Miami Real Estate Investing Podcast With Peter Zalewski

In this episode of The Peter Zalewski Show™ podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviews financier Jim Fried of Sandstone Realty Advisors about the condo construction financing environment in South Florida.

The weekly podcast The Peter Zalewski Show features interviews with South Florida business leaders focused on real estate, finance and the economy.

The program - hosted by Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ - is broadcast live every Wednesday at 4 pm (Miami time) at MiamiCondo.Club and on social media sites.

The objective of the show is to deliver straight talk, share institutional knowledge and provide data-driven analysis on the macro and micro economic forces shaping the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

Tune in every Wednesday at 4 PM (EST) at MiamiCondo.Club or on Peter Zalewski’s social media accounts to watch the free live broadcasts.

Episode Overview

In the Nov. 19, 2025, episode of “The Peter Zalewski Show” podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviewed Jim Fried, the founder and president of Sandstone Realty Advisors who hosts the FriedOnBusiness podcast, about the condo construction financing environment in South Florida.

Despite a reported slowdown in condo presales—the essential driver for new projects—the financing spigot for new development remains open across the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

“The money’s out there,” said Fried, a veteran financier with more than 30 years of experience in South Florida. “You have to be an experienced developer. You have to have some of your own skin in the game.”

Beneath this financing availability lies a tougher reality: the market appears to have entered a new phase of the real estate cycle marked by stricter lending standards, rising costs and heightened lender scrutiny.

Topping it off, condo investor sentiment has pulled back from the buying frenzy of the last few years that was fueled by the post-pandemic world.

Preconstruction condo sales—which require buyers to prepay deposits of 50 percent for units that will not be completed for months or even years from now—have slowed noticeably.

This shift follows a dramatic reversal from 2021 when work-from-home policies triggered an in-migration wave to South Florida from high-cost states such as California, Illinois and New York.

The allure of tax breaks, attractive weather and comparatively affordable real estate sent buyers flooding into the South Florida condo market.

Buyers came rushing in and snapped up existing condo inventory, pushing prices to record highs.

This phenomenon prompted developers to launch new projects to capitalize on the strong demand.

The developers seeking financing now are those who entered the market during the later stages of this building boom.

Many of the initial wave of projects successfully moved from presales to completion, with another generation of developments now launching presales.

But that momentum slowed sharply, as rising interest rates and economic headwinds took hold.

By 2025, factors including tariff impacts from Liberation Day, a new U.S. immigration policy and a weakening job market added enough strain to the market that even a couple of recent interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve have had minimal effect on the South Florida condo market.

Compounding the challenges, many companies rescinded remote work policies, calling employees back to offices in Silicon Valley, Wall Street and beyond.

This created an overhang of condo supply just as the buyer pool thinned.

The South Florida developers who are trying to build glass towers on prime waterfront sites now face tougher lending hurdles amid a growing inventory of resale condos that has pushed the tricounty region into a buyers market.

The lenders that are willing to finance new condo towers require clear evidence of condo development expertise and a significant personal financial commitment before approving loans.

In this episode of the Miami Condo Mondays™ podcast, we discuss how the 2025 Summer Buying Season is statistically similar to the South Florida condo market back in 2007 before the Great Recession.

Miami Condo Mondays™ is a live podcast hosted by Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ and veteran broker Jenny Huertas of CVRRealty.com providing an in-depth look at the latest residential real estate trends in South Florida.

Recorded weekly in Greater Downtown Miami, the podcast offers a one-hour discussion on various real estate topics, including preconstruction condos, market trends and investment strategies.

The hosts share their expertise, with Zalewski focusing on macro perspectives and Huertas offering micro insights from her on-the-ground experience.

Tune in every Monday at 4 PM (EST) on the social media accounts of Peter Zalewski and Jenny Huertas for insights on the latest trends in the South Florida condo market.

Episode Overview

The 2025-26 Winter Buying Season has officially arrived in South Florida, bringing with it balmy weather, numerous events and the Carnival-like atmosphere that typically fuels real estate sales to second-home buyers.

Beneath this vibrant surface, however, the condo market in the tricounty region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach is flashing warning signs that eerily mirror the onset of the 2008 Great Recession financial crisis.

During the latest episode of the Miami Condo Mondays™ podcast on Nov. 17, 2025, co-host Jenny Huertas, broker-owner of CVR Realty, argued that the current psychological climate reminds her of 2007.

Huertas’ observation was independently verified by Gemini AI, which analyzed historical condo sales data to confirm that the region is currently in a state of “Denial” where pricing remains artificially high despite a catastrophic collapse in transaction volume.

