The Ocean Palms in Hollywood is a relatively new luxury oceanfront condo completed in 2006.  Most buildings that were completed at the time of the housing market collapse followed a similar chain of events.  Taking a closer look at the history of prices at the Ocean Palms is representational of many buildings in Luxury Oceanfront Condominiums in Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach.

Most buildings offer a variety of floor plan ranging from direct oceanfront units to west facing units.  Of course, pricing varies depending on the view and floor level.  There are exceptional condomimiums like Turnberry Ocean Colony that offer only oceanfront units. There are flow through units that offer east and west views, however, there are no units at Turnberry available with just west facing views.

There is almost always one line in the building that is the most desirable unit offering the most spectacular ocean views, often a southeast corner.

Now let’s focus on Ocean Palms.

Over the past 2 years prices in this building dropped for all units. Some short sales and some bank owned units appeared. As in all buildings sellers adjusted prices and condos that were priced for todays standards sold. In the past 24 months 39 condos have sold at the Ocean Palms. The building has 240 units in total.

The most desirable unit at the Ocean Palms is the direct oceanfront unit, the 08 line.  It is over 3000 square feet with 3 bedrooms that can be modified to make it a 4 bedrooms property.  When you walk into this floor plan you enter a large foyer that opens up to floor to ceiling windows of just expansive direct oceanfront views.  The unit spans the entire front of the east end of the building.  It is truly spectacular.  Original purchasers paid from $1.1 million-$1.4million for unfinished decorator ready units.  Listed prices after original owners closed and finished out the units were $1.9 million-$2.1 million.  Then the market collapsed.  In the past 24 months 6 of these direct oceanfront incredible units have sold priced between $1,075,000 and$1,225,000. This puts the price at under $400 per square foot for an incredible spacious luxury direct oceanfront unit.  Right now there are 3 of these exceptional units under contract and only 3 still actively listed.  A year ago there were 8 of these exceptional units on the market.

Elsewhere in the building prices have come down and bank owned aberrations have appeared. However, no “08″ unit has sold for under $1 million.

What is clear is that the exceptional most desirable direct oceanfront spectacular floor plans in luxury buildings have sold and are continuing to sell.  This is true for almost any building along the coast including Canyon Ranch, Diplomat Residences, Bath Club, Mei in Miami Beach, the Caribbean as well as any other luxury building on the ocean.