Preconstruction Condominium Sales in Miami
Contents
Trevor L Taylor, a Miami private investor whose firm Fortius Capital is active in real estate development, works in a market where many condominium towers are financed by their buyers long before the first floor is poured. In a preconstruction sale, a buyer signs a contract for a unit that exists only in plans and renderings, pays deposits over the construction period and closes when the building is finished. The model shapes which projects get built in Miami, who carries the risk and how the market behaves when a wave of towers delivers at once.
How a Miami presale works
After Florida’s last condo crash, banks were slow to lend for condominium construction. The Miami Herald reported in 2012 that developers responded with a strategy built on other people’s money1, persuading buyers to put up large deposits that funded much of construction. Under that model, buyers agreed to pay as much as 80 percent of the price in a series of deposits during construction, compared with the 20 percent that had been typical before the crash.
Presales do two jobs at once. They prove demand to lenders, who want evidence that units will close, and they supply equity that reduces how much the developer must borrow. A project that cannot sell enough units early usually does not break ground, which is why the sales gallery often matters more to a tower’s future than the permit.
The buyer, in turn, is choosing a unit from drawings. Floor plans, finish schedules, renderings and a model unit stand in for the real thing, and the contract usually allows the developer some room to change details. The buyer’s price is fixed early, which is the main attraction: if values rise during construction, the gain accrues to the contract holder before a single payment of rent or tax has been made. If values fall, the loss is just as concentrated, because the deposit is already committed.
Deposits and the law
Florida’s condominium statute gives buyers two basic protections. First, when a building is not yet substantially complete, the developer must place buyer payments up to 10 percent of the sale price2 in an escrow account. Second, the statute requires contracts to state that the buyer may cancel within 15 days after signing3 or after receiving the required disclosure documents, and again within 15 days of any amendment that materially changes the deal against the buyer.
Those protections have limits. The 2012 Herald report explained that only the first slice of each deposit was kept untouched, while the rest could be spent on construction, and that buyers stood behind most other creditors if a project failed. Developers argued the heavier deposits weeded out the speculators who had walked away from 20 percent deposits in the crash. Buyers should read the contract for how later deposits may be used, what happens if completion slips and how much liability the developer has limited.
Deposit levels move with the market. Condo Vultures reported in 2025 that greater downtown developers, facing slower presales, cut required deposits to 30 percent from the 50 percent4 that had become standard, and raised the commission paid to buyers’ agents to 7 percent.
Who buys before the building exists
Miami’s presale market leans heavily on cash buyers from abroad. Multifamily Executive described the post crash cycle as one with little leverage, bolstered by big cash deposits5 from mostly foreign buyers, while warning of an onslaught of new units scheduled to deliver. The same report, citing CraneSpotters data, counted 14,808 South Florida units under construction and more than 50,000 when approved and proposed projects were included, and noted that prices for new condos east of Interstate 95 in Miami Dade had risen from $320 to $1,066 per square foot between 2011 and 20165. Nearly a decade later, Miami Today reported developers’ estimate that investors account for about 90 percent of buyers6 of new Brickell condos, mostly Latin Americans planning to rent their units.
That mix brings discipline and fragility at once. Cash buyers who have paid half the price rarely walk away, which protects the developer. But demand depends on currencies, politics and tax rules in other countries, and a shock abroad can slow sales in Miami within weeks. The entry on Brickell shows how quickly that can register in the resale market.
Branding and the sales pitch
Because buyers are paying for a promise, developers compete on story as much as square footage. Axios noted that branded projects are common in Miami, usually named after luxury cars7 or famous people, in a report on a planned 244 unit Wynwood building carrying the name of the painter Frida Kahlo. In Brickell, the Miami Herald reported that developers of a planned Nobu branded tower on church land launched preconstruction sales8 after design review approval, with units priced from about $3 million to $60 million, even as a neighboring association contested the project.
The timeline is long. Axios reported a 186 residence Wynwood project announced in 2025 on land bought in 2022, with groundbreaking expected in early 20279. A buyer who signs at launch may wait several years from contract to keys, and the market at closing can look very different from the market at signing.
When the towers deliver
The real test comes at completion, when buyers must close and many investors try to rent or resell at once. WLRN reported in 2018 that after the post crash boom, vacant luxury condos were driving down prices10 across downtown, with a 32 month backlog of units and some values down more than 20 percent. Buyers who had planned to flip found themselves competing with identical units in the same tower. The lesson repeats across cycles: a presale price that looked low against the market at signing can look high against a building full of similar listings at delivery.
New towers also arrive with their own costs: association dues, insurance and the reserve funding that Florida now requires, described in the entry on condo reserve rules. A careful presale buyer models those costs at closing, not at signing. This is general education, not legal or investment advice. A Miami preconstruction contract is, in the end, a long bet on the developer, on the cycle and on the buyer’s own patience.
