Title insurance honcho pays $15M for restored waterfront Mid-Miami Beach house

A title insurance company co-founder and his wife bought a waterfront Miami Beach house that spec home developer Barry Brodsky flipped for $15.3 million.

Jarett and Elizabeth Fein bought the eight-bedroom house at 554 Lakeview Drive from Brodsky, who owns Brodson Construction, records show.

Jarett Fein co-founded Kensington Vanguard National Land Services, an independent national title insurance agency. It focuses on residential and commercial real estate, as well as on settlement, escrow, recording and 1031 exchange services, according to its website. Fein is co-CEO along with Brian Cooper, who also co-founded the firm. Kensington Vanguard lists offices in New York, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and elsewhere in the U.S.

Hillary Hertzberg of The Jills Zeder Group of Coldwell Banker represented the seller, and Elyse Rosenberg of Coldwell Banker represented the buyer.

The two-story, 5,691-square-foot home has eight full baths and was constructed in 1939 on nearly 0.7 acres, according to Realtor.com.

The house, which has frontage along Surprise Lake and overlooks The Ritz-Carlton Residences Miami Beach, was fully renovated in a classical Mediterranean style, according to Rosenberg.

Brodsky, who used the house as his residence, drew inspiration from the Four Seasons at The Surf Club, a condo-hotel in Surfside, in the home’s restoration, Rosenberg said.

Deeds show that a trust with Brodsky and Steven Habib as co-trustees bought the house in 2020 for $3.8 million, and shortly after transferred the property to Brodsky for a nominal $100.

Brodsky builds spec homes and previously restored and flipped other Miami Beach homes. He and Habib sold a waterfront Mediterranean-style, renovated home along Pine Tree Drive Circle, for $7.3 million in 2019.

In 2020, Brodsky’s Brodson Construction paid $5.3 million for a waterfront Sunset Islands lot with plans to demolish the existing house and build a spec home.

The South Florida housing market has been booming, partly because of the influx of Northeasterners who are scooping up homes here and have shown a penchant for waterfront properties. The number of residential sales of $10 million or more from December 2020 to November 2021 topped that of the previous two years combined, according to an analysis by The Real Deal. 

In another recent Miami Beach flip, New York-based life sciences hedge fund Perceptive Advisors’ managing director Ellen Hukkelhoven paid $9.9 million for a penthouse at Michael Stern’s Monad Terrace project that was completed in 2020. The selling Delaware-based entity flipped the unit for a 30 percent price increase in six months.