Quick answer: Start with the name. The tower thousands of buyers still search as SLS Brickell now trades as Dua Miami, and the hotel inside it runs under Marriott. Nothing about the address, the association or the rental rules changed, but the comparables did: search one name and you see part of the market, search the other and you see the rest. Get both sets before you price anything.
The rebrand is a pricing problem before it is anything else
A building that changes its name does not change its concrete, but it does split its own comparable set in two.
Listings, sold records and rental history for this tower now sit under two names. Search SLS Brickell and you find one slice. Search Dua Miami and you find another. Neither set is complete, and an appraiser, a lender or a buyer working from only one of them is working from partial data on a 450-unit building.
The practical instruction is simple and it is the first thing to do here: pull the sold comparables for the address, 1300 South Miami Avenue, rather than for either brand name. Folio and address searches do not care what the marketing department calls the building this year. Anyone quoting you a price per foot from a name-based search on a tower that has been renamed is quoting you half a market.
The hotel operator changing to Marriott has the same effect on the rental side. Historic nightly performance published under one flag does not carry over to another, and if a seller is using pre-rebrand hotel numbers to imply anything about the residential units, that argument was already weak before the flag changed.
Three rentals a year, and where that rule comes from
Owners may lease up to three times per year, with no lease shorter than 30 days, and a rental triggers a common-area deposit equal to one month’s rent.
That is the same architecture as SLS LUX Brickell four blocks north, which caps at three tenancies with a 31-day floor. Two Related Group towers in the same district with near-identical rental clauses is not a coincidence, it is a house style, and it tells you what to expect from the sponsor’s other Brickell product before you read the documents.
For an investor the consequence is the same in both buildings: the nightly model is unavailable, the flexible medium-stay model is capped, and the yield case has to be built on an annual or near-annual lease. The one-month deposit is a smaller point but a real one, because it sits with the association rather than with you and it is working capital you do not get back until the tenancy ends cleanly.
Read the clause in the recorded declaration rather than in a listing description. Rental rules move by amendment, amendments are recorded, and a building that has tightened its rules once can tighten them again.
What you are actually buying at $949 a foot
| Line | Dua Miami, ex SLS Brickell | SLS LUX Brickell |
|---|---|---|
| Completed | 2016 | 2018 |
| Residences | 450 to 453 | 438 to 450 |
| Hotel component | 124 to 133 rooms, Marriott | 83 to 84 condo-hotel suites |
| Asking range | $491,000 to $4.5m | $575,000 to $8.8m |
| Average per square foot | near $949 | near $985 |
| Rental cap | 3 per year, 30-day minimum | 3 per year, 31-day minimum |
| Milestone inspection | near 2041 | near 2043 |
The two towers are close enough that the choice between them is not about quality. It is about entry price and unit mix: this building starts lower and its largest residences stop at about 2,268 square feet, where the newer tower runs past 3,800. A buyer looking for a one or two-bedroom at the lower end of branded Brickell will find the entry here; a buyer looking for a large floor plan will not.
The hotel component is the sharper structural difference. Here it is a genuine 124 to 133-room hotel under a Marriott flag rather than a set of condo-hotel suites. That is a larger commercial operation sharing the building, with more staff, more service traffic and a bigger share of the common elements. Whether that reads as convenience or as intrusion is personal. What is not personal is the financing consequence.
The financing test, and why it applies to the whole building
Fannie Mae’s selling guide makes a project ineligible when it is operated as a hotel or motel, when it offers hotel-type services such as daily rentals and central registration, or when owners must participate in rental pooling. A tower containing a flagged hotel of over a hundred rooms sits squarely in the territory those tests were written for.
If a lender determines the project is non-warrantable, the effect is building-wide: the conventional thirty-year fixed mortgage is unavailable on every residence, not merely on units near the hotel floors. The financing routes that remain are cash, a portfolio loan held by the originating lender, or a DSCR loan priced on the rent the unit produces, typically at 25% to 30% down and above conforming rates. Overseas buyers work through foreign national mortgage programmes with their own documentation and pricing.
