Real Estate Blog

By Paul Owers January 26, 2011 08:40 AM

During the housing boom, developers built about 50,000 coastal condominium units in the seven largest markets across Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to CondoVultures.com, a Bal Harbour-based consulting firm.

At year-end 2010, roughly 7,400 of those units are still waiting for buyers.

"Developers created the new South Florida condo inventory at a pace of more than 6,100 units annually during the boom,” Peter Zalewski, a principal with CondoVultures, said in a statement. “The reason lenders apparently permitted this widespread condo construction to occur is that buyers have been purchasing an average of 5,150 new South Florida coastal units annually since 2003."

No surprise that downtown Miami had the most new condos built – roughly 22,500 units – followed by Sunny Isles Beach (6,400) and South Beach (5,600).

Here’s the rest of the list:

4. Downtown Fort Lauderdale and the beach – 5,100
5. Hollywood/Hallandale Beach – 5,000
6. Downtown West Palm Beach/Island of Palm Beach – 4,500
7. Boca Raton/Deerfield Beach – 1,050

For purposes of its report, CondoVultures said the housing boom began in 2003, but real estate agents and analysts generally use 2000 as the starting point. The firm cites “public records and private research” as its sources for the report.