Real Estate Boom Has People Flipping for Miami
Oct. 7, 2005 — -- The lines of people typical in Miami are usually those wrapping around the countless bars and nightclubs on a Saturday night. However, some people have been lining up in Miami for quite a different reasons these days: real estate. Investors have been known to wait on daylong lines to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get in on the real estate boom that has hit Miami and South Florida during the past three years.
This summer, one such location that has generated buzz was a condo-conversion development called Pineapple Grove Village in Delray Beach, Fla. It was promoted as being "close to the beach," but was really 12 blocks away. Closer than the beach are the railroad tracks right next door.
But apparently, none of that took away from the market value of Pineapple Grove. Buyers are paying upward of $350,000 for a one bedroom and up to $800,000 for three bedrooms. Pineapple Grove is just one example of the booming real estate markets in Florida. Many of the people who showed up for the condo launch seemed more interested in "flipping" the property -- buying and quickly turning over their condo for a profit -- than living there.
Peter Celnicker, a real estate agent and investor, arrived in Florida four years ago just as the real estate tide was rising.
He put his entire savings of $15,000 down on a one-bedroom condo with 1 1/2 baths and held it less than a year and made $13,000 when he sold it. Celnicker says he then took the profit from that first condo and, with a little extra money, purchased another house, which he is selling right now for a $150,000 profit.
He told ABC News' "20/20" that he has had many other successes flipping real estate since. In fact, he says he's already made his first million -- at least on paper.
"My goal has been to buy 10 properties a year for the next 10 years. I'm 31 now and at 40 I should be doing very well," Celnicker said.
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