South Florida Office Prices Hit Hard

(This story, in slightly different form, originally appeared in Incisive Media’s Daily Business Review.)

Values of South Florida office properties are rapidly eroding, including those of some marquee buildings that sold at premium prices during the industry’s boom years. Per-square-foot prices of class A buildings have plummeted 29.4% in Miami, 25.8% in West Palm Beach and 18.6 % in Fort Lauderdale, according to property research firm Reis Inc. That outpaced a 19.7 % national decline.

“Every office building purchased in the last three years, with very few exceptions, is under water,” says Robert Kaplan, founder of Olympian Capital Group in Miami. As bad as the situation is locally, the news is worse for the nation’s South Atlantic region, which includes Florida, where prices fell 31.3% in a year, to $191 per square foot in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with $278 at the end of 2007, according to Reis.