PHOTOS: On the scene at Mansions at Acqualina art reveal

The Trump Group and art consultant Cathy Leff teamed up to host an unveiling of artwork at the Mansions at Acqualina.

Nancy Lorenz’s artwork, including a 14-foot by 17-foot painting series, was installed in the 79-unit tower’s grand salon, according to a press release. Lorenz spent nearly four months completing the series and used pearl and gold leaf.

Buyers at the sold-out tower include New York fast food king Dennis Riese, video game developer and software company executive Joel Hochberg. Mansions at Acqualina began recording closings on Aug. 10 and marks the 37th new condo tower to be completed in coastal South Florida since the current real estate cycle began in 2011.

Mansions, at 17749 Collins Avenue, was developed by Jules and Eddie Trump — of no relation to presidential candidate Donald Trump — and is the second Acqualina-branded tower to be built. The third, Estates at Acqualina, is expected to open in 2019. — Katherine Kallergis and Sean Stewart-Muniz

Spreading out: How do brokerage magazines stack up?

Left to right: Elliman magazine, Compass Quarterly and My Town Magazine

From the New York website: With articles on Miami’s tech scene, the history of architecture in Boston and a creative renaissance in Brooklyn, the magazine could have passed for the latest issue of just about any general interest publication out there.

Instead, the slim journal was put out by Compass, the two-year-old residential brokerage that’s joined a flurry of residential firms fancying their hand at publishing. [more]

Movers & Shakers

David Milgram, Eric Fixler and Eric Saenz

David Milgram joined the Sterling Organization as vice president, investments – Florida. Sterling is a private equity real estate investment and services firm based in Palm Beach. Milgram will source and execute acquisitions in Florida. He previously worked as an associate for the Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group in New York City, where he was part of a team that executed more than $500 million of closed debt, joint venture equity and investment sale transactions of office and retail properties.

Institutional Property Advisors Capital Markets, a debt and equity firm, hired Eric Fixler in its Fort Lauderdale office. Fixler joined the firm as a senior director. He was previously a senior vice president at Walker & Dunlop, where he obtained capital for investors nationwide. Before that, he worked at Johnson Capital and Meridian Capital.

Group P6 tapped Eric Saenz as sales director for two boutique condo projects in Deerfield Beach, the Fordham and the Elysian. Saenz previously worked for VWR International, a global supplier and distributor of life-science products, chemicals, equipment and other laboratory products. – Katherine Kallergis

Foreigners buy more in SoFla than anywhere in state

A shot of Miami’s skyline

South Florida made up more than half of the state’s home sales to international buyers over the last 12 months, according to a new survey from the Miami Association of Realtors.

The survey asked Realtors throughout the state about their clients’ home turf, and those in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale markets represented more than 50 percent of the state’s home sales to buyers abroad.

According to the association, the survey looked at sales from June 2014 to June 2015. Florida as a whole saw roughly 44,000 home sales to international buyers during that time period, representing 12 percent of the total purchases. That equates to about $23.7 billion worth of properties trading hands to foreign buyers.

In South Florida specifically, Miami made up 36 percent of the state’s international home sales. Fort Lauderdale saw a 14 percent share, followed by Orlando with 8 percent and Sarasota with 7 percent.

And out of South Florida’s many neighborhoods, the usual suspects all prefer to buy in Miami: 44 percent of Brazilian buyers chose Miami, as did 42 percent of Chinese, 41 percent of Venezuelans and 27 percent of Western Europeans.

Despite these big numbers, the survey did show a drastic decrease in the amount of home purchases made by foreign buyers this year.

Between June 2013 and June 2014, roughly 52,300 homes were sold to people from outside the U.S. Compared to the 44,000 sold between June this year and last, the numbers of foreign nationals picking up properties in South Florida has fallen significantly.

Several reports have attributed this decrease to Miami’s tightening real estate market, which is seeing a buildup of condo supply and fewer home sales across the board. — Sean Stewart-Muniz

Clear skies for commercial

Amancio Ortego, creator of the Zara retail chain, acquired an entire block on Lincoln Road for $370 million.

From the October issue: Analysts are prescribing a healthy dose of optimism for commercial real estate in Miami-Dade County, with factors like explosive job and population growth to thank for the ongoing strength of the markets across the board.

The county is on track to blow past its peak of $6.8 billion in foreign investment recorded last year, with investors continuing to purchase trophy properties in the office and hotel sectors for hundreds of millions.

Miami’s role as a trade hub for Latin America is a steady driver of demand for local industrial space. And a bustling retail market showed its muscle with the $370 million sale of an entire block along Lincoln Road to a Spanish billionaire in September. [more]

Tech billionaire buys waterfront lot in Coral Gables for $15M

Ashar Aziz and 8525 Old Cutler Road in Gables Estates

Billionaire engineer Ashar Aziz has purchased a 3.5-acre waterfront lot in Gables Estates for $15 million, or $98 per square foot.

Miami-Dade County records show that Aziz, founder and vice chairman of the cybersecurity firm FireEye, purchased the property at 8525 Old Cutler Road in Coral Gables. An LLC tied to Aventura-based Kawa Capital Management is the seller.

As of last year, Aziz owned nearly 11 million shares in FireEye, which he founded in 2004. Before that, he sold a data visualization company in 2002 to Sun Microsystems. Forbes estimates his net worth at a little more than $1 billion. As of Friday, FireEye stock was trading at $23.59 a share.

The 152,932-square-foot property hit the market in October for $16 million, according to Realtor.com. Judy Zeder of EWM was the listing agent. The vacant lot sold in 2012 for $10.05 million, Miami-Dade property records show.

Aziz joins other billionaires in the gated waterfront community, such as Mike Fernandez, who owns 6.6 acres at 1 Arvida Parkway. In March, former Serta International CEO E. Richard Yulman sold his Gables Estates home sold for $17.2 million.

The seller, Kawa Capital Management, is an independent asset management firm with more than $656 million in assets under management. Co-founder Alexandre Saverin signed the deed transfer of ownership.

Aziz also owns the 7,400-square-foot home at 590 Reinante Avenue in Coral Gables. He paid $5.3 million for that residence in 2013, property records show. 

White House: Land-use limits linked to flat incomes

Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

White House economic advisers have produced a stream of studies on America’s puzzling lack of productivity and middle-class income growth, and they have identified land-use regulations as a likely culprit.

Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a recent speech that zoning and restrictions on land use have put “artificial constraints” on housing development.

A limited supply of housing impedes the mobility of Americans, and increasing their mobility “is going to be an important part of the solution to increasing incomes and increasing incomes across generations,” Furman said, speaking at a conference co-hosted by real estate databank  CoreLogic and the Urban Land Institute.

Tough zoning rules are “actually correlated with those places that have higher [income] inequality,” Furman said.

He cited research by Raven Molly, a Federal Reserve economist, showing that an increase in demand for labor in cities with tough limits on land use will result in less housing development, elevated home prices and lower employment in the long run.

“If you’re not pricing people out of the market, you’re able to attract more people and increase employment more,” Furman said.

He also said the Obama administration’s concern about land-use regulations and housing affordability starts at the top: “It’s something he president is personally concerned about.” [Wall Street Journal] — Mike Seemuth