Seeking Curbed-Cost Appeal, Builders Cut Homes' Price And Size

Why doesn't NSW 'Labor' do affordable housing on state-owned lands instead of selling them off to the highest bidder in an asset sale to try to reduce its half-billion dollar deficit?

Now that overheated markets such as Miami are cooling fast, Related's talking up another kind of product: affordable homes.

Miami-based Related, the nation's largest condo developer, has trotted out a rebranded "affordable housing division," to build condos for buyers priced out of the market.

The firm has presold 497 of 500 loft condos in a planned downtown Miami high-rise. They're priced from $159,000, about half the median price of existing condos. That's a fraction of the price of many new condos, which often now go unsold.

Related expects to make a return of around 15%. That's about half what its luxury units typically fetch, but the company's not complaining.

"You make less money, but the demand for this type of housing is so great that the volume you can do justifies the concession on the returns," said Oscar Rodriguez, senior vice president of Related's affordable housing division.

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