Cymbal's chairman Asi Cymbal on the impacts of real estate
Title: Chairman, Cymbal DLT Cos.
Age: 55
Birthplace: Petah Tikva, Israel
Residence: Surfside
Education: Bachelor’s degree, history, Vassar College; J.D., UCLA School of Law
Asi Cymbal can attest to the life-changing impacts of real estate, which he discovered – thanks to his mother – while in high school in Brooklyn, New York.
He later worked for developers in the Empire State and California before moving in 2003 to South Florida, where he launched his own real estate company.
His recent projects include The Nautico District, a $1.5 billion mixed-use community in Fort Lauderdale; Laguna Gardens in Miami Gardens; Oasis Pointe in Dania Beach; and a proposed 36-story tower in Midtown Miami that would include workforce housing.
“You can’t really go wrong in South Florida because everyone wants to be in South Florida,” he says.
Why did you enter the real estate sector? I got in the field because that’s how I saw my mother get our family out of poverty. She was renting a one-bedroom co-op and borrowed money from friends and family – I think it was $10,000 at the time – and bought the unit. She then sold it for more money than she made all year as a bookkeeper at a tie factory. She then went on to her next deal and her next deal, and I thought, “Well, that’s my ticket out. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Why did you come to South Florida? A friend of mine from law school told me he saw big opportunities here and to check it out. I knew that to do a small development in New York City, it would be a $100 million-plus deal. And I didn’t have that kind of money. I figured, with less money and some experience, I could do a lot more in South Florida. After a long time, that theory panned out.
How has the market changed since 2003? At the time, it was more like a Wild West. There was lots of money in development, but not lots of expertise, and I had the expertise. Today, all the big guys from New York are here. [And] if you own property, and we’ve owned a lot of property for 20-plus years, it’s been great because valuations have gone up. For example, a property we acquired for about $3 million is now worth over $45 million. Another acquisition we made for $11 million is today worth $140 million. So, if you hold on to properties, the value over the long term is much greater.
Has South Florida’s real estate market overheated? There’s certainly cycles in real estate. What I’ve learned is that real estate is about location and timing. I’ve lived in New York, Los Angeles and Tel Aviv. Now I live in South Florida, and I’m going to stay in South Florida forever. I know a lot of people who are making that same decision. So, personally, I just want to focus on the tri-county area. I think there’s plenty of opportunities here.
Where do you see opportunities in South Florida? A lot of the new product caters to the highest income earners. But the state’s Live Local Act is a smart program that incentivizes developers to provide more affordable housing in luxury communities. Laguna Gardens is a garden-style community we created with market-rate rents in mind. But because Live Local offers a great tax break on units if you artificially lower those rents, we decided to take as much of the luxury units as possible and fold it into workforce housing.
Jurisdictions in California and New York [use rent control], which does the opposite of creating affordable housing because you’re limiting the housing stock and not giving the owner the ability to upgrade because they’re capped on rent. But with Live Local, you’re financially motivated to produce high-quality product due to the tax savings. It’s a very thoughtful approach, and I suspect a lot of the country is going to model itself after the Live Local Act program in Florida.
