# What a Miami preconstruction deposit *costs to hold*

> Source: https://bluebaybrokers.com/preconstruction-deposit-carry-miami
> Publisher: BlueBay Brokers LLC, 1541 Brickell Ave #1201, Miami FL 33129 (Florida broker BK3411036)
> Figures read on: 2026-09-18
> Plain-text copy of the page above for AI assistants and readers. Quote with attribution to BlueBay Brokers; each figure carries its own source and read date. Nothing here certifies that a short-term rental is legal at any address.

**On a $600,000 Miami preconstruction unit with the usual 10-10-10-70 schedule, the deposits committed before closing cost about $20,000 in forgone yield over 36 months at 4.5 percent simple, 3.4 percent of the price, and it is never in the pitch.** The money sits in escrow earning nothing while a Treasury bill would have paid you; that gap is a real cost of the trade, as real as the developer fee at closing, and it is the number to hold against the premium a launch price is supposed to earn.

Method as used in every BlueBay Brokers new-development study: each deposit tranche is held from the month it is paid to closing, at 4.5 percent simple, the rate a buyer could have earned risk-free in 2025 to 2026. A stated assumption, printed, rather than a market rate corrected after the fact.

The table

## Three prices, three delivery windows, *one schedule*

Schedule modelled: 10 percent at contract, 10 at groundbreaking (about three months later), 10 at top-off (about two-thirds of the way through), 70 at closing. The carry is what the three deposits would have earned at 4.5 percent simple, each from the month it was paid.

| Unit price | Deposits before closing | Months to delivery | Carry at 4.5% simple | As % of price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $450,000 | $135,000 | 24 | $9,100 | 2.0% |
| $450,000 | $135,000 | 36 | $13,700 | 3.0% |
| $450,000 | $135,000 | 48 | $18,200 | 4.0% |
| $600,000 | $180,000 | 24 | $12,200 | 2.0% |
| $600,000 | $180,000 | 36 | $18,200 | 3.0% |
| $600,000 | $180,000 | 48 | $24,300 | 4.0% |
| $900,000 | $270,000 | 24 | $18,200 | 2.0% |
| $900,000 | $270,000 | 36 | $27,300 | 3.0% |
| $900,000 | $270,000 | 48 | $36,400 | 4.0% |

Rounded to the nearest hundred. A 20-30 percent deposit at contract, which several Brickell developers ask, raises the figure by roughly a third; a delivered building has none of it. Our study of each building applies this to that building's own schedule and months to delivery.

What to do with the number

## Hold it against *the premium*

A launch price is supposed to be repaid by the premium at delivery. On the two delivered Miami buildings where that premium is measurable at the County, it was +61 percent at Smart Brickell Tower 1 (nine resales) and +11 percent at Natiivo Miami (forty resales). Against Natiivo's 11 percent, a 3.4 percent carry over three years is a third of the gain; against a building that delivers late, or into a postcode that resells below the developer's list, it is most of it. That is the comparison the table is for.

Three things move the number and are negotiable more often than buyers assume: the size of the contract deposit (10 rather than 20 or 30 percent), the timing of the top-off tranche, and, for a building already topped off, buying in with the construction risk gone and the carry down to months. A delivered building has no carry at all; what it has instead is a resale price set by the market, not by a price list.

What the number is not: it is not interest you pay, it is yield you forgo. It is not the developer fee, the title insurance or the documentary stamps, which are paid at closing on top. And it does not include the risk that the developer does not deliver, which Florida escrow rules address and which the contract, read by your attorney, defines.

Questions we are asked

**Does my preconstruction deposit earn interest in escrow?**

Usually not for the buyer. Florida escrow rules protect the deposit and allow the developer to use the part above 10 percent for construction once the contract permits it; neither pays the buyer a yield. The carry on this page is the yield you would have earned elsewhere, at 4.5 percent simple, over the months the money is committed.

**How much is a typical Miami preconstruction deposit schedule?**

Ten percent at contract, ten at groundbreaking, ten at top-off and seventy at closing is the common Brickell and downtown schedule in 2025 and 2026; some developers ask twenty or thirty percent at contract. The schedule is set by each contract and is worth negotiating.

**Can Carolina run this on the building I am considering?**

Yes: with that building's actual schedule and delivery date, against the developer's recorded closings and the delivered comparables in its postcode. In Spanish or English, on WhatsApp at +1 786 326 8778.

[All the studies](https://bluebaybrokers.com/new-developments) [Developer price vs resale, six buildings](https://bluebaybrokers.com/developer-price-vs-resale-miami) [How to buy preconstruction from abroad](https://bluebaybrokers.com/buy-preconstruction-miami-foreign-buyer)