Brickell Site Acquired for Half of 2005 Price

(This story, in slightly different form, originally appeared in the Daily Business Review.)

Miami architect-turned-developer Willy Bermello knows firsthand about free-falling land values in the wake of the housing boom. Bermello and his partners sold a vacant site west of Brickell Avenue in Miami for $9 million, half of what they paid for it at the peak of a condo craze in 2005, according to Miami-Dade County property records.

Since the housing market crashed in 2007, hundreds of development sites across South Florida have remained idle. Developers abandoned plans to build condo projects as buyers left the market and banks almost stopped residential construction financing. The lack of demand for land has forced developers like Bermello to sell at large discounts and, in some instances, at below the outstanding mortgage on the property. Bermello’s $9 million sale price is less than the $13.5 million loan his company got from Colonial Bank when it refinanced in July 2006. Bermello did not respond to a phone message or an e-mail requesting comment.