McCabe: South Florida Condos At Precipice Going Into Summer Buying Season

In this episode of The Peter Zalewski Show™, veteran analyst Jack McCabe points to the Mercedes-Benz Places foreclosure in Miami as a possible symbolic end to the pandemic-era condo boom.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 Peter Zalewski’s social media accounts to watch the free live broadcasts.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.Episode OverviewIn the April 16, 2026, episode of The Peter Zalewski Show™ podcast, host Peter Zalewski interviewed veteran analyst Jack McCabe of McCabeResearch.com about a South Florida condo market he described as at a precipice as the Winter Buying Season ends and a high-stakes Summer begins next month.During the 63-minute episode, McCabe pointed to the foreclosure filing against the Mercedes-Benz Places tower in Greater Downtown Miami as a mile marker for what he contended could be the symbolic end of the pandemic-induced condo boom that ran from 2021 through 2023, and raised the question of how many other projects would follow.On the resale side, the numbers told a similar story.Zalewski cited South Florida closed sales statistics that showed the average price per square foot for a condo had dropped roughly 2% Year-over-Year across the broader tricounty South Florida region of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.Vintage units—that are at least 30 years old—were down nearly 4%.McCabe and Zalewski discussed whether these statistics were the first real crack in pricing and whether the declines would intensify in the upcoming months as more units sold at lower valuations.McCabe cautioned sellers not to expect lower mortgage rates any time soon, describing the current inflationary environment as leaving the Federal Reserve—and its new chair—no room to cut.The conversation turned to the Summer Buying Season, and how the heat, humidity and hurricane warnings that define the period from May through October thin the buyer pool and could accelerate that drop.Zalewski asked whether the FIFA World Cup matches scheduled for South Florida in June and July would divert attention away from the condo market entirely.Zalewski pointed to the 1.25% decline—rather than a projected 8.5% gain—in overseas passenger traffic at Miami International Airport in 2025, and questioned whether it signaled that the foreign investor pool of Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans was already drying up.The two examined how some South Florida condo developers were notorious for exaggerating preconstruction sales figures and predicted the pressure to do so would only grow as demand slowed.McCabe shared a story about one of his developer clients whose presales showed 20% of the units were under contract even though the marketing materials claimed 80% of the building was “sold.”The episode closed with a discussion of why some veteran bulk buyers were reportedly sitting on the sidelines rather than negotiating with sellers directly, preferring instead to wait for the courts to set pricing after two South Florida condo associations recently filed for bankruptcy.