Every project in Miami is now a branded residence. This is not exactly true. But it's mostly true. What I heard over the last two days at Elevate is that Miami is the second most active city in the world when it comes to branded residences (after Dubai).

So much so that when a developer sits down with a prospective sales team, one of the first questions they will ask is, "cool, so what's the brand?" Is it Elle? Dolce & Gabbana? Or Pagani? You need a brand. And on average, the end pricing premium is somewhere between 20-30%, in exchange for paying a 3-5% licensing fee (on total revenue).

This makes sense. Brands have value. And I agree with Daniel Langer -- who presented at the conference -- that there is "added luxury value" when it comes to brands that are truly premium and luxury. It's the only way to explain why certain goods & services command a premium. Consumers don't generally pay more for something for the hell of it. They pay more because they believe that they are getting more value.

One interesting example that Daniel gave is a research study involving two groups of people looking at basically the same photo of a woman getting of a car. The only difference is that in the first photo, she is getting out of a Volkswagen, and in the second photo, she is getting out of some fancy car. I can't remember which one, but just know that it's fancy and expensive.

Now, the two groups had no idea this was a study related to "luxury" and they had no idea there was another group and photo, but when comparing the results, the differences were measurable. The fancy car improved perception of the woman in virtually every dimension: she was thought to be more competent, intelligent, attractive, and the list goes on. This is interesting. It demonstrates that brands matter.

So again, it's no surprise that developers are "borrowing" hotel, fashion, car, and many other brands to strengthen the perceived value of their projects. It makes economic sense. But at the same time, I think there are different ways to go about this and I worry about the long-term value and resiliency of some of these branded projects.

For example, in some cases, the brand just seems like a superficial add-on to an otherwise banal project. And in these situations, it may work out for the developer in the short term, but at some point, people will come to the realization that there isn't actually anything differentiated.

To do it well, you want the brand to permeate the project and you need it to survive after completion. This is why hotel brands are a natural fit and what started this category -- they have property brand standards and they are typically there after construction is complete and the building is operational.

There's also the peculiarity that in, adopting a branded residence approach, the developer is by default relegating their own brand to a backseat position. And so there are developers, including one panelist at this conference, who flat out reject this approach -- they want to manage, control, and grow their own brand, not somebody else's.

This is a reasonable approach, but it's a longer game. Brand equity isn't built overnight; it takes time and consistency. Not every developer has the benefit of being in this position, or maybe they don't care to be. They want to remain entrepreneurial and nimble and just tool up on a project-specific basis.

So I guess the answer to the question of whether to brand or not is that it depends on your approach and on how you execute. But regardless, know that this is a massive business and that Miami is one of the branded residence capitals of the world. In the most desirable submarkets, it certainly feels a lot like table stakes.

A branded residence is, as the name suggests, a residential building with a known branded attached to it. Historically, these have tended to be hotel brands. But it really just needs to be any brand that people know, care about, and will pay a premium for. So it could also be a fashion brand, a car brand, or whatever else.

This is a growing segment of the residential market. According to UK-based Savills, there were only 15 or so of these "schemes" in the 1990s (the UK uses scheme in lieu of project, which always sounds conniving to me), but by the end of this decade they expect the pipeline of branded residences to exceed over 1,200.

I would also argue that projects designed by celebrated architects and/or designers are a form of branded residence. And this is not being captured in Savills' number above.

Whatever your definition, today, the branded residence capital of the world seems to be Dubai, which feels right. And the biggest brands, by what appears to be a long shot, are Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton (hotel side), and YOO and Trump (non-hotel side). Here are the full rankings from Savills:

This is an interesting part of the real estate business for a few reasons. One, it makes sense. A New Balance shoe that gets co-branded with Aimé Leon Dore unlocks additional value for both sides. ALD has a brand that certain people care about. So, of course the same would be true of real estate paired with the right brand.

Two, it's a growing market, and I think this is aided by the fact that development is an intensely local business -- so it can be hard to grow a globally-significant brand on your own. Sometimes you just need to borrow someone else's.

And three, it's usually a less risky approach to getting your name on buildings. Branded residences typically operate on a licensing model, which means developers pay for the right to use the brand. The brand may also capture some of the upside in the form of a percentage of sales. That's less risky than putting up your own money.

In other words, are tall buildings a prerequisite to competing in today's global economy? It's an interesting question. And Jason Barr -- professor of economics at Rutgers University-Newark -- does think they are an important ingredient. So much so that he wrote a book on the topic called, Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World's Tallest Skyscrapers. While Jason does acknowledge that not every city needs them, he does suggest that not having them could hinder a global city:

If you look at Paris' global ranking in terms of its importance in the world economy, as measured by the size and number of international firms, it's falling. Paris in 2000 was ranked fourth, and by 2020, it was down to eight, losing out to skyscraper cities such as Singapore and Dubai.

In the last decade, Paris has shrunk by 122,000 residents. As reported by Forbes, "Many of those leaving are choosing either the suburbs or countryside around Paris, or they are relocating to France's smaller cities such as Bordeaux, Lyon, and Toulouse." By limiting its building stock, Paris is driving up housing prices, pushing out residents, and causing suburban sprawl.

While I agree that tall buildings are important "geography-shrinking machines", what we're really talking about is using land more intensely. We're talking about urban density. But you don't necessarily need tall buildings to have high population densities. Consider Barcelona, which is one of the densest cities in Europe, and consider this comparison between Paris (few tall buildings) and Vancouver (more tall buildings).

So is the argument simply that density is good for cities, and that tall buildings are one way to achieve that? Or is it that, now that cities like Paris are built out (albeit at very high densities), the only option for growth is to go up? I guess I'll have to read his book.