Miami Real Estate Won’t Wait. Neither Should Your Funding.

By Edwin Urrego
Executive Loan Officer, Kennedy Funding

Miami has always been a real estate market where things can happen quickly. Properties change hands, neighborhoods evolve, new investment opportunities emerge and capital continues to come into South Florida from across the country and around the world.

For investors, that’s a big part of Miami’s appeal. But it’s also one of its challenges.

When the right opportunity comes along, you need to be ready to move. And that means having access to financing that can move with you.

The numbers show just how active the market continues to be. South Florida commercial real estate sales reached $16 billion in 2025, the highest level since 2017. Miami-Dade alone accounted for $7.1 billion, representing a 32% increase from the previous year.

Land has been an equally important part of the story. South Florida non-agricultural land sales reached $7.2 billion in 2025, a six-year high, with Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties accounting for 83% of that volume.

For real estate investors, those numbers point to something we see every day: there is opportunity in Miami, but being able to act on that opportunity is what matters.

A Good Miami Deal Doesn’t Always Fit a Bank’s Box

One of the things I’ve learned working with real estate investors is that a good deal and an easy deal to finance aren’t necessarily the same thing.

A borrower may own a valuable property with substantial equity and still have trouble obtaining the financing they need from a traditional lender. Maybe the property doesn’t fit the bank’s preferred asset type. Maybe the borrower needs to close faster than the bank’s process allows. Maybe there’s a complicated ownership structure or the borrower is a foreign national. Sometimes the borrower simply has a transaction that doesn’t fit neatly within conventional lending requirements.

None of those circumstances necessarily mean that the underlying real estate isn’t valuable or that the transaction doesn’t make sense.

That’s one of the reasons private lending has become such an important financing option for real estate investors.

At Kennedy Funding, we’re a direct private lender. We look closely at the real estate itself, the borrower’s equity and the overall transaction. That asset-based approach allows us to consider situations that traditional lenders may have difficulty accommodating.

Sometimes the difference isn’t the quality of the opportunity. It’s having a lender willing and able to understand it.

In Miami, Time Can Be Part of the Deal

Speed matters in real estate everywhere, but it can be particularly important in a competitive market like Miami.

If you’re acquiring a property, the seller isn’t necessarily going to wait while you spend months working through a traditional lending process. There may be another buyer ready to move. A contract may have a firm closing date. An investor refinancing an existing property may have an approaching maturity or another deadline that makes waiting difficult.

I’ve seen plenty of transactions where the financing timeline is just as important as the financing itself.

Kennedy Funding has closed loans in as little as five days when circumstances required it. We provide loans starting at $1 million and can fund transactions of $50 million or more, with loan-to-value ratios of up to 75% on qualifying transactions.

That doesn’t mean every transaction closes in days. An appraisal, title search, environmental reports and other documentation can all be part of the process. But working with a direct private lender eliminates many of the layers that can slow down a conventional loan.

When a borrower tells me, “I have to close,” my first question isn’t why the bank couldn’t do it. It’s whether we can.

Miami Real Estate Is About Much More Than Condos

Miami has a global reputation for luxury residential real estate, but that’s only one part of the investment landscape.

Across Miami-Dade and throughout South Florida, investors are pursuing land, multifamily properties, commercial real estate and other opportunities. Those properties can have very different business plans, financing needs and timelines.

That’s why I think it’s important to start with what the borrower is actually trying to accomplish.

Are you acquiring a property? Refinancing an existing loan? Do you own a property with significant equity and want to access some of that value through a cash-out refinance? Do you need working capital to keep a project or business moving?

Those are very different situations, but they all begin with the same thing: understanding the value of the real estate and how the financing fits into the borrower’s larger plan.
Kennedy Funding provides financing for acquisitions, refinancing, workouts and cash-out transactions involving land, estates, commercial and multifamily real estate.

Kennedy Funding does not provide construction loans. However, depending on the transaction, proceeds from a loan secured by an existing property may provide working capital that can be deployed toward a project.

The goal is to understand the asset, understand what the borrower needs to accomplish and determine whether there’s a financing structure that can help them do it.

Land Is a Big Part of the South Florida Opportunity

The growth in South Florida land sales is especially interesting to me because land has always been an important part of Kennedy Funding’s business.

According to MIAMI REALTORS®, South Florida non-agricultural land sales reached $7.2 billion in 2025. Residential land accounted for 79% of that total and the median sales price for residential land increased 6% year over year.

Raw land can represent tremendous opportunity, particularly in a market experiencing long-term population growth and continued investment. But land can also be challenging to finance through conventional lenders.

Banks frequently have more restrictive requirements for land than they do for an income-producing property. That can leave investors with a valuable asset but fewer financing options.
We’ve been financing land for decades, so we approach these transactions differently.

We don’t look at land as simply an empty piece of property. We look at its value, location, existing entitlements where applicable, the borrower’s equity and what the borrower ultimately wants to accomplish.

It could be land intended for a future multifamily development. It could be commercial property. It could be a mixed-use opportunity. Or it could simply be an asset that has appreciated significantly and can be used to unlock capital for another purpose.

Owning valuable land is one thing. Having access to the capital you need to take advantage of its value is another.

Miami Has Always Been an International Market

You also can’t really talk about Miami real estate without talking about international investment.

Miami is a gateway between the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of the world. International investors have been part of the South Florida real estate market for decades and that global interest is one of the things that makes the region unique.

It can also create financing challenges.

A foreign national may have significant assets and substantial real estate experience but still find that obtaining a loan from a traditional U.S. bank isn’t simple. The lender may be uncomfortable with an international borrower, a particular ownership structure or documentation that doesn’t fit its standard process.

Kennedy Funding has extensive experience working with foreign nationals and international borrowers. We also lend well beyond South Florida. In addition to transactions throughout the United States, Kennedy Funding has financed properties in the Caribbean, Central America, South America and Canada.

For me, being fluent in Spanish is another advantage when working in a market like Miami. Financing is complicated enough without a language barrier. Being able to speak directly with Spanish-speaking borrowers, understand what they’re trying to accomplish and explain the lending process clearly can make the entire transaction easier.

Miami may be a U.S. real estate market, but the people investing here come from everywhere. Financing needs to reflect that reality.

Bring Me the Deal

When a borrower or broker comes to me with a Miami transaction, I don’t need a hundred-page presentation to start a conversation.

Tell me about the property. Tell me what it’s worth. Tell me how much you need. Tell me how much equity is in the deal and what you’re trying to accomplish. And, especially in the Miami area, tell me when you need to close.

From there, we can determine whether the transaction makes sense for Kennedy Funding.

That’s one of the things I like most about direct private lending. We can get to the heart of a deal quickly. If there’s a problem, we want to identify it. If there’s a solution, we want to find it.

We’ve closed more than $4 billion in loans, so we’ve seen complicated transactions before. We’ve worked with borrowers who needed financing quickly, properties that didn’t fit traditional lending requirements, land transactions, cash-out refinances and deals involving international borrowers.

No two transactions are exactly alike.

And in a market as dynamic as Miami, that’s exactly the point.

The opportunity may be unique. The financing should be flexible enough to recognize it.

About Edwin Urrego
Edwin Urrego is an Executive Loan Officer at Kennedy Funding, working with borrowers and brokers to secure private financing for land, commercial and multifamily real estate transactions. Fluent in both English and Spanish, Edwin works with domestic and international borrowers, helping navigate complex and time-sensitive deals that may not fit traditional lending requirements.