NORTH HUTCHINSON ISLAND, FL-In a move to sell the remaining 103 units in its 144-unit condo towers, Oceanique has cut its asking price a whopping 43%. CondoVultures reports prices have dropped to below $200 per square foot on some unsold developer units in the St. Lucie County luxury complex.
Located in Florida’s Treasure cost just south of Vero Beach, Oceanique sold units for an average of $336 per square foot when the complex came online in 2007. Oceanique Development Co., with principals Maurice, Michael and Robert Kodski, have sold a mere 41 units at an average asking price of $277 per square foot to date. Oceanique did not return calls seeking comment.
“The developer was trying to stand firm,” Peter Zalewski, a principal with the Bal Harbour, Fla.-based real estate consultancy Condo Vultures, tells GlobeSt.com. “The good thing is they have very little debt at Oceanique. They realized it’s not worth it to go after pie in the sky pricing and now they are trying to offload these units with aggressive pricing.”
Considering new oceanfront condo units sell for a minimum of $415 per square foot in Greater Miami and $350 per square foot in Ft. Lauderdale, Oceanique needed to make a drastic move to compete for South Florida buyers in a Hutchinson Island location that doesn’t offer the location amenities Miami and Ft. Lauderdale boast. In the first eight months of 2010, the developer has sold only eight units, according to St. Lucie County records.
“The developer was trying to sell units at prices you pay in Miami Beach but there’s no real attraction in St. Lucie County,” Jack McCabe, principal of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Consulting and Research, tells GlobeSt.com. “The Dodgers left Vero, it’s not near Orlando and not close enough to South Florida to be considered part of South Florida. Vero is a nice community but there isn’t much going on.”
What is going on could be Oceanique trying to avoid bankruptcy. Daniel Kodski, who is related to one of the developers of Oceanique, is facing foreclosure on the 346-unit Paramount Bay condominium he developed in Downtown Miami. Zalewski says if Oceanique call sell five to 10 units a month, they could hit stride and sell out the building next year.
“The key for the developer is not to jack up pricing once they get some velocity,” Zalewski says. “The cheap units on the low floors are going to move quickly. What a developer is likely to do then is to raise prices. That’s a big mistake. The quicker they can get out, the quicker they can move on to something else.”
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