Smartphone mogul Samuel Ohev-Zion and developer Jacob Ohayon dropped $16.5 million on a waterfront teardown in Bal Harbour, where they plan to build a spec mansion and list it for $45 million, The Real Deal has learned.
Ohev-Zion and Ohayon’s 166 Bal Bay Home LLC, a Florida entity, bought the house at 166 Bal Bay Drive from the family of the late Leon and Mina Sragowicz, a spokesperson confirmed. Ohev-Zion is CEO and president of Blu Products, a smartphone maker based in Doral. He sold a Golden Beach mansion for $34 million in August. Ohayon is a real estate investor and developer who owns the firm EdenVest.
Joel Lusky and Zalmy Shapiro of the Brokerage South Florida Real Estate brought the buyers, and Raquel Sragowicz and Itzchak Yosef of Citadel Realty had the listing.
The Sragowiczes bought the home for $595,000 in 1992, according to property records. Built on a half-acre in 1995, the home spans 7,400 square feet, with five bedrooms, six bathrooms, one half-bathroom, a library and a pool, records and the listing show.
The Bal Bay Drive home is near the 0.6-acre waterfront site soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior bought for $26 million in Bal Harbour last month.
Ohev-Zion and Ohayon tapped Manny Angelo Varas’ MV Group USA to build a 10,000-square-foot waterfront spec mansion designed by Kobi Karp on the 166 Bal Bay Drive site, according to a press release.
Varas said he expects to have building permits submitted by the end of the year, and that construction will take 18 months. Varas, Ohev-Zion and Ohayon are among the rare real estate players with an ultra-luxury spec home in the works in the current market, where skyrocketing costs have bottlenecked the new construction pipeline.
“We definitely see a significant short supply of quality new construction homes,” Varas said, which is contributing to price growth at the high end of the market. He predicted in the next five years that “$5,000 a square foot –– that will become the [pricing] norm across the board on waterfront ultra-luxury homes in South Florida.”
At present, that pricing is far from standard. David and Victoria Beckham shattered price records last month when they paid $72.3 million for a waterfront spec mansion on North Bay Road in a deal that worked out to just over $5,000 per square foot.
It helps that Bal Harbour is becoming a hub of luxury real estate activity. Earlier this month, Related Group, Rockpoint and Two Roads Development scored a $424 million construction loan for their planned Bal Harbour luxury condo project, Rivage Residences. The 24-story, 56-unit development has already reached $100 million in presales, and prices for remaining units start at $10 million.
WeWork founder Adam Neumann also bought into Bal Harbour. The infamous real estate mogul dropped $43 million on a pair of adjacent waterfront homes in 2021, and earlier this year sought to upgrade the landscaping on his 1.2-acre estate.