About Key West's Old Town

It's that time again to report on real estate sales in Key West. During the month of August 2008 there were 13 single family (and duplex) sales in Key West. The least expensive house sold for only $325,000. The median sale was $530,000. And the top sale was the old Thompson Estate at 1411 South Street. It has been on the market for several years and has been listed by several different Realtors. It was once priced at over $7,000,000. It sold for $3,312,500. That house was a hard sell because of the asking price and its location (not near Old Town and in an area that flooded during Wilma). The lot was huge and the house was "eclectic".

The interesting thing about the August sales was the continued strength of Old Town and Casa Marina areas as the place to buy real value. The lower end sales continued to be the Mid Town and New Town areas. For buyers looking to buy an inexpensive house, the Mid Town and New Town areas offer some deals. But the value deals (quality, location, upside potential when the market returns) continues to be Old Town followed by Casa Marina. CLICK HERE to see each single family house sale for yourself.

For you readers that pay attention to what I wrote and how some sales actually panned out, the bank foreclosure at 1310 Olivia Street that started out at $699,000 sold for $530,000. That house is in the Meadows area, has a pool and off-street parking. It looked a little dingy or forlorn, but elbow grease and paint will make it all nice again I am sure. A couple of weeks ago I remarked about 1117 Royal Street. I liked that house at that price but not that location. Very good price for the house in my opinion. I wrote about 1307 Royal Street a couple of months back. It is a very nice house with a full guest cottage and a valuable transient license. It was listed at $1,200,000 and sold for $967,500. The location is near Old Town, but definitely not in Old Town. That hurt the price I think. I drove several prospective buyers by the property and nobody wanted to set up a showing. And then there is 1113 Watson. My little listing from hell. It was supposed to be an easy sale, but turned into a difficult deal indeed. It finally sold and everyone lived happily ever after.

There were just ten condo and townhome sales during August. The cheapest unit went for only $210,500. The median sold for $302,500. And the most expensive sold for a mere $700,000. The most expensive sale was a two story unit at Gulfside. It was originally priced at $1,270,000 when listed on January 4, 2007. Ouch!

As of today there are 122 residential (single family, condo, town home, duplex) listed as contingent or pending. Most of these properties are in the short sale process. Short sales rule in Key West. They do not necessarily take a short time to close. Some take a near eternity: case in point a closing that occured last week has been under short sale approval process since September 2007. Ouch again!

For you non-believers here is a New Listing of a True Key West Landmark. 616 Eaton Street in the very heart of the historic district was just listed for $5,500,000. SEE PHOTO TO THE RIGHT. The house is noted for its simple but eloquent architecture and its lack of paint. I've heard many people say something to the effect that the house could look good if the owner would only paint it. Yeah, but would it look better? CLICK HERE for more detailed information and two photos. The owner has very strict rules about showings, so unless you can show proof of ability to purchase this place, your only looks are from the Internet or the street. By the way 616 Eaton is priced at $2,266 per sq ft.

It's that time again. Time to roll out the list of Bank Owned Single Family Homes for sale in and near Key West. CLICK HERE to look at the list of active single family homes. Some are "challenged" and a couple actually look really interesting.

I used to manage the Special Assets Department for a bank in Denver. We had our share of bank foreclosures. Banks don't want them. A lot of lenders have been doing some aggressive restructuring in the form of short sales to limit the amount of new foreclosures. But there will still be more foreclosures for some time to come.

One of the reasons for some of the foreclosures in this post is the location of the houses or the condition of the houses. Some of the properties are located in areas that took water during Hurricane Wilma. Buyers have to buy the property in an "as is" condition and I think a lot of prospective buyers are fearful that a property that flooded once will flood again. Wilma was a catastrophic event and the flooding that occurred was totally unexpected based on previous history. At least that is what I have been told. But the fear factor is keeping some of these houses from being purchased. I assume there is a price where prospective buyers will feel the price is worth the risk.

