826 Johnson Lane, Key West - Newly Listed

Just Listed but not by me 826 Johnson Lane, Key West. I got to see this freshly renovated Old Town home yesterday afternoon. I remember showing the property several years ago when it was marketed as a fixer-upper. Well now it's fixed! 

I dug into my old shoebox and found the black and white photo above. It was taken in 1965. Sadly the property is not located anywhere near the water and no the boat did not float to the property in a storm. I also checked the Historic Sanborn Fire Maps to see if I could determine when this house was built. The Monroe County Property Appraiser shows it was constructed in 1938 during the Depression. We know that is incorrect. I learn (and often forget) so much about Key West houses when I search the maps. The 1889 map did not show this area but we know houses were here because St. Mary's Cathedral is located just a block to the south and some of the Grand Dame houses on Division Street (now Truman Avenue) are located on the much larger and grander lots immediately to the south. 

Johnson Lane only runs one block between Windsor Lane to the west and Packer Street to the east. The 1899 map shows a bunch of many smaller cottages on an unidentified lane running perpendicular to Johnson Lane (then called Jane Street). That entire group of cottages were gone by the 1899 map when 826 Johnson Lane appeared. All but one of those cottages has been renovated. Some vacant lots were built upon and one larger than should-be house was built a few years ago. I don't know how that happened. Two little cottages two doors away were also recently renovated and are now part of a monthly vacation rental program. They are shown below.

 

826 Johnson Lane sits on a 2,9000 Sq Ft lot that measures 116' X 25'. The house sits about 20 feet from the set back giving this home two off street parking spaces. The current owner relocated the entry to the right rear and reconfigured the entire interior of the house. All of the piers were replaced as were all the mechanical features. There is a new metal roof, impact windows and doors, and a fire suppression system. The original wood siding has been replaced with new Novelty siding which is historically correct for the area. Let's look inside starting from the living area.

All of the interior photos are virtually staged. But the shots themselves are the actual rooms. The French doors open out to the main (side) entry where there is room for a pool. There is one large tree and an existing fish pond that need to go. The listing Realtor told me the owner decided to let the new owner decide if he,she,they,them want a pool or not.

There are two bedrooms on the first floor. The master bedroom with en-suite is located midway in the house just past the kitchen.  

The original "front" room in the house is now the guest bedroom. This is a smart reconfiguration of space many renovators use. Unlike the two adorable houses shown above, this house does not presently have a front porch. That is part of th e reason this house has parking for two cars. I don't know if HARC would permit a new owner to add a porch as that would change the historic view of the property. But it would add to the charm and give the front guest bedroom a pretty view of the house across the lane. I wrote about it years ago. It is one one of the most unique homes in Old Town. 

 A full bath plus laundry area is located just past this bedroom. Note the cherry floors, high baseboards, and crispy white trim in each of the rooms. The windows are impact glass. The roof is new metal and the house is tied to the ground. A new owner will get a 30% discount on wind insurance. The house is located in the X Flood Zone where floor insurance is not required for a mortgage.

There's more! There is a second level loft bedroom not included in the square footage shown in the MLS as access is by a ladder located off the second bathroom. This is not a space for your mother-in-law but would be perfect for your brother-in-law (as long as he is not always drunk otherwise forget that). Kids would love this space. It stretches from front to rear. It is legal space. It does benefit from the fire suppression system.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and video of 826 Johnson Lane, Key West Florida offered for sale at $1,375,000. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.

 

The Key West House I Did Not Sell

I made my first trip to Key West as a visitor thirty-four years ago this month. I have written in my blog about that life changing trip several times over the years and won't bore readers to tell that tale again.  I fell deeply in love with Key West and decided to make this my home. It took a few years, but I made it happen. During the time of the first trip and my move to Key West, I stayed at several different guest houses. Those experiences taught me how difficult it must be for a home owner to lived next to or even near to a guest house.

(The business card above is from years ago and is not the guest house or the location I am writing about today. Besides, most places in Key West now have hot and cold running water.)

I found a particular guest house I really liked and stayed there on almost every trip I made to Key West. The guest house eventually grew from nine rooms to over forty rooms. The owner  purchased adjacent apartment buildings and a couple of single family houses which he illegally rented nightly. He paid the state bed tax and got away with it.

Several years ago a fixer-upper house located very near my favorite guest house was listed for sale. I wrote about that property in my blog and showed it to prospective buyers. It was purchased by couple from New York who had renovated other properties before. They did a total renovation on this well located house for which they were awarded a ceramic star. They sold the place a year or so later and moved on to a new project.