Statistics pulled by veteran consultant Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ from the recently concluded 2025 Summer Buying Season—that stretched from May through October—paint a stark picture of deteriorating demand.

During those six months, the tricounty South Florida region recorded less than 12,200 condo transactions, a figure that stands in sharp contrast to the 28,150 sales during the 2021 peak, according to a recent report.

This represents a 57 percent decline from the post-pandemic condo buying frenzy when out of towners flooded into the state to work remotely from South Florida for corporations based in high-wage locations, including California, Illinois and New York.

Even more concerning is the comparison to the 2019 condo sales volume baseline of normalcy, as current transaction activity trails pre-pandemic levels by 33 percent.

The average monthly deal count has dropped to 2,032, falling well below the 20-year historical pace of more than 2,800 units.

A proprietary analysis of Zalewski’s data by Gemini AI suggests that volume always collapses first, serving as a leading indicator that buyer demand is evaporating.

In 2007, sales during the Summer Buying Season fell to roughly 8,800 units while pricing peaked at nearly $315,000 per residence, creating a temporary illusion of stability before the eventual crash.

Today, South Florida is experiencing an almost identical structural setup where sellers cling to 2021 valuations despite the total disappearance of buyers.

The primary difference in today’s market compared 2008 is the catalyst.

The previous bust was driven by easily obtainable mortgages and low 20-percent deposits—compared to 50 percent deposits today—on preconstruction condo units.

This downturn is fueled by stubbornly high mortgage rates, slowing employment and growing regulatory fear by cash-strapped unit owners related to the Florida Condo Association Financial Cliff.

Welcome to Buy, Sell, Hold Miami™ weekly podcast for a no-nonsense perspective on South Florida real estate from a pair of locals with differing opinions.

Each week, real estate advisor Daniel Hernandez of Compass Real Estate and longtime analyst Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ break down the housing market headlines, unpack policy changes and provide unfiltered analysis on everything from condo terminations to Vintage unit fire sales, luxury speculative homes to developer strategies.

Whether you are a homeowner, investor or real estate professional, Hernandez and Zalewski will give a local perspective on what is really happening across the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach with no fluff, no hype and plenty of data-backed opinions.

We call balls and strikes on when to buy, sell and hold.

Episode Topics

For the Nov. 14, 2025, podcast, Hernandez and Zalewski give their take on the following five topics:

1. Distressed Downtown

2. Statehouse Silliness

3. Miami Real Estate Myth Bustin’

4. Brickell Key Seawall Shenanigans

5. Ken Billions Swings For Fences

This podcast is broadcast live at 4 pm (EST) on the social media accounts of Daniel Hernandez and Peter Zalewski.

Episode Overview

In this Nov. 14, 2025, episode of Buy, Sell, Hold Miami™ podcast, Hernandez and Zalewski cut through the local rhetoric, delivering straight talk on five pivotal market topics of critical importance to South Florida investors.

The hosts discuss each topic and then announce whether each of them is a Buy, a Sell, or a Hold on the issue. Their verdicts often differ, leading to sharp debate on the issue before moving on to the next topic.

The conversation kicked off with the looming auction of a prime site in Greater Downtown Miami on Biscayne Boulevard, which currently houses a tired tower with a Holiday Inn hotel.

This piece of land was originally slated for the World Trade Center Miami project—a development that was an ideological legacy of the early 2000s with the push for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The FTAA was to create a free-trade zone from Alaska south to Argentina.

At the time, the project embodied the vision of Miami as the potential home of the FTAA secretariat headquarters, officially making it a hub for international commerce and trade to substantiate the region’s self-described role as the Gateway to Latin America.

Zalewski detailed how two decades of political and trade shifts—from the ultimate collapse of the FTAA to modern protectionism and the implementation of tariffs—have effectively ended that initial grand vision.

The site, which was envisioned to symbolize global trade ambition, is now set to hit auction with a reported reserve price of $101 million against a distressed debt note.

Hernandez questioned why the fully permitted site isn’t penciling for developers at its initial asking price of $175 million, suggesting that excessive condo inventory in Greater Downtown Miami might be the root cause.

Zalewski countered that the true reason for the fire sale is purely economic.

Development dirt rapidly sees capitulation in a sideways or slowing market because the expensive land cannot generate a return, rendering it Uninvestable at high values.

Despite the distress, both hosts agreed the auction represents a strong opportunity, with a bullish outlook on acquiring the dirt at a lower price point.

