Miami's Fontainebleau Sorrento Sells Last 25 Condos for Fire-Sale Price of $7.2 Million

Fontainebleau Sorrento, Miami Beach

Without fanfare or hype, the last 25 luxury condos at the 18-story, 311-unit, two-year-old Fontainebleau Sorrento in Miami Beach have been sold for $7.2 million or a bargain-basement price of $288,000 per unit.

The developer, Turnberry Associates of Aventura, FL, sold the property at 4391 Collins Ave. to BH III, the current owner of the 116-unit Terra Beachside at 6000 Collins Ave., also in Miami Beach. It was an all-cash deal.

When constructed in 2008, the Fontainebleau Sorrento condos were listed at $269,000 to $7.9 million per unit. The units range from 550 square feet to 1,742 square feet.

Mark Pordes of Pordes Residential Sales & Marketing in Aventura brokered the transaction.

"There was no public bidding and no negative publicity," Pordes says in a prepared statement.

"We position each transaction so that the purchased units won't compete with the ones that may still be for sale by the developer. It's complicated, but we make it work."

Pordes says the latest sale is a follow-up to a 25-unit bulk sale at the Fontainebleau Sorrento in August 2009 to a private investor group from New York for roughly $8 million or about $320,000 per condo.

"Bulk sales are working in this market because they provide developers/sellers with a quick cash solution and buyers with an excellent investment opportunity," says Pordes

"These deals will stay popular as long as lenders are in control of projects. Developers need to have certain thresholds met to conform with loan requirements and pay down their debt."

In June of this year, Pordes Residential negotiated the largest condominium bulk sale of the year in Florida -- 146 units at the 2700 North Ocean condominium towers on Singer Island in Palm Beach County for about $120 million to an investor group from New York.

That equates to another bargain-basement price of about $82,000 per unit.

"The smart thing for a developer to do now," says Pordes, "is to raise quick cash through a bulk sale to pay down or pay off debt to the lenders."

As with other deals, the Fontainebleau sale was handled quietly to protect the global reputation of the Miami Beach resort-hotel and its associated properties.
Pordes and his team took the same approach when they assembled a package sale of units for $7.5 million at Peninsula II in Aventura to a group of Argentinean investors in December 2009.

Pordes started his company after working for 10 years as vice president of Residential Sales for Turnberry Ltd., an Avenutra-based condo developer.

He oversaw Turnberry's portfolio in South Florida and the Bahamas including The Reef at Atlantis in Paradise Island, a condo-hotel, condo hotels Fontainebleau II and Fontainebleau III in Miami Beach, Turnberry Village, and Porto Vita in Aventura.

Pordes also handled international sales at Williams Island, and sales at Santa Maria on Brickell Avenue in Downtown Miami.

The firm's management team includes Michael Internoscia, vice president of sales, Michael Sadov, vice president of operations, and Mindy Pordes, director of business development.