Some previous owners have made the sale of bank foreclosures a bit more difficult as well. Several of the properties I have seen (including some on this list) have been cannibalized. Cannibalized means that someone has taken appliances, light fixtures, air conditioning systems, kitchen cabinets, etc. I guess the former owners think they paid for the stuff and they wanted to take some memento to remember their former home. Yea, that or sell the stuff and make a few bucks.

On a lighter note I would suggest that potential buyers look at 1525 Niles Channel Road ($999,900) with awesome open water views, 4 Go Lane in Key West ($990,000) located on an active Key West canal with easy deep water access [photos to the Right are of Go Lane], and 67 Bay Drive on Saddlebunch Key ($583,900) which is affordably priced and it also has open water views. [The mls listing info is not correct on Bay Drive. The price of $583,000 is correct as of 8-26-2008.]

These properties are vacant and easy to show. If you would like to see one and maybe get a good deal on a bank foreclosure please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or e-mail me at kw1101v@aol.com.

Last week I wrote about the deal that was. The deal that got away and that will not return. A real deal in a down-trodden economy.

Yesterday two properties sold and closed. Our office used to have the listings on both properties, but lost them when the properties did not sell. They were not my listings, but those of this office. No harsh feelings, I'm working with one of the owners on another deal. So what I am about to write is not sour grapes or anything like that. But it is intended as illustrative of what is going on in Key West at this time.

Remember what life was like after September 11th: all of the uncertainty and the feeling of having been savagely violated. I remember that the Key West community came together like no time before or since. Everybody was nicer. Kinder. More caring. We did not know what was going to come next. The tourists stayed away in droves. Fantasy Fest did occur, but it was not like before. And then everybody left town and we waited for Christmas. The Christmas crowds arrived and then, like gangbusters, everybody started buying property. Prices soared as inventory shrank. Money was cheap and plentiful and the buying spree was on.

The effect on prices was that homes that a couple of years before that sold around $250 per square foot shot up to near $1000 per square foot. And many sold in or near that price range. Even crap. Forget about who caused it for point of discussion. It happened.

Fast forward to 2005 and the beginning of the downturn in the real estate bubble nationally. Add the awful summer of four hurricanes in Key West and the crippling of our tourist business. Hurricane Wilma through everybody for a loop because for once Key West actually got hurt by a hurricane. Normally it is just a bunch of wind and rain and falling tree limbs or an occasional tree that falls on a house. But Wilma was different. It was a real hurricane and it did real damage. Christmas in 2005 came and I think we all assumed it was going to be like it was in 2001 after the memories of 9/11 started to subside. Wrong. There was resistance to buying in general and resistance to price in particular. But there were sellers who thought that the market would bounce back and many resisted reducing prices.

We listed 730 Passover Lane in January 2006 for $795,000 or $1338 per square foot. The owner had the property appraised and priced the property a little higher. My assumption is that the owner might have thought that would give some downward negotiating ability. I held numerous open houses there and many folks just loved the property. There were two detractions to the property: it only had one bedroom and there was no room for a pool. Oh, yeah, the price was way high. Nobody made an offer. Nada. The price eventually got reduce, but only to $599,000 in mid 2007.

The owner listed the house with another company in February 2008 at $579,000 and progressively dropped the asking price. The last asking price was $499,000. The property sold at $430,000 or $724 per sq ft for the 594 sq ft cottage. CLICK HERE for more info on 730 Passover Lane.

The Artist House guest house at 534 Eaton Street is a Key West landmark. We listed that property in December 2005 at $2,975,000. Guest houses are traditionally listed like hotel rooms or by the number of "keys" or "rooms" available to be rented. Since many guest houses have phantom units, rooms without required transient licenses, pricing can sometimes get difficult. Key West banks have no problem loaning money to purchase guest houses, but they typically only loan on legal units and discount any phantom units even though everybody knows the phantom units produce income. The fact is that phantom rooms could be shut down by city code enforcement so those rooms just don't count. The Artist House had six rooms plus an additional room and not the required number of transient licenses.

In November 2007 The Artist House was listed with another real estate company for $2,600,000. It sold yesterday for $2,130,000. It was a short sale. The price per room or key was about $300,000. That was a good price considering that there are more rooms and transient licenses, but it falls in line with what pricing on other units has been or should be. CLICK HERE to see what you missed buying.