The co-hosts then pivoted to the ongoing political circus in Florida’s capital of Tallahassee, dissecting the “silly” political showmanship of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ moonshot attempt to eliminate property taxes for homesteaded properties.

The Florida legislature has responded with a series of fragmented and politically motivated resolutions designed to eliminate or drastically reduce property taxes for homesteaders.

Condo Capitalism™ is the weekly podcast hosted by Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ that provides data-driven analysis on distressed real estate—foreclosures, shortsales and bank-owned REOs—in the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

The program dissects players and trends, focusing on the escalating Florida Condo Association Financial Cliff, which is now fully underway as cash-strapped unit owners face rising maintenance fees, hefty special assessments and pricey insurance.

On the show, experts analyze how the national “two-sided risk”—rising inflation and falling employment—magnifies the growing crisis in Florida, revealing where high post-Surfside condo fees clash with a softening resale market to expose the potential for a capitulation by unit owners who can no longer afford condo living.

Join Peter Zalewski live every weekday at 4 pm (Miami time) on MiamiCondo.Club for the full schedule: Miami Condo Mondays™ (market overview), Miami Condo Exchange™ (data discussion) on Tuesdays, The Peter Zalewski Show™ (interview) on Wednesdays, Condo Capitalism™ (distressed market) on Thursdays, and Buy, Sell, Hold Miami™ (debate) on Fridays. On-demand recordings of all shows are available here.

Episode Overview

In the Nov. 13, 2025, episode of Condo Capitalism - A Miami Distressed Real Estate Market Podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviews David Dweck, a veteran investor, private money lender and the founder of the Boca Real Estate Investment Club at the start of the 2025-26 Winter Buying Season.

The veteran investor, who has lent out more than $1 billion for residential real estate transactions, wasted no time establishing the core lesson of his more than 30-year career: to be successful in South Florida’s volatile real estate market, buyers must put unwavering fundamentals ahead of emotional impulses if they want to be successful for the duration of their careers.

The 73-minute discussion, which covered everything from private lending practices to the looming threat of the Florida Condo Association Financial Cliff, repeatedly returned to the need for quantitative discipline to survive cycles of appreciation and decline.

The core of Dweck’s philosophy rests on two simple, non-negotiable rules for acquisitions: the “1% Rule” and a minimum capitalization rate—or cap rate—of 10 percent.

The 1% Rule dictates that a property’s monthly gross rent must equal at least one percent of the property’s total purchase price. For example, a $100,000 condo should generate rent of at least $1,000 per month.

For the cap rate, investors first calculate the Net Operating Income (NOI)—the gross annual rental income minus all annual operating expenses, but excluding any debt service.

This resulting NOI is then divided by the property’s purchase price to produce the capitalization rate, which represents the property’s unleveraged rate of return.

The discipline behind this rule is supported by the current distress signals in the market, particularly within the bank-owned real estate (REO) sector.

Live data analyzed during the broadcast showed that Vintage REO condos—those at least 30 years that require Milestone Inspections—are currently trading at a median price of just $215,000 per unit in South Florida.

In this episode of The Peter Zalewski Show podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviews case manager Ketty Urbay of Gomez Law about advocating for individual unit owners who sue their condo associations.

Episode Overview

In the Nov. 12, 2025, episode of “The Peter Zalewski Show” podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviews Ketty Urbay, a case manager for the litigation firm Gomez Law in Coral Gables, about her role in advocating for individual unit owners when they sue their Miami condo associations.

Urbay’s professional background includes a real estate broker license and a Community Association Manager (CAM) certification, making her well-equipped to investigate condo situations that have “gone sideways.”

Urbay, who has lived in Miami since the age of three, described her unexpected entry into the industry.

She spent 10 years managing over 600 residential units before launching her own boutique property management company focused on commercial and residential condos.

Her transition to case management was personal, stemming from her own “very bad situation” as a condo unit owner where she had to fight her “big, bad board,” an experience that led her to join attorney Eduardo Gomez to focus on “helping the little guy.”

Zalewski provided the historical context for South Florida’s volatile condo market, noting the period before the Great Recession when developers required only a 20-percent deposit.

This high-risk era, characterized by flippers and websites like CondoFlip.com, ultimately stalled after Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida in late 2005 and ultimately collapsed after the 2008 Lehman Brothers failure.

Following the South Florida condo market’s freefall, the rules tightened, demanding a 50-percent deposit for new construction to ensure a more legitimate pool of buyers and reduce the risk of buyers walking away at closing.

