Platinum Luxury Auctions has added another noteworthy sale to its portfolio.
On January 29, the Miami-based, luxury real estate auction house held a live auction for a penthouse condominium at the Four Seasons Private Residences in downtown Miami. An audience of seven bidders vied for the property as part of a real-time bidding process held on-site, which culminated in a non-contingent sale and a closing scheduled for mid-March. Prior to being offered for luxury auction, the 70th-floor residence had been listed for sale for nearly nine consecutive years with a collection of Miami’s top brokers, yet found no successful suitors.
While the price of the pending sale won’t be known until closing, Platinum quantified the figure as being the 5th-highest resale in the building’s history and the 3rd-highest resale within the past 5 years. “We just missed the 3rd and 4th all-time price marks by 2% and 1%, respectively,” according to David Ashcroft, Platinum’s managing director. “And after paying that price, the buyer still intends to extensively renovate the unit.”
Ashcroft noted that the bidders hailed from Florida, California, the northeastern U.S. and Europe, but it was a Miami businessman who ultimately prevailed.
“He had his eye on the building for quite some time, but was never compelled to purchase until the auction opportunity arose.”
After the property failed to sell for 8.5 years (or, 442 weeks) on the market, Platinum needed only five weeks to promote the sale and find the buyer. During this time, the firm recorded 25,656 visits to the property’s webpage and 51 formal buyer inquiries, resulting in the seven registered bidders.
The auction house managed the transaction in cooperation with listing agent Techrin Hijazi of Brown Harris Stevens in Miami. “Techrin is sharp. She knows the value of the luxury auction platform and seized on the opportunity to use it to create a sale for a unit that unfairly languished on the market for years,” said David Enriquez, Platinum’s vice president.
The nearly 5,800-sf residence is a combination of three individual units from the developer’s original plan. When designing the bespoke unit, the owner strived to realize his vision for a luxurious pied-à-terre that also served as an informal yet elegant art gallery. For example, the oversized, floor-to-ceiling windows located throughout the grand salon are handsomely bordered in exotic woods in order to create “frames” of the impressive views – thus portraying them as “works of art.”
The condo’s sweeping views include the Atlantic Ocean, Miami beaches and the vibrant downtown and Brickell districts, although the majority of its vistas face south or southwest instead of the more desirable, eastern views. The unit also had a very unique floor plan.
“The simplest way to summarize that matter is that very many would-be buyers said the unit felt like a large 1-bedroom or ‘1.5-bedroom’ space,” Enriquez added.
Additional information on the sale is located at PlatinumLuxuryAuctions.com. Following this success in Miami, Platinum then headed north for the sale of a posh apartment on New York City’s famous 5th Avenue, overlooking Central Park. A total of 14 bidders attended the February 19th luxury auction event, with the resulting sale expected to close in late March or early April.