I showed their renovated property to several potential buyers. One couple really liked it. We looked at the place at least twice and maybe three times. They were considering making an offer. I suggested they check out the house at different times of the day and night. I sensed something was not right but did not want to sabotage a sale in the event I was wrong. They ultimately decided not to make an offer and later bought a home through me in a totally different part of town.

Some other buyer bought this particular place. And another bought it a couple of years later. And another someone else bought it. Three different buyers bought the place in a seven year period after it was renovated.

Last week I saw the photo at the top of today's blog on the internet. The photo shows a DJ spinning records at my favorite old guest house where college kids were enjoying spring break.

The real estate axiom "location", "location", "location" is so true. I am so happy I did not sell the single family with the problematic location adjacent to a sprawling forty unit guest house complex to my customer. They would be listening to the music along with the spring breakers and probably the rest of the year as well.

923 Fleming Street, Key West - Investment Property with Renovation Potential

Not all that much has changed to the house at 923 Fleming Street, Key West during the 52 year time period between 1965 when the black and white photo was taken and 2017 when the color photo was made. The building is a modified Greek Revival which locals refer to as a "Conch House". This just happens to be extra large.  I checked the historic Sanborn Fire Maps and found a much smaller building on this site as early as the 1889 map.  The 1912 Sanborn map shows the side addition and a long more narrow addition at the rear. The 1912 map shows the front porch extending out onto Fleming Street which was noted as being "brick paved". Some of the most beautiful homes in Key West were and still are located on Fleming Street. The listing Realtor describes 923 Fleming St this way:

"Unparalleled 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 2,788 square foot, two story home on a 4,500 square foot lot with a gorgeous lagoon style pool and parking. It has three legal units but could easily be converted into a spacious single family home in the perfect Old Town location. The poolside apartment could become a large one or two bedroom guest cottage and the other apartment could become a downstairs master suite. It is beautiful as-is, yet lends itself to capturing your dreams of creating your personal paradise in the heart of Old Town Key West. Your outdoor options include some of the best porches in town and lush landscaping surrounding a beautiful heated lagoon pool. Off-street parking adds to the convenience, but from this location, you can walk almost anywhere. Once inside, your indoor living is framed by Dade County Pine, a fully renovated kitchen featuring exquisite granite counter-tops and hand-crafted Hansel and Bringle cabinets and an extraordinary number of rooms upstairs and down."

The listing Realtor shows the square footage as 2788 sq ft. This is one very large house with two stories of exterior porches (not calculated in the interior square footage). There is also a small cottage at the left rear. The lot measures 45' X 100'. There is a narrow walking lane adjacent to the east property line which is access to a house located at the rear of 923 Fleming but which is not a part of this property.

I saw this property a few days ago on Realtor caravan - a monthly tour or new listings in the Old Town and Casa Marina Areas. I instantly felt at home, but I had never lived here. In 1993 I purchased a similarly large property on Eaton Street. It had been a 13 room guest house, but was closed for two years after it had been foreclosed upon. I was new to Key West and although I had been in a few big houses on various trips to Key West, I really did not appreciate the value of these big old houses nor the value of good location. I do now. Let me share my thoughts. 
1.  This is a big and well built property. It has been well maintained. The photo below shows us that much of the original character has not been mess around with. The metal louvers are still being used. A new owner might want to install new windows, but a purist might prefer to keep the old character in tact.
2.  The house sits right at the city property line. In fact the Sanborn Map suggests that the easternmost porch may extend out onto the public right of way. This fact and the knowledge the lot is 100 feet deep tells the back yard is very large. We can see the pool in the photo, but it is the size of the yard and the potential it offers to a new owner that is the dominant fact.
3.  It has been my experience that a single family residence in a location like this would be more valuable over time than a multi-family. But a multi-family offers a new owner income and different ways to use the property until such time as an owner wants to convert it into a single family residence. The existing apartments are very nice and should command high rents because of their condition and this great location. The photos show the property when fully occupied. The front main floor unit is the only space occupied so a new owner could move in and occupy any of the other spaces and rent the other.
4.  The attic has been updated and offers additional living space that may not be included in the total square footage of the building. This is an amazing space that offers a lot of possibilities.
5.  I usually tell buyers to live in a home for six months or longer before deciding how to change it. Many of our old homes are too small and buyers try to figure out how to create more living or storage space. This place is the opposite. It's pretty big, maybe too big for most buyers. But that size gives a buyer with money and vision opportunities that less wealthy and maybe less visionary folk cannot achieve. 