At a $491,000 entry point that determination changes the deposit by tens of thousands of dollars. It also changes who can buy the unit from you later, and a narrower buyer pool is a slower sale. Get the eligibility answer in writing before the offer.
2016 vintage, and the reserve question that precedes 2041
A 2016 certificate of occupancy puts the 25-year coastal milestone near 2041. That is beyond a standard ten-year hold, which is genuinely reassuring, and it is the reason this building does not carry the near-term structural risk that Brickell’s early-2000s stock does. Compare with 500 Brickell, completed 2008, where the trigger lands near 2033 and therefore inside the ownership window of anyone buying now.
The trap is assuming that a distant inspection means a quiet decade. Under the SB 4-D milestone and reserve framework, the structural integrity reserve study and the funding percentage it produces drive dues long before the inspection itself. A building ten years into its life is exactly when finishes, mechanical plant and lift equipment start their first replacement cycle, and a mixed-use tower carries that schedule for hotel-grade common areas as well as residential ones.
Request the reserve study summary, the current funding percentage and three years of dues history. The level of the dues matters less than the slope, and the slope is the only honest forecast available.
Verification checklist before you wire
- Pull sold comparables by address, 1300 South Miami Avenue, not by either brand name.
- Confirm which name appears on the current recorded declaration and on the association’s insurance certificate.
- Get the rental clause from the recorded declaration, including any amendments, not from a listing summary.
- Ask for the lender’s written project eligibility determination before making an offer.
- Request three years of dues history plus the reserve study funding percentage.
- Establish how common elements and costs are allocated between the residential association and the hotel operation. In mixed-use towers that allocation is negotiated, and it is where disputes originate.
- Ask what the one-month common-area rental deposit covers and what conditions release it.
Which buyer this building suits
It suits a buyer who wants branded Brickell at the lowest entry available and will hold on annual leases. The rental cap is restrictive but predictable, the milestone is far enough out to be somebody else’s problem, and the price per foot sits below the newer tower up the road for a building only two years older.
It suits a buyer who needs conventional financing least well, and that is the pivotal question rather than a footnote. Settle project eligibility first. If the answer is non-warrantable, everything downstream, the deposit, the rate, the timeline and the eventual buyer pool, changes at once. For the wider district picture see the Brickell area page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The tower at 1300 South Miami Avenue, Miami FL 33130 was marketed as SLS Brickell and now trades as Dua Miami, with the hotel component operated under Marriott. The address, the association and the recorded declaration are unchanged. Listings appear under both names, which is worth knowing before you compare two sets of comparables that turn out to be the same building.
Completed in 2016 by The Related Group with Arquitectonica architecture. Sources put it between 52 and 54 storeys. It holds roughly 450 to 453 condominium residences alongside 124 to 133 hotel rooms and suites, so the tower is a genuine mixed-use building rather than a residential one with a lobby bar.
No, not on a residential unit. Owners may lease up to three times per year and no lease may run shorter than 30 days. The building also requires a common-area deposit equal to one month's rent on a rental. Nightly stays at the address belong to the hotel component, which is a separate ownership and a separate business.
Asking prices run roughly $491,000 to $4.5 million, averaging near $949 per square foot. Residences are quoted between 570 and 2,268 square feet across one to three bedrooms plus penthouses, so the entry point here is materially lower than at the newer SLS LUX four blocks north.
A 2016 completion places the 25-year coastal trigger near 2041. That is outside a typical ten-year hold but inside the horizon of a long-term owner, and the reserve funding decisions that precede it start well before the inspection date itself.
It can, and the question belongs with a lender before the offer. Fannie Mae treats projects operated as a hotel, offering hotel-type services, or requiring rental pooling as ineligible. Where a project is judged non-warrantable the conventional thirty-year loan is unavailable across the whole building, leaving cash, portfolio lending or DSCR at a higher rate and a larger deposit.
Get address-level comparables for 1300 South Miami Avenue
Tell us the unit size you are considering. We will come back with sold records under both the SLS Brickell and Dua Miami names, the current rental clause as recorded, the dues history, and a written lender view on project eligibility.