attach their identity to it, and anything else coming in they're like no, but they forget that it didn't exist until very recently. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that is a perfect microcosm for Miami in general.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent Because.
Speaker 2:Miami is such a young new city. We're only like 127 years old and we really didn't even become a modern city until the late 90s. Yep Brickell was mostly parking lots and grass and then.
Speaker 1:And what was downtown?
Speaker 2:Nothing, so it's like we only became a modern city in the late 90s. Yep, I saw a video a couple weeks ago that was about the MetroMover when they built it. And the MetroMover when they built it was the biggest boondoggle because it went nowhere, like when they built it, like it stopped in places where there was literally grass, like grass around it. Museum Park did not exist as we know it. It was basically just a patch of grass, correct, full of crackheads and homeless. Yes, I read that they opened the station there in the I don't know, probably the late 80s and 90s, and they had to close it a year later because crackheads were stealing the metal off of the stairs to sell for scrap.
Speaker 1:Crackheads will do. What crackheads will do?
Speaker 1:But, that's how recent it is. My friend, greg Colvin, was a developer for 10 Museum Park, which is the first building built there on the Biscayne Quarter. So right now it's next to 1000 Museum, which was a co-developer on, but that, of course, was Zaha Hadid's, I think, last residential project half-floor units, very expensive, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, greg built 10 Museum Park like two cycles ago, like 2003, 2004,. Something like this. And he's a Miami native, he's from, from here, and he told me that when he told his friends that he was building this project there, they all told him like bro, what are you doing? They're crackheads in the park. Yeah, and that wasn't long ago. Everyone we're talking. 20 years ago they made fun of him for building that building, saying what are you doing? They're crackheads in the park.
Speaker 2:And now look, yeah, and then where I live on Northeast 16th Street, the school board station, they showed a video of it and it was literally like one-story buildings, homeless, and the guy was the newscaster in the 80s and 90s but he's like he's in the middle of nowhere. This is the worst. They all predicted MetroMover would be gone in 10 years.
Speaker 1:Are we going to hear in like put cows to pasture, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is a very long way to say it, but just Miami's being a new city both hurts and helps us, right, because it allows us to do things that you just can't do in other cities, but it also people's idea of Miami doesn't really match.
Speaker 1:It's changing so quickly, so you have to be very free about it, don't latch onto something. Yes, but it helps us in the sense that we have this rapid paradigm shift post-COVID, where the world, our country, is reshaping and we have all this still very empty land within the urban core, so we can build a city for this future that's emerging, whereas if we were already built out we could not, and so the timing is good for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good, and we still have space for the next two, three cycles to build.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's fantastic In the urban core. We've just begun. It's fantastic In the urban core, We've just begun.
Speaker 2:It's early In the urban core. Yes, it's amazing Like you still, to this day, will not find another major city that has as much space in the urban core. You just will not Correct.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You would have to knock down a skyscraper, yeah we're in the same.
Speaker 1:We have the East Coast time zone.
Speaker 2:We have one of the any airport in.
Speaker 1:America. That's what I mean.
Speaker 2:Physically.
Speaker 1:It's close. Listen, I grew up in New York. To me it's paradise. Okay, it's 20 minutes from downtown. It's not like JFK, which is like the pits of hell. You have to allocate three hours just to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fantastic. It's literally 10 minutes on the train to get to JFK.
Speaker 1:I've never taken a train, but yeah. But taxis are expensive and very slow. You know what? You're talking about there was no, maybe there is now, but I haven't lived in New York for 15 years now, but at the time when I lived there there was no direct train link anyway.
Speaker 2:That's why I never did it.
Speaker 1:I'm saying Because it would take you hours, it would be like you had to take the subway and something else, and I just never did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was a nightmare any way you looked at it.
Speaker 2:Do you know how much it cost to take the train to the airport in Miami? No, how much did?
Speaker 1:it cost $5?
Speaker 2:$2.25.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so wonderful, how quaint. And listen, I'll wait a half an hour, it's basically free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as long as they don't have a flight like some ridiculous hour, like 4 am. I take the train and literally right there. You literally walk out of the airport. You take a tram to the rental car center and the train's right there.
Speaker 1:I have not this weekend. Next weekend I have a jujitsu tournament at ADCC Open in Orlando and I don't drive. I don't drive and I was wondering how does one get to Orlando? Wow, we have options. Now Are?
Speaker 2:you taking Brightline?
Speaker 1:I might.
Speaker 2:Isn't that exciting? You should take Brightline.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Brightline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great. Speaking of trains, I'm excited. On July 1st, which is Monday, trirail is starting an express service from Miami Boca I think it's Miami, fort Lauderdale, boca and West Palm. Oh wow, you have to remember we have two services. We have Brightline, which is fast and expensive, and Tri-L, which is cheap and slow. Those are your options, but Brightline I can't talk, there's too much caffeine.
Speaker 1:There's magic up there. We don't know what's in it.
