A year ago, Miami’s Icon Brickell condo complex was a symbol of just about everything that had gone wrong during South Florida’s epic housing bust: Speculators had walked out on sales contracts, the towers were half-empty, and a group of lenders was making moves to foreclose.
Now, as Brazilians and Argentineans wage bidding wars for Icon’s bank-owned condos, the rapidly selling, 1,800-unit complex represents a few of the things that are going right in the region’s still-shaky housing market.
A little more than a year after a consortium of banks seized ownership of two of Icon Brickell’s three towers, more than 930 condos have sold, meaning the towers have gone from three-quarters empty to three-quarters sold. A third tower, which was not taken over by lenders, has sold 518 of its 520 units, according to data provided by Bal Harbour-based consultancy Condo Vultures.
via Miami’s one-time icon of crisis becomes an icon of the city’s condo turn-around.