Golfing and Real Estate

Not really sure this is the right title for this blog, but I find dry titles make what I have to say less interesting to a prospective reader then what it really is. Golfing is fun and a sport. You wear oxford type shoes with little nails on the bottom to play. What does golf have to do with real estate? You ask yourself that question and want to read on to see just how it does. A local developer named Pritam Singh, Aka Paul Labombard developed the property surrounding the Key West Golf Course in 1995 and appropriately named it The Key West Golf Club. The new owners did not really belong to a club that golfed together they just had their new homes located around the greens and fairways of those who did and shared in common that having a golf ball hit your house or land in your yard was "par for the course", pun intended.

Once again I am going to look at a local community to extrapolate what could be a trend for the Lower Keys. We have a flipper! Remember in about 2003 we all learned the new word as it applied to real estate, "flipping" and one that did that was a "flipper"? Well when the market was going up soooo fast it was lucrative to buy a residential property totally on speculation with the intention of selling it very quickly at a higher price after closing or even selling the contract before closing and then you had "flipped" it. Flipping is back at the Key West Golf Club. 66 Merganser, bought on December 14, 2009 for $170,000 as a short sale came back on the market on December 23, 2009 for $217,400, according to the information in the Key West Board of Realtors. It has not gone under contract yet, but it has a good chance to. There is very little for sale in this price range. As a matter of fact there is only one other unit under $345,000 that is actively on the market for sale and it is a short sale with extensive water damage and an accompanying expensive mold problem to cure all at the buyer's expense. This property is being offered at $192,500 and has been on the market for 433 days. I suspect that in the time it takes for the bank to approve a short sale (maybe 6 months) there could be quite a bit more green/black fuzzy growth.

Stay tuned we will see what happens.

http://kwhomes.net
http://joannetarantino.blogspot.com
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Key West Real Estate Moves Back in Time with the Smurfs

We all know that our real estate market has been a roller coaster ride this decade. I find it interesting to go back and look at how prices have changed dramatically over the years in one Key West neighborhood.

Any one who has spent much time in Key West off Duval Street probably has heard of Key West Estates nick named "Smurf Village". Why the Smurf moniker? Some say that the mansard style roofs make them look like mushrooms where the cartoon Smurfs makes their homes. These homes, in New Town on Duck, Eagle and Harriet Ave, four to a building have been popular entry level homes for Key Westers since built in the late 80's.

When built they were all the same size 1040 square feet, 2 bedrooms and 1.5 baths. Over the years there have been many transformations. The owner has a yard, owns the land and can make many improvements, adding a pool, an addition, enclosing a porch, etc., but it is always a "Smurf".

In the 90's I remember being in discussions with other Realtors, while on caravan if we thought a Smurf House would ever sell for more the $100,000. The collective answer was "no way” shows how savvy real estate agents are. In 2004 one of these town homes sold for $519,000. That was the last sale in 2004. The first sale of that year was $345,000. That is a 50% increase in one year! Where are we now? With a scourge of foreclosures and short sales the average Smurf sales price in 2009 is $166,106. How many years ago was that the average price? The closest that I can tell is 2001, the year of the attack on the World Trade Center. We have stepped into the time machine of real estate travel and gone back 8 years. The good news is that you cannot buy a Smurf house today. They have all been bought. The last several that came on the market had multiple offers within days (a bidding war). This tells me that we will see an increase in prices to satisfy demand. Yes in Smurf Village they have hit bottom and the upward movement of prices is now here.

http://kwhomes.net/
http://joannetarantino.blogspot.com/
http://activerain.com/joannetarantino