How a Turkish Family Bought Their First Miami Pre-Construction Unit

The first time I met the Yıldız family — names changed for privacy — they walked into our Sunny Isles office in October 2023 holding three printed brochures and a list of questions written in Turkish. Mr. Yıldız ran a logistics company in Istanbul, and his wife taught at a private school in Ataşehir. Their daughter was finishing high school. Their goal: buy a Miami property they could use 4-6 weeks a year, rent the rest of the time, and grow into a family base if their daughter chose a U.S. university.

Their budget: $800K to $1.2M. Their timeline: 24-30 months. Their first instinct: buy something today, on the resale market, and start renting immediately.

Two years later they took possession of a 2-bedroom unit at a branded oceanfront tower for $1.04M. The same model was selling at $1.27M on the secondary market by the time they got their keys.

This is what happened in between — including the three mistakes they almost made.

The first conversation: pre-construction or resale?

Most foreign buyers walk into our office assuming they want resale. The reasoning is intuitive: I want to see what I'm buying, I want to start renting it now, I want to avoid construction risk. Mr. Yıldız was no different. He'd spent a month browsing Zillow listings and had three resale condos circled.

I asked him three questions:

1. Will you live in the unit full-time within the next 12 months? No. 2. Do you need rental income to start within 6 months? Not really — they were funding the purchase from a Turkish business sale. 3. Are you comfortable putting 20-30% down today and the rest at delivery 24-36 months later? Yes — actually that helps with currency timing.

That changed the conversation. For a foreign buyer with patient capital and no need for immediate occupancy, pre-construction almost always beats resale on math. Lock today's price. Pay deposits in tranches. By delivery, comparable units have appreciated 15-30%. You walk in with built-in equity.

Resale, by contrast, requires immediate full payment, immediate competition with cash buyers, and immediate exposure to mid-cycle pricing.

Narrowing to three buildings

Once we agreed on pre-construction, we shortlisted three towers within budget:

• Bentley Residences — $4M+, ultimately above budget. Mentioned for context — their Dezervator car elevator made the 12-year-old daughter campaign hard for it.
• Cipriani Residences Miami — Brickell waterfront, $1.7M-$32M. The 2-bedroom units at the lower end were just within reach.
• A Sunny Isles oceanfront tower at the $1M-$1.2M entry tier — strongest rental potential in their range.

We did not visit Miami at this stage. Instead, we did three video walk-throughs — Mr. Yıldız on a Friday evening Istanbul time, me with iPhone in hand walking each sales gallery and showing floor plans. We compared:

• Unit layouts (two-bedroom corner vs. inline)
• Building amenity programs (spa hours, restaurant operators, pet policies)
• Developer track record (delivery history, build quality)
• Deposit schedules (the Sunny Isles building offered 10/10/10/70 — 10% at contract, 10% at groundbreaking, 10% at top-off, 70% at delivery; Cipriani required 30% upfront)
• Short-term-rental rules (the Sunny Isles building permitted 30-day minimum rentals; Cipriani imposed a 6-month minimum)

The deposit schedule and rental flexibility tilted the decision. The Yıldızes signed a contract on the Sunny Isles unit in December 2023 with a $104,000 wire from Turkey.

The three mistakes they almost made

Here's where the value of an experienced advocate shows up. Three things almost went sideways:

Mistake 1 — Wiring funds without a vetted escrow account

Mr. Yıldız received the developer's wire instructions in his email and was about to send the deposit directly. We caught this. Wire fraud is the single most common loss in Florida pre-construction. Criminals intercept email threads and substitute their own bank account details. The fix: confirm wire instructions by phone with a known sales rep, and use the title company's escrow — never the developer's operating account.

Mistake 2 — Skipping the contract addendum review

Florida pre-construction contracts are 80-120 pages. Most international buyers sign without reading. Our attorney partner caught a clause that would have allowed the developer to substitute "a unit of comparable value" if the original was sold or modified. We pushed back; the developer agreed to lock the specific unit by addendum.

Mistake 3 — Wrong financing strategy

The Yıldızes were planning to pay all-cash at closing — wiring the remaining $936K from Turkey at delivery. With Turkish lira exposure that's meaningful currency risk. We arranged a foreign-national mortgage at 65% LTV — they ended up financing $676K at 6.85%, putting only $260K cash at closing. This freed liquidity for a second purchase 14 months later.

The discipline that separates first-time foreign buyers from experienced ones is the willingness to ask "wait, why?" at every step. Every fee, every clause, every wire.

The closing — and the appreciation

The building delivered in February 2026, 26 months after contract. The unit was finished cleanly. Walk-through inspection found three minor punch-list items (a missing cabinet hinge, a chipped backsplash tile, a sticky balcony door). All resolved within 10 days.

Closing happened on schedule. The Yıldızes flew to Miami for the closing — their first physical visit to the property. Mrs. Yıldız told me afterward that walking onto the balcony for the first time was the most surreal moment of her life: this was the unit she had imagined a thousand times from a video on a Friday night in Istanbul.

By closing, the same model was listed at $1.27M on the resale market. Their immediate equity: roughly $230,000.

What they wish they'd known

When I asked the Yıldızes what they'd tell another Turkish family starting today, they said three things:

1. Don't try to time the market — time your liquidity. Pre-construction's deposit schedule is its real advantage, more than the appreciation. 2. Pick your team before your property. The right broker, attorney, and lender matter more than which building you choose. 3. Pre-construction rewards patience. If you need to flip in 6 months, do not buy pre-construction. If you can wait 24 months, you almost can't lose.

Where to start if you're considering pre-construction

If you're at the early-research stage, the most useful first conversation is not about a specific building — it's about your timeline, your liquidity, and your end goal. From that we can map the right pre-construction window, the right building tier, and the right deposit schedule.

We've helped 150+ Turkish families through this exact path. Walk through your situation with us, in Turkish or English, on WhatsApp.