Real estate professionals in Miami are disputing claims that the city is on the verge of a real estate bubble. At The Real Deal’s Miami Real Estate Forum, Ana Bozovic, founder of Analytics Miami, argued that the prevalence of cash transactions in the market sets it apart from other cities where bubbles have burst.
“This market is built on cash,” Bozovic said during a panel moderated by Stuart Elliott, Editor-in-Chief of The Real Deal. She criticized a UBS report that identified Miami as highly vulnerable to a bubble, calling it an “egregious misrepresentation of truth” due to the dominance of cash deals.
Bozovic explained that real estate collapses typically occur when debt becomes unsustainable. “Usually when assets collapse, it’s because there’s a collapse. The bubble pops when the underlying assets can no longer sustain the debt, and it all goes away, kind of like a flammable house of cards,” she said. “We don’t have this setup.”
Dan Kodsi, CEO of Royal Palm Companies, noted differences between today’s market and conditions before the 2008 financial crisis. He stated that while construction costs are driving up prices for new developments—especially high-rises—the region is not overbuilt.
“The issue is we’re building product that’s expensive, and because of construction costs, when you’re building high-rise especially, you have to sell it at a very high price per foot,” Kodsi said.
Kodsi also pointed out that rising housing costs are pushing local residents toward more affordable markets within Florida. “Every part of Florida, you’re seeing grow,” he said.
The discussion also covered migration trends following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s mayoral race. Brad Meltzer, president of Two Roads Development, cautioned against expecting immediate large-scale relocations to South Florida.
“I think the expectation that you’re going to see something immediately, like, the press keeps kind of glorifying like, ‘oh, tomorrow, there’s gonna be a million people moving here,’” Meltzer said. “That’s not going to happen, but it’s going to happen after a matter of time. Some people have families. They have kids. You don’t just pick up and move tomorrow, but the investigation process is going to start to happen.”
Both Kodsi and Meltzer addressed legal challenges affecting their respective projects in Miami. For Two Roads Development’s Edition Residences project at Biscayne 21 in Edgewater—a site entangled in litigation with holdout condo owners—Meltzer expressed optimism about eventual resolution despite recent setbacks at the Florida Supreme Court.
Meltzer described negotiations with property owners: “It’ll take a little bit more time,” he said. “There’s been discussions behind the scenes with that, but it’ll get resolved. It has to resolve itself. When something is valuable enough, parties have to compromise like anything else in life, and there’ll be a compromise that takes place, and everybody will feel that they can get a good deal, and we’ll move on.”
Kodsi discussed ongoing efforts related to his Legacy Hotel & Residences project at Miami Worldcenter amid foreclosure proceedings and reported working on refinancing worth $390 million for the development.
Although under court order not to discuss lawsuit details publicly regarding Legacy Hotel & Residences’ foreclosure case or refinancing plans for his project at Miami Worldcenter, Kodsi indicated progress toward restarting construction: “That ugly dumpling, let’s say, is going to be a beautiful swan when she’s built, a great project,” he said.
