Israeli and Jewish Capital in Miami Real Estate

Miami has become one of the defining global destinations for Israeli and Jewish real estate capital. Over the past two decades, capital from Israel, New York, Latin America, and Europe has helped reshape major parts of South Florida — from Sunny Isles to Downtown Miami to Surfside. Sunny Isles Beach, the strip of oceanfront towers north of Miami Beach, is known informally as the area's Israeli and Russian-Jewish riviera.

Mana Common — Moishe Mana

Moishe Mana, Israeli-born and a former IDF paratrooper who built his first fortune in New York moving and storage, is the single largest private landowner in Wynwood and one of the most aggressive assemblers of land in downtown Miami's Flagler district. Through Mana Common he has accumulated a portfolio measured in dozens of acres and hundreds of millions of dollars, with a stated long-horizon plan to build a technology, culture and trade hub linking Miami to Asia, Africa and Israel. He is the rare Miami principal building a city-scale thesis rather than a single tower.

Dezer Development — Gil and Michael Dezer

Michael Dezer assembled the Sunny Isles oceanfront over decades; his son Gil Dezer developed it. Dezer Development built a cluster of Trump-branded condominium towers under license, the Porsche Design Tower with its car elevators that lift residents and their vehicles into the sky, and the Bentley Residences now rising on the same beach. The Dezer holdings are among the most valuable contiguous oceanfront positions in Florida.

The Trump Group — Jules and Eddie Trump

Jules and Eddie Trump, South African–born Jewish brothers and no relation to the former president, control The Trump Group and developed Williams Island in Aventura and the ultra-luxury Acqualina resort and residences in Sunny Isles, including the Estates at Acqualina, one of the most expensive condominium projects ever built in South Florida.

Crescent Heights — Russell Galbut

Russell Galbut, through Crescent Heights and his GFO Investments vehicle, is one of the most significant figures in Miami Beach real estate and one of the largest condominium developers in the United States. His Miami Beach holdings and entitlement positions have made him a central — and at times contested — voice in the city's development politics for thirty years.

Property Markets Group

Property Markets Group (PMG), led by Kevin Maloney and Ryan Shear, is among the most prolific luxury condominium developers in the market: Echo Brickell, the Zaha Hadid–designed One Thousand Museum, Muse in Sunny Isles, and the Waldorf Astoria Residences Miami — a supertall slated to be the tallest residential tower south of New York. PMG also pioneered the branded-residence and deposit-financed model that reshaped how Miami towers get built.

Michael Shvo

Michael Shvo, the Israeli-born developer better known for his New York career, anchored his Miami presence with the acquisition and restoration of The Raleigh on Miami Beach, pairing the landmark hotel with a new oceanfront luxury tower.

The Falic family

The Falic family, owners of Duty Free Americas and based in South Florida, operate a Miami and New York real estate platform alongside their core travel-retail business. The family is also among the most consistent funders of philanthropic and political activity connecting the United States to Israel.

The deeper roster

Several additional operators of meaningful South Florida footprint deserve dedicated coverage. David Edelstein and TriStar Capital, developers of the W South Beach; Michael Stern's JDS Development, active in Brickell as it is in Manhattan; the broad bench of post-exit Israeli founders buying second homes and small development positions across Bal Harbour, Surfside and Aventura; and the Sephardic and Syrian-Jewish networks of Aventura and Bal Harbour that move capital between Miami, New York and Israel. The market's dominant condominium developer, Related Group under Jorge Pérez, is the platform with which much of this Israeli and Jewish capital most often partners and co-invests.

The current cycle

The migration of hedge funds, private equity and family offices from New York, Chicago and the Northeast to Miami since 2020 reset the city's buyer base toward exactly the profile Israeli and Jewish capital had already cultivated: cash-rich, low-leverage, long-hold. The 2021 Surfside collapse accelerated a wave of older-building teardowns and luxury redevelopment along the same oceanfront these families control. For diaspora buyers, Miami increasingly functions as the residential and lifestyle node of a triangle whose other points are New York and Tel Aviv — a second home that doubles as a dollar-denominated store of value.