Latin American investors who have long been an active participant in the residential market in Miami have begun to turn their attentions to all manner of commercial properties. The vice-president of investments at Marcus & Millichap, Alex Zylberglait ? who is also a director of the company's National Office and Industrial Properties Group ? recently came back from an Argentinean real estate expo attended by no less than 20,000 investors.
There was a "pretty positive" response, Zylberglait says. "There is an element of education involved because it is a different market from residential, but there is interest, curiosity and appreciation for the opportunity to invest in the US, which has historically been a safe haven for them." Marcus & Millichap was the only local commercial brokerage attending the expo, and elected to go because of the recent upsurge in buyers from countries in Latin America.
"They are investing in all kinds of property types ? apartments to single tenant retail to office," Zylberglait points out. "I just closed a deal for three office buildings to a Latin American who is hiring a local partner to manage and lease them." He also confirmed that Marcus & Millichap sold another office building to a high net worth individual from Peru.
Zylberglait says that there are obvious reasons for this, with some unstable economic conditions in a number of countries in Latin America. A number of countries that were previously doing quite well have now started to slow down and with domestic investment starting to become less attractive and the US markets beginning to recover, they are looking to be able to place their equity in markets that are a bit less unstable and rather more predictable. There is a bias toward Miami-Dade because investors from these countries already know and are comfortable with the area.