I think there are some who will see these prices as still being too high. There are some readers who may want some sellers to be punished even more by even larger price reductions. There are some short sales in progress that are waiting to close. I am not sure that the prices will cause the market to drop that much even though I am pretty certain that the price per square foot on some future sales will be lower.

If you CLICK HERE and search the Key West mls database you will see that there are two Key Wests. First there is Key West's Old Town area full of cute cottages and majestic conch houses. Second is the Key West Mid Town and New Town areas. Many of the houses in those areas were damaged during Hurricane Wilma. Many of the condos and town homes were sold at inflated prices and are now bank owned or offered as short sales.

There just are not that many really nice properties remaining for sale in Old Town. Sellers who do not need to sell do not have their properties on the market. If a property is listed for sale in Old Town it is probably listed because it needs to get sold. But with a shrinking base of available properties I don't know that the prices will necessarily get depressed much more.

But the Mid Town and New Town areas are the reverse. The inventory of available properties is still large. I read the Monroe County Clerk's website and see all of the new properties going into pre-foreclosure. It is not stopping. So prices in those areas will likely continue to drop until this mess is over.

If you want to catch the big one before there are no more big ones left, CLICK HERE to search the Key West mls database. If you see a property you like please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or e-mail me at kw1101v@aol.com. Let me help you find your little (or BIG) place in Paradise. '

So many people want to buy a cute little house on a great block in the heart of Old Town. But when the chance arises, most shy away. Right now many fear that we have not seen the bottom of the market so they think they will wait it out to see what happens.

Some would-be buyers are "bottom feeders" and are looking for the absolute rock bottom price. I can't fault them for that. But absolute rock bottom prices usually occur on bad properties or properties with a crappy location or all of the above.

The house at 518 William Street was recently listed by an out of town real estate company that paid the fee to join the Key West Association of Realtors so that it could list properties in our mls system and perhaps attract a buyer. CLICK HERE to read the listing info and see listing agent's photos. Not much, huh!

The house is located on one of the best blocks in Key West. Great location that is convenient to everything. The house appears to have been recently renovated and all I can say is that it would be a great property for someone with a lot of family members or several roommates. I am not implying anything negative. The house looks very nice. There are just a lot of bedrooms.

The main living area and kitchen are at the rear of the property. The ceiling is vaulted and covered with a bamboo thatch. The tax records show the house as having 3 bedrooms. I counted 4 or 5 plus a loft sleeping area adjacent to the living room. The room at the front of the house has a separate kitchen/wet bar area. The house has new split unit air conditioning. Some rooms have new floors. Everything looks clean so I do not anticipate a lot of work being required to make the house livable.

EVEN MORE PICS CLICK HERE. There is no room for a pool. The house runs from the very front of the lot all the way to the end. And there is no off street parking. But parking is not a problem on this block.

This house is a short sale. It is listed at $875,000 or $505 per sq ft for this 1732 sq ft house. The house was just appraised by the lender. It has been on the market for 45 days and no offers. Listing agent told me the lender requires that the house be exposed to the market for 90 days at which time the price will be reduced to the appraised price. I know the price, and it is a lot less. A whole lot less! So it is time for some adventurous party to see what kind of deal he/she can swing for a nice house in good condition in a great Old Town location. Interested? Call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642.

Charming and cozy, but surprisingly spacious, this two bedroom Old Town home must be seen to be appreciated. Nestled in a quiet compound and off the beaten path but still within walking distance of the waterfront, the Key West Cemetary, and Duval Street. Vaulted ceilings, wood floors, and a great screened porch make this the perfect Key West getaway. There is a large shared pool in the compound as well, and the monthly fees are very reasonable.

Listing #107877 $459,000 (LP) Price/SqFt: 474.66	611 Grinnell St, Key West, FL 33040 * Active
	Beds: 2	Baths: 1 (1 0) (FH)	Sq Ft: 967*	Lot Sz: 1333sqft*