Urbay recounted the severe financial stress she managed during the foreclosure crisis, having taken on associations with crippling delinquency rates that, in some cases, reached 50 percent.

During this time, condo associations—especially apartment complexes that had recently been converted—struggled to decide whether to pay for basics like water or critical needs like insurance.

She recalled the widespread mentality of condo association boards to constantly “vote down reserves,” a practice she actively pushed back against.

Urbay tried to educate her clients on the dangers of deferred maintenance and would often persuade boards to implement a “partial reserve” payment as a starting point.

Developers of condo conversions typically made only minimal, cosmetic upgrades to these older structures before selling.

Zalewski noted that these converted condos often saw a massive price drop during the downturn, citing an example in Greater Downtown Miami where units plummeted from the $500,000 per unit range to less than $100,000.

Urbay confirmed the chaos of the time, observing that many buyers and Realtors failed to understand the financial reality of their purchase, neglecting to read key documents like budgets, financials and the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet.

Zalewski described the extreme cost-cutting measures during the downturn, including buildings unscrewing every other light bulb and shutting down security cameras, and recalled the unprofessional scene of a real estate agent sleeping on a mattress in an bank-owned unit.

Urbay shared her parallel experiences from the “wild, wild West” period, dealing with abandoned units used for illicit activities and older buildings that were plagued with constant plumbing backups and chronic maintenance issues.

She noted a persistent problem with the industry’s management structure, distinguishing between onsite management for highrises and portfolio management for smaller communities.

Expert Peter Zalewski discusses the latest South Florida Overall Condo Cliff Index™ results for the week ending Nov. 11, 2025, on the premiere episode of the Miami Condo Exchange™ podcast.

The Miami Condo Exchange™ is a newly launched live podcast at 4 pm (Miami time) on Tuesdays about the latest South Florida condo stats, metrics and trends hosted by expert Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™.

Recorded weekly in Greater Downtown Miami, the program’s core premise is to analyze condos as commodities, no different than pork bellies, oil or salty snacks.

The weekly show intends to cut through the marketing hype to focus strictly on the numbers, offering an intelligence perspective aimed at investors, real estate professionals and anyone seeking clarity about the latest condo trends in the tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

The podcast will challenge the “marketing hype” that often surrounds new developments, such as the involvement of famous architects or brand-name affiliations with exclusive restaurants, luxury clothing lines and automobile manufacturers.

Zalewski contends that, ultimately, condos trade as commodities based on a price-per-square-foot basis, not on a per unit valuation.

The goal of the Miami Condo Exchange™ is to “wipe out all the hype” and drill down to the basics, emphasizing that the fundamentals of cement and rebar are what define a unit’s value in the resale market.

A regular feature of the Tuesday show will be the Miami Condo Cliff Index™.

This proprietary Index is designed to track market activity in realtime by analyzing active listings and pending sales, offering a forward-looking perspective.

Zalewski notes that this index “foreshadows” official closed sales data, which often lags by 30 to 120 days.

This timely statistical analysis treats the coastal South Florida market, particularly east of Interstate 95, as a dynamic “trading pit” for condo commodities.

As part of a full weekday lineup of podcasts from the Club, the Miami Condo Exchange™ is dedicated to data and transparency.

Drawing on his background as a former financial journalist, a Wall Street consultant, an expert witness and the founder of the buyside advisory Condo Vultures® LLC,

Zalewski will provide insights to counter the “rosy” narratives common in the industry.

The show will be broadcast live weekly, with on-demand access available to Club members, ensuring listeners can access hard data to make informed decisions.

Tune in every Tuesday at 4 PM (EST) at MiamiCondo.Club or on the social media account of Peter Zalewski to watch the live broadcasts are free.

To view the podcast on demand, please consider joining the Miami Condo Investing Club™ here.

Episode Overview

The South Florida Overall Condo Cliff Index™ rose for the fourth time in five weeks, increasing by 0.96 percent on a Week-over-Week (WoW) basis to 7.12 points as of Nov. 11, 2025, at the start of the 2025-26 Winter Buying Season.

This upward movement for Overall condos in the last month comes at the beginning of the traditionally busy period—stretching from November through April—despite growing headwinds.

The Winter Buying Season is a six-month period when visitors are drawn to the region for the favorable weather, numerous events and Carnival-like atmosphere.

For many visitors, their experiences often lead many of them to begin searching for a condo as a second home.

Typically, these visitors end up closing on their transactions sometime during the subsequent Summer Buying Season that stretches between May and October.

