For most of the world, Art Basel in Miami is the time when international art collectors descend on the Magic City to sip expensive wine while admiring must-see paintings. For the real estate world, this is a giant opportunity to make champagne-soaked money.
This year, as Miami has become the hottest luxury real estate market in the world, agents and developers have been more creative than ever, throwing lavish parties and extraordinary exhibitions to draw attention to Multi-million dollar homes for sale, in Florida and beyond. .
“It’s an international who’s who. You have musicians, fashionistas, celebrities, etc., but you also have international billionaires and multi-millionaires, many of whom consider Miami a wonderful place to live,” said Seth Bloomgarden, luxury real estate agent at Berkshire Hathaway EWM. Real estate. “Everyone is trying to get their name out there.”
As real estate prices rise in Miami – with the Palm Beach average of more than 20 million dollars — agents couldn’t wait for the three days of Art Basel, which ended on Sunday. Some delayed putting their properties on the market until the event, when some 76,000 people from 76 countries arrived in the city.
This AI-generated bouncy house video was created to promote a vacant lot.
Courtesy of Domingo Creative LLC and Landro WRLD
Alongside the event, Douglas Elliman’s agent Devin Kay posted an AI-generated video to his Instagram, showing an inflated bouncy house-like mansion on a vacant waterfront lot for 29 .52 million dollars. The post generated 88,000 views in 24 hours, according to Kay.
“Obviously there’s not much you can do to market land,” Kay said. “Being that it’s Art Basel, my co-listing agents…were trying to think of unique and different ways to get exposure to the property.”
This year, the event was so big that private jets had to negotiate landing times with each other and the docks were filled with superyachts, according to agents.
Douglas Elliman’s agent, Darin Tansey, said he has a listing for a $10 million property that includes a rare $25 million painting. With collectors in town, the seller was ready to sign a package deal.
“It’s a businessman’s Super Bowl,” Tansey said.
Art Basel has always been surrounded by festivities, with people arriving in town just to party on boats with cocktails flowing and DJs spinning music. The atmosphere was more sophisticated this year, with more business executives visiting, according to Fredrik Eklund, Elliman broker and star of Million Dollar Listing.
“People seem more focused. Focused on good art and good real estate,” Eklund said in a text. “My days have been filled from early morning until late evening with development meetings and planning future projects, and I think everyone agrees that Miami is the most exciting city in America , and perhaps the world. As a city, it has grown and with that, Art Basel has grown too.”
Compass real estate agent Michael Martirena felt the same shift in energy.
“The private sector, hedge funds, the level of education and the quality of people coming to Miami is really changing the Miami market from what it was 10 years ago,” Martirena said. “Sexy, flashy, shiny, that’s really starting to go out the window.”
Real estate brokerage Sotheby’s International Realty was among Art Basel’s biggest sponsors this year, replacing the show’s former longtime partner, the rival brokerage firm. Douglas Elliman.
Among the perks offered by Sotheby’s International Realty: a private lounge within the VIP section of the show, where the company displayed homes for sale designed by prominent architects such as Robert AM Stern, Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Bradley Nelson, marketing director for Sotheby’s International Realty, said Friday that attendees walked around the show to look at the exhibit and left to buy a new home.
“We are very fortunate that many of our customers collect houses, in addition to collecting paintings and sculptures,” Nelson said.
This was only a fraction of the transactions taking place. Last week, Miami-based Related Group’s luxury condo St Regis Residences hosted a pre-Basel cocktail party. The event featured artwork owned by the development group’s founder, Jorge Pérez, and attended by artists Caitlin Lonegan and Jongsuk Yoon, attracting potential buyers to the property.
“People are here for the art and end up meeting with their brokers or people who represent developers, and then are enticed to go look at real estate,” said David Mayer, a broker with Corcoran, who has seen the event gaining momentum in the past. eight years.
In addition to Miami real estate agents socializing, at least 200 additional agents from Sotheby’s International Realty flew in for the event, according to Nelson. Their schedule revolved around private sunset cruises, morning yoga sessions and boozy brunches.
Bloomgarden said he has seen how Art Basel, which has nothing to do with real estate, has become a builders’ conference.
“You have high-level architects meeting with people in financing, developers, people doing multifamily and hotel transactions,” Bloomgarden said. “There was a whole discussion about real estate in the exhibition space where it was almost as if art was the backdrop to the conversations.”