Speaker 2:Brightline recently got rid of their commuter service, basically, and made it way more expensive because they are overwhelmed when people go into Orlando.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:They make a lot more money on Orlando to Miami. Anyways, it's good they have too much. They have too much. Trirail is doing Express, which will only stop at three or four stations. Got it Right now there's 20 stations, so it takes like forever to get there. But they're doing Express train, which is a big deal, and this is a public transit. This is state county funded, Not this is state county funded. Not as luxurious, but it'll be half the price of Brightline to get there Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exciting. What else? There's a lot going on. There's a whole lot going on. We had I'm going to bring up my screen here they had two foundation pours recently.
Speaker 1:Yes, the Mercedes Tower had this port Mercedes and also Waldorf. That's right.
Speaker 2:They both had their foundation ports and those are two super tolls.
Speaker 1:And Mercedes has done well initially in sales, largely because they had some units starting under a million dollars. I think they were starting in the 700s, which is quite the novelty in our new construction world these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For a non-micro, non-condo hotel unit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what I realized? I didn't realize this until yesterday. The Mercedes is a joint venture between where'd it go? It's between who are the people, Anyways, but it's by that Italian guy on Instagram who's always dancing his tattoos.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like famous on Instagram. Okay, he's like an Italian CEO person, but he's really famous on Instagram for dancing. But he's part of it and I was like that's definitely so. Miami, fantastic. And then your buddy, ryan, is the leading the sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sir Hansley Other Ryan.
Speaker 2:He has a British accent right.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:He's American.
Speaker 2:Close enough I believe. But yeah, so we have that. And then Waldorf did their thing, ocon Tower poured theirs. They're going vertical now, finally, yeah. And then last night I was scootering around Edgewater and Aria Reserve. Their second tower is already vertical.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, mellow speed. It's fantastic, yeah. And then what else? Oh, also, my favorite One, bayfront Park, finally has a full demolition permit. Oh, finally. Okay, I'm sad that Tabar didn't pass away, but that building has been the bane of my existence. It's such an ugly, terrible building and the best spot. And yes, they have been slow walking this project for 15 years or more, 15 to 20 years, so they're going to demolish it. It's going to be a mess in downtown, but I am very excited about it. And then what else? Oh, also, port Miami has shore power now.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:So when cruise ships come in, they have to run their engines for electricity, terrible pollution and lots of money. So now, port Miami, they can plug in with literally a giant socket and they can turn off their engines.
Speaker 1:You can plug in the cruise ship.
Speaker 2:Sure power. That's awesome. It's a big deal They've been. The cruise ships produce as much pollution as 1,000 cars per day. You take 1,000 cars off the road.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic With that Progress.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then what else? Oh, the Miami River Bridge is fully approved. That's the Hyatt project. That's going to be very exciting. There's going to be so.
Speaker 1:And there's a signature bridge that's getting built.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's by us.
Speaker 1:Progress. We see progress all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so much. There's so much happening. And the next time I was off on break for a month and when they came back there was like, just they're like. There was like 15 stories that happened in three weeks. There were like major, huge events and I am obsessed with this. I'm probably a little autistic about it. I can barely even keep up.
Speaker 1:No, I know, I know I have a good friend in New York, kyle Goodman Shout out to him who keeps track of all the the construction stuff in New York and as of two months ago or so he told me at the time, new York has not had one filing for a building with over 100 units.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:There's no pipeline. So that means five years from now, there's nothing being built and we're in the polar opposite of this Is that, all five bureaus. I believe so.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, isn't that incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know I've said this a lot. People are probably bored with it, but I feel like I walk out to my front door every day and I just look around and I'm just like, wow, I feel like a little kid in a candy store.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you feel it, it's all.
Speaker 2:There's just so much happening, so much building, and even empty lots don't stay empty for very long. No Products are popping off, things are happening.
Speaker 1:And the forces that are driving people here and companies here aren't going away. I think they will just strengthen over the next five years because we have these divergent realities across our nation and they will continue to polarize.
Speaker 2:It's just the phase of the empire that we're in, so it's just started yeah, and you know I hate politics so very much, but even I could not fully stay away from the train wreck last night well, that debate, yeah, wasn't that fascinating I I don't want to say too much, because I'd prefer if I'm going to get canceled. I'm going to make up something more interesting than politics A sex scandal or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I'd rather that than politics, but I was just watching it and I was just like I posted the poster from Alien vs Predator. The movie came out a long time ago. The tagline for that movie was no matter who wins, we lose.
Speaker 1:And that to me is yeah. This is why I say I'm an independent, I don't associate with any of this.
Speaker 2:Even the independent one is terrible this year.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. But I'm saying I'm very pragmatic in my politics. I look at actual quality of life and what affects us on a daily basis and the trajectory of our lives, not someone, platform they're making up to get elected Like I don't care.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But looking at that debate, so there are two things that can come to my mind when I see this sort of train wreck unfolding. Sure, the two things that come that I see very clearly one is we all know the story of the emperor has no clothes, right? Yes? So everyone says look amazing.