As a result, the Winter Buying Season has become an important time—or pipeline—for prospective buyers to condo shop while the Summer Buying Season is when many of those transactions are completed.

Miami Condo Mondays™ is a live podcast hosted by Peter Zalewski of the Miami Condo Investing Club™ and veteran broker Jenny Huertas of CVRRealty.com providing an in-depth look at the latest residential real estate trends in South Florida.

Recorded weekly in Greater Downtown Miami, the podcast offers a one-hour discussion on various real estate topics, including preconstruction condos, market trends and investment strategies.

The hosts share their expertise, with Zalewski focusing on macro perspectives and Huertas offering micro insights from her on-the-ground experience.

Tune in every Monday at 4 PM (EST) on the social media accounts of Peter Zalewski and Jenny Huertas for insights on the latest trends in the South Florida condo market.

Episode Overview

The South Florida condo market has entered the 2025-26 Winter Buying Season with 13 months of supply, signaling a Deteriorating Buyers Market where unit owners are capitulating and cutting asking prices, according to a recent report.

This data-driven analysis was the focus of the Nov. 10, 2025, episode of the Miami Condo Mondays™ podcast, hosted by consultant Peter Zalewski and broker Jenny Huertas.

The podcast’s analysis was framed as a critical outlook for condo buyers preparing to visit South Florida for the 2025-26 Winter Buying Season.

The hosts focused on what buyers can expect as they arrive for the traditionally busy period, which runs from November through April, and how to navigate the current market conditions.

Zalewski introduced a new Miami Condo Supply Tracker™ to classify the market, defining 0.0 to 5.9 months of resale supply as a Sellers Market, 6.0 to 6.9 months as Equilibrium and 7.0 to 12.9 months as a Buyers Market.

The new Tracker classifies 13.0 to 18.9 months of supply as a Deteriorating Buyers Market, which is where the South Florida Overall condo market currently sits.

The overall market has 26,100 active listings at an average asking price of nearly $902,000, according to the data.

These active listings have been on the market for an average of 190 days, while units that successfully sold over the past year did so in an average of 114 days.

A significant trend is the downward pressure on pricing.

The 12-month average sale price for an Overall condo was nearly $777,400, but the average sale price during the 2025 South Florida Summer Buying Season—stretching from May through October—fell sharply to less than $571,000.

The Vintage condo market—defined as units at least 30 years old—is performing slightly better with 11.8 months of supply, which constitutes a Buyers Market.

The data reveals a clear downward price trend in the Vintage market.

The average 12-month sale price was about $379,000, but the average Summber Buying Season sale price was about $336,900.

Critically, the current average $343,500 asking price for a Vintage condo is 9.38 percent less than the average sale price from the last 12 months, signaling sellers are lowering expectations.

This price pressure is linked to cap rates—defined gross annual rent minus basic expenses (property taxes and maintenance fees)—that are defined as Uninvestable, according to the newly launched Miami Condo Investability Barometer™.

That analysis showed bellwether markets like Greater Downtown Miami Overall condos and Miami Beach Vintage units have cap rates of 0.80 percent and 0.70 percent, respectively.

Huertas noted that the current market vibe “feels like 2007,” just before the last crash, with prices high but not falling fast enough to motivate buyers.

Despite low cap rates on listed properties, distressed deals are emerging.

Zalewski cited recent examples of Vintage units in western suburbs being acquired for 20 cents to 27 cents on the dollar, according to a recent report.

Zalewski cautioned that these distressed deals come with significant risk, referencing one condo that was purchased from a hoarder and required extensive work to clean out the unit to make it rentable.

Check out this clip from the latest episode of the Condo Capitalism™ - A Miami Distressed Real Estate Podcast featuring veteran investor Jose Suarez of Global Inventory Liquidators who has purchased three condos valued at about $825,000 for a combined $230,000.
Report: https://peterzalewski.substack.com/p/meet-miami-investor-buying-vintage

Check out this clip from the latest episode of "The Peter Zalewski Show" podcast featuring Eric Kalis, senior vice president of BoardroomPR.com, in a discussion about how South Florida condo developers should recalibrate their marketing efforts given the current market volatility.

Watch full episode: https://peterzalewski.substack.com/p/south-florida-condo-developers-face

Check out the clip from the latest episode of Buy, Sell, Hold Miami real estate podcast featuring local real estate advisor Daniel Hernandez of Compass Real Estate and market analyst Peter Zalewski of MiamiCondo.Club.

Watch full episode: https://peterzalewski.substack.com/p/buy-sell-hold-miami-real-estate-podcast-41d