The biggest single commercial real estate deal so far this year didn't go down around Walt Disney World. Or downtown. Or anywhere in Orange County, Central Florida's most populous area.
It was actually in Osceola County.
That's where Miami-based El Maximo Ranch Holdings LLC bought a 38,453-acre ranch for $136.5 million from the Lake Wales-based Latt Maxcy Corp., according to Osceola County records. To put that acreage number in perspective: El Maximo Ranch Holdings bought more land than Burbank, Cali.-based Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) did when it assembled 27,000 acres to build its theme park empire in Central Florida. The deal breaks down to about $3,550 an acre.
Orlando Business Journal combed through records in Osceola, Lake, Seminole and Orange counties to compile the top 50 largest commercial real estate deals through August in Central Florida. Click through the slideshow to see which deals made the list.
Outside of the massive ranch sale, an overwhelming majority of the commercial transactions occurred in Orange County and most of the buyers were based in Florida. But about one-fifth of the buyers were from the state of New York and a tenth of the buyers were from California. The average deal cost among the top 50 transactions was $34.2 million.
Meanwhile, Florida markets, including Central Florida, are seeing an uptick in investment for single tenant properties from investors in states such as New York, New Jersey and Connecticut following changes in deductions with the new tax law, as previously reported by OBJ. The Trump administration’s new tax laws have capped these investors, often families, from writing off more than $10,000 in state and local tax deductions, which include property taxes. That new cap is spurring investors in high-tax states to look for real estate opportunities in states with lower taxes.
2017 total dollar volume of sales/lease transactions
| Rank | Prior Rank | Company |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | CBRE |
2 | 2 | Cushman & Wakefield |
3 | 3 | JLL |