New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was on the minds of Miami developers, brokers and billionaires last week.
His win on Tuesday has fueled a number of memes and social media posts claiming that a mass exodus of wealthy New Yorkers to Florida is already underway. He’s promised to freeze rents on rent-stabilized buildings and increase corporate and income taxes.
At The Real Deal’s Miami Real Estate Forum, held on Wednesday and Thursday, Mamdani was at the center of many conversations. While he disagrees with Mamdani’s politics, hospitality mogul Sam Nazarian said his campaign “hit a chord for the next generation.”
Developer Kevin Maloney joked that he contributed to Mamdani’s campaign. The joke is that his win will benefit Maloney and other developers in two ways: driving down the price of real estate in New York City and propelling more ultra-high net worth individuals to Florida, where Maloney has a number of projects underway. “Mamdani, I think, is probably going to end the city,” he said on a panel with developers Bruce Eichner and Carlos Rosso.
But most speakers were a bit more skeptical. Mamdani’s election is prompting New Yorkers who were already considering a move, they said.
Developers Ugo Colombo, Camilo Miguel Jr. and Edgardo Defortuna, and broker Craig Studnicky all said the expected influx of New Yorkers will fall short of that seen during and immediately after the pandemic.
Agents said they’re receiving calls post-election, but “most of them were people venting,” Danny Hertzberg said. And contracts are still being signed in New York, residential agents in the city told my colleagues in New York. “I don’t want to hear any more nonsense from Florida brokers,” said Serhant’s Ravi Kantha.
The political divide between more liberal cities like New York and Miami was on full display at another big conference last week, where President Trump, developer Steve Witkoff (now United States Special Envoy to the Middle East), billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and others spoke.
Griffin relocated his multibillion-dollar hedge fund Citadel to Miami from Chicago in 2022, driven by politics and a lack of state income tax in Florida.
Griffin has spent and plans to invest billions of dollars in South Florida. On Friday, the hedge funder announced a $20 million gift to Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and the relocation of a historic house on his waterfront Miami property to Vizcaya. Also last week, Griffin announced a $5 million gift to Lotus House, the biggest women’s homeless shelter, which opened a new 70,000-square-foot campus in Miami’s Overtown.
Interviewed by Fox News’ Bret Baier, Griffin said he prays that Mamdani implements policies that are “different than the talking points he used to win the mayoral race.”
“I’ve lived in a failed city state. I lived in Chicago for 30 some years. I have two colleagues who had bullets fly through cars and a colleague stabbed outside the front door of her office,” Griffin said. “I really hope that when Mamdani thinks about leadership, he thinks about the right role models. And there’s a lot to copy from our great state of Florida and from this great city of Miami.”
Griffin plans a nearly $2 billion headquarters for Citadel and Citadel Securities in Miami. In New York, Griffin, Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin are also building a 1.7 million-square-foot tower at 350 Park Avenue, which will be anchored by Citadel and Citadel Securities.
Witkoff told Baier that he tells his son, Witkoff CEO Alex Witkoff, to not sell any real estate.
“We have a lot in Florida. We’ve got a big, deep, long bet on Florida, for all the obvious reasons,” Witkoff said. “The only downside to Florida people can think of is hurricanes.”
What we’re thinking about: If you have buyers who said they are leaving New York specifically because of Mamdani, send me a note at [email protected].
CLOSING TIME
Residential: Todd and Brandie Herbst sold the single-family home at 167 Everglade Avenue in Palm Beach for just over $21 million — about $500,000 over the asking price — to Everglade167 LLC. Todd Herbst co-founded Big Time Restaurant Group in 1993.
Commercial: In Palm Beach Gardens, Aventura-based Advenir offloaded an apartment complex at 4120 Union Square Boulevard, known as the Palm Beach Gardens Apartments, for $117.9 million. An LLC tied to Boston-based West Shore purchased the property.
— Research by Mary Diduch
NEW TO THE MARKET
An oceanfront estate in Palm Beach hit the market for $185 million. The late real estate developer Murray Goodman and his wife, Joanie Goodman, owned the 2.2-acre property at 911 North Ocean Boulevard. It’s on the market with their daughter, Illustrated Properties agent Marley Overman. The property has 250 feet of frontage along the Atlantic Ocean and a nearly 24,000-square-foot multi-structure estate with 12 bedrooms, 16 full bathrooms and four half-bathrooms, according to the listing. It’s being marketed as a teardown.
A thing we’ve learned:
Florida is one of the hardest hit states by the federal government shutdown. About 95,000 federal workers in the Sunshine State have lost an average of $10,363 each, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Elsewhere in Florida
- Roughly 268,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. lost their Temporary Protected Status on Friday, stripping them of legal status and work authorization and leaving them vulnerable to deportation, the Miami Herald reports.
- Starting on Friday, the government shutdown led to more than 110 flight cancellations and nearly 600 delays across major Florida airports, including Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Tampa, the Palm Beach Post reports.
- Billionaire developer Jorge Pérez and other investors plan to replace a crucial 700,000-barrel fuel depot on Fisher Island with luxury condo towers, sparking concern from Miami-Dade officials about the effect on the port and local economy, according to Bloomberg. County commissioner Raquel Regalado called it an “existential crisis.”
