Real Deal Launches South Florida Edition

The Real Deal magazine this month launched a South Florida edition. The flagship New York edition has been around since March 2003; and much of the business side, including all of the production, of the South Florida edition, currently at 48 pages, will remain out of New York as well. (Full disclosure: I was an editor at the New York one for nearly two years.) The South Florida Real Deal has eight employees so far, including one salesperson.

As to whether this is the best time to launch a real estate magazine there, given South Florida's famously imploding housing market, Real Deal founder and publisher Amir Korangy emailed me this statement on Monday afternoon:

We decided to publish The Real Deal for that market because they are going through a challenging time and they lack real estate news very much the same way New York City lacked real estate news before we started to publish here five years ago. While the next two years could be difficult for the real estate market down there, I have great confidence that South Florida will always be a destination, not only for retirees, which was the case before, but for young talent, Europeans, all of Latin America and, of course, for vacationers.

So, real estate in Miami or South Florida will not be a doomed cause as many predict. I believe that the market there will re-group. After all, a loft on the beach is a loft on the BEACH, and that will always remain attractive.