The second floor front porch wraps around the front of the house to the west. It is a nice place to sit and people watch all year long. Around 5:30 PM on the last Friday in each October that space will be gold as it offers prime time viewing of the People's Parade during Fantasy Fest. Thousands of revelers will pass this location and many will be deliriously jealous of whoever owns this home. I am not suggesting that a new owner convert this so a single family home and rent it as a monthly vacation rental, but if you did the place should be very successful because of the size of the house, number of bedrooms and bathrooms it could have, the awesome pool and garden area, and the perfect location close to everywhere but far enough away from the hoopla. And, oh yes, the proximity to the other very valuable homes in the same block.

I sold two of the larger homes across the street a few years ago. 923 Fleming Street looks mighty pretty from the front porch of 914 Fleming Street. CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and all listing photos. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing of this property. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.

1109 Petronia Street, Key West - another Price Reduction

Okay, so it's time that I fess up. A couple of days ago I wrote about money grubbers. I mocked them and made them look impotent. The truth is I made a mistake when we listed 1109 Petronia Street last December. There were few houses for sale in Old Town and I really believed a buyer looking to purchase a fixer property would immediately snap up the double gabled duplex.  I was wrong. I share this listing with Dan Skahen from my office, Preferred Properties Key West. He always felt $649,000 was the correct asking price but went along with my suggestion to list higher to test the market.

While we have had several showings, we have not had any offers. Season is starting to wind down. The tenant on the first floor just moved and we have decided not to rent that space and leave it open for a new owner to move into, rent at a higher price, or renovate. The new price for 1109 Petronia Street is $649,000 or $649 per square foot for this 1,000 square foot house situated on a 43.5X 31.8' (1,385 sq ft) lot on a lightly traveled two block long one-way street in Old Town. 

As of March 4th, there are three duplexes for sale in Old Town - the area most second home buyers and investors want to purchase property: 903 Catherine Street offered at $498,000 for 720 sq ft or $692 per sq ft. It is located directly across the street from El Siboney Restaurant. 1108 Olivia Street offered at $699,000 or $794 per sq ft for  an 880 sq ft duplex. 1109 Petronia Street is now priced lower than both on a per square foot basis.

The main floor unit is a bit larger than the second floor. The kitchen with vaulted ceiling extends out from the house and has a side door that opens out to the garden. The current owner added new windows and updated both kitchens and baths when this building was purchased a few years ago.

The building has been well maintained. It is one of six double gabled buildings in Old Town. I think it is a great candidate for renovation into a single family home and believe the structure would really benefit from removing the staircase that occupies one-third of the lot. Image how magnificent the house could look with a white picket fence and two rocking chairs on the front porch and a hammock on the second.

 CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos of 1109 Petronia Street in Key West. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to set up a private showing. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. Let's explore the possibilities of this great house in a really great Old Town location.

629 Elizabeth Street, Key West - Buying Opportunity

I have written about or mentioned the house at 629 Elizabeth Street numerous times over the past eleven years including when it was first listed for sale as a "fixer-upper". I know a lot of buyers tried to buy the place back then, including a buyer I represented. He made what he called a fair cash offer which was rejected. The seller selected a different offer and that buyer undertook the project of essentially building a brand new house which incorporated just a few boards from the original cottage that sat on this, the highest point on the island of Key West. While the original frame was maintained in appearance, the house itself is all new. CLICK HERE to view the photos I took during the construction process to memorialize what once was to what became.  I have added a couple of the original photos below so you can see how the house appeared prior to the "renovation".

The 629 Elizabeth Street was listed for sale in December 2016 at $1,699,000 and has had periodic price reductions since then.  The asking price was just reduced to $1,399,000 which is 23.7 % lower than original asking. The reduced asking price makes this an official buying opportunity in my opinion. Last week I cited 712 Ashe Street as one of the best buys in Key West in 2017. It was a similar "renovation" situated on a smaller lot but it included a pool. It sold for $1,410,000.  The new price on 629 Elizabeth Street will attract a buyer now.

During the "renovation" the original cottage was expanded with additional living spaces. Today the house has 1647 square feet of living space which now includes an open space concept living area, three bedrooms, and three baths. The original front porch is now a sitting porch off the master bedroom. The front entry was relocated to the side of the house where guests now enter into the vaulted living area.

One of the major attractions of owning a second home in Key West is our wonderful wintertime weather. This home has collapsible doors which allows seamless movement between the indoor and outdoor spaces. The one thing the owner did not do that could be done is to add a swimming pool. There is room for a pool at the rear corner of the back yard.  Not all owners want a pool and the monthly cost associated with one. So whoever buys this home can decide if a pool is in his or her future.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos of 629 Elizabeth Street in Old Town Key West now offered at $1,399,000. Then call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to schedule a private showing. I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. This home is designed for easy living as all rooms are located on one level.  You can walk to Duval Street or the historic seaport in about five minutes. And when you come home at night you will enter a place that is perfect in so many ways.