Speaker 2:but he's naked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is to me what's unfolding when you have this type of scenario with somebody like Biden, who clearly has some cognitive issues and all of them, but everyone is saying why? Why is this even happening? It's because the emperor has no clothes. That's that story that's going on. It's really amazing the scale at which that happens. And then the other thing that this clearly illustrates for me and I think it should for everybody and again I'm making this as an independent, like I really I dislike both parties. So even a race, which party is like affiliation, it's irrelevant. But just look at this person who is the current sitting president of the United States.
Speaker 1:So, this person is occupying the seat of the president, right? Yes, it stands to reason that if that person occupies the seat, has no power.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And that, to me, is something that is very clear looking at that, which further makes it ridiculous that Americans argue and get all entrapped in who the president is, because if the fact that Biden is president should clearly show everyone that it is irrelevant to his president Because there's something else going on there, that man has no power. This is not Putin, it's not anybody. I'm not sure he can tie his own shoes, but that is not the seat of power. That is, the emperor has no clothes, and so the seat has no power. It's elsewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we have a choice. It's not even a choice. It's elsewhere. Yeah, and I think we have a choice. It's not even a choice. It's like we have a choice between someone who is objectively senile or someone who is completely insane and can't be controlled by anyone.
Speaker 1:I'm not even sure if that's true about the control part. I don't believe any of it at face value, but you could be right. It could be fair.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that's my perspective, that's the choice.
Speaker 1:So I'll go further and say it's not much of a choice at all.
Speaker 2:Exactly yeah. No matter who wins, we lose.
Speaker 1:It's irrelevant, right, because the power isn't there. That's what Biden makes it clear. The power is elsewhere. If that man occupies the seat, he has no power. So who are you voting for? Are you voting for the puppet that occupies the seat?
Speaker 2:Yes, and to wrap that all back around, to to here. That is why I'm so glad I live here, because by culture, by history, miami-dade has far less, is far more insulated to what happens in the rest of the country. I agree.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent so whatever drama is happening in Washington DC or San Francisco or LA, we're somewhat insulated from here, I agree. So we don't think about it unless this is happening, unless it was an actual thing. People in other parts of the country, they have to think about it because it affects what happens in their lives. This is correct. It doesn't as much here. Agree, we have our own slate of problems, correct, completely insane politicians. But it doesn't, it just doesn't. So every time I watch it I'm just like, oh, I live here. I'm so thankful. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:That was my reaction last night watching the clips that's what I always think when I see national politics.
Speaker 2:Like I'm glad I live in this crazy and not that crazy. Yes, this crazy I can handle or ignore, depending on my mood. Exactly that crazy I cannot. That's a whole other can, a can of worms. So I think. But I think also, no matter who wins or what happens, it's going to continue to drive people here.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is part of the phase of the empire we're in. That's what I keep saying.
Speaker 2:It's going to drive people to Miami-Dade, south Florida, yep, even the Sunbelt, yep the southern states, the fastest growing southern states we keep talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's going to drive people there. We have the weather, the taxes, the beaches, whatever, and we have so much inventory inbound, the prices will eventually, eventually correct to where they're supposed to be. They'll still rise, but they'll correct. Not only are we building, we're ready for the people who are coming here.
Speaker 1:Correct, correct. I agree, I agree, and the true believers are staying where they are. We're getting the people who are more aligned with a more free concept of how they want to live their lives. I'm finding, I'm optimistic.
Speaker 2:Me too, I am optimistic, and I hope people like this format. I think it was fun, I think it's super fun and once again, guys, we have Ronar producing over there. Thank you, ronar.
Speaker 1:Making us look more fabulous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, less work for me. And also you can hire him with this room if you want to use it self-service. It is set up for that, but it's so much easier when you have a producer and he is very good at what he does. So you can contact me at OfficeLogic if you want to do your podcast here. We are now a full-service thing. Anything else you want to say before we go?
Speaker 1:No, I'll make an optimistic note. I think, just to go back to what Ryan was saying is that one thing, when it comes to the phases of empires and politicians and all those things, it's quite normal. Everything moves in cycles and it's bigger than us, so everyone should just there's no point to getting upset or arguing over the ridiculousness of national politics. It is what it is. And look, we had I mentioned last week, for the first time in America's history, we have the child of a sitting president convicted or on trial for something and a former president convicted of something, and they happen within a week of each other. So this is the Brazil model unfolding. From now on, every single sitting president will be on trial, in jail. Something just like Lula, like this is the path that we're on.
Speaker 2:It's very clear.
Speaker 1:No, but it's very clear. So this is part of that polarization that I keep talking about. But when it comes to history, 10, 20 years is a rounding error. We don't really know how long stuff takes to play out. But when it comes to our lives, 10, 20 years is a lot.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so I can't, I don't like to talk further than 20 years out. Who knows, this was magic not that long ago. Things change, but for the next 10, 20.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good for us, so for the rest of the country, mark MANDELMANN. On that note, guys, thank you, thank you for watching and we will see you in two weeks. Melanie WARRICK yes, cheers. Mark MANDELMANN. Cheers, yes, cheers. Melanie WARRICK I know, I see.
