Real Estate Financing

Real Estate financing for Miami businesses

Commercial real estate in Miami operates at a scale and pace that places it among the most active markets in the country, often punching above its metro size because of the international capital component. Brickell continues to absorb new office product, with rents that compete with mid-tier Manhattan submarkets. Wynwood has transitioned from purely creative office to mixed-use with substantial residential and hospitality components. Doral and Medley industrial is one of the tighter submarkets in the United States by vacancy, driving aggressive rent growth and active sales activity. Hospitality assets across South Beach, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and Aventura trade with regularity, particularly as ownership groups reposition product post-pandemic. Mixed-use ground-up development continues across Edgewater, Little River, Allapattah, and West Brickell. Multifamily, both market rate and the increasingly important workforce segment, anchors a meaningful share of the transaction volume. Operators here range from single-asset family sponsors to institutional platforms.

Bridge financing is one of the defining products in Miami CRE because so many deals involve repositioning, lease-up risk, condo deconversion, or value-add business plans that do not yet qualify for permanent agency or bank execution. SBA 504 is heavily used for owner-occupied real estate, particularly when an operating business is buying its own building in the industrial corridor or in a Coral Gables or Coconut Grove office condo. SBA 7(a) can fill the working capital and equipment portion alongside a separate real estate facility. Construction financing, both ground-up and major renovation, supports the active development pipeline. Permanent loans on stabilized assets, mezzanine layers behind senior debt, and preferred equity structures all show up in the capital stack. AR and working capital products are less common in pure CRE ownership entities but appear at the property management and operating company level. 1031 exchange-driven acquisitions require lenders who can close on tight timelines, which is itself a specialty.

The cross-border capital story is what makes Miami CRE genuinely different from Tampa, Orlando, or Jacksonville. A meaningful share of buyers, particularly in luxury condo, hospitality, and trophy retail, have roots in Latin America, Europe, or the Middle East, and the deal structures often need to accommodate foreign national ownership entities, ITIN borrowers, or complex offshore holding structures. Bilingual transaction execution is standard. Currency moves in Latin American source countries directly affect deal flow into the metro, particularly in luxury condo. Condo deconversion has been an active strategy in older Brickell and Aventura buildings where rental conversion math beats the existing condo regime. 1031 exchanges drive a steady share of acquisitions, particularly from sellers exiting Northeast or California assets and reinvesting in Florida for tax reasons. Hurricane risk is priced into both insurance and lender underwriting in a way that operators in other metros do not navigate. A broker who can move a bridge loan in three weeks, structure a 504 alongside it, and explain the documents in Spanish solves a real problem for the Miami sponsor.