1424 Caherine Street, Key West - Reduced Price

1424 Catherine Street, Key West is a cute little 1,274 square foot bungalow built in 1923 and located four blocks east of the old Key West high school (top photo). This area of town is referred to as mid-town. The asking price was just reduced to $630,000 which is $495 per sq ft. That is a very reasonable asking price for Key West.

The house sits on a corner lot with white picket fence and off street parking. And a sweet front porch.

The house may be a candidate for renovation but is livable as is.  The kitchen was updated and has nice views of the rear and side yard. I think there is room for a pool.

There is a mother-in-law lockout on the side of the house. This space would feature in any renovation. Until then you could ask your mother-in-law to pay her fair share of the costs of home ownership. I would. The house is located a couple of blocks from Bayview Park.

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos of 1424 Catherine Street, Key West. 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.

The Time I Saw Martin Luther King

I don't know what it is about old white men (I am one), but I'll bet they look at the picture of Andy, Barney, Opie, and Aunt Bea and recall that time as the "good old days". Well, I guess, I agree to part of that. I still watch the reruns - they are on TV everyday.  The Andy Griffith Show began in 1960 and reflected life in Mayberry, North Carolina, a fictional town with very nice white folks.

I was thirteen years old in 1960 and remember watching Andy and loving it. I never thought too much about there never (in the beginning) seeing any black characters. I guess they didn't have any black characters (or black actors) in the 1960s. Oh wait, they did have black actors. My mistake. 

I grew up in the western suburbs of Denver in the 1950s. I remember watching another Andy. He was the chubby black man with the cigar in the Amos 'N' Andy TV program. The show took place in Harlem and had the funniest characters and lines. I howled with delight when I watched these guys. I never thought of the show as black stereo-typing. There were no other black characters on TV back in the 1950s that I remember. I would see a black performer on the Ed Sullivan Show or maybe in a movie, but they were few.

There were no black people in my suburb or in my grade school, junior high, or high school.  Blacks were not allowed to live in Jefferson County, Colorado back then. It was the law. Subdivisions had restrictive covenants that disallowed non-whites to live in specific areas. There weren't any Mexicans either - well, one. A boy names Lupe was in my high school. Years later when I was a young gay adult lawyer in Denver, my Realtor told me and my partner that we could not buy a house in the Hilltop area because of restrictive covenants which disallowed non-married single people to buy houses together. This was in the early 1980s. I did not test it. It made me mad as hell. I had always been privileged. Now I was a victim of bias.

During the late fifties I watched the evening news on TV.  Douglas Edwards at CBS was my main source for news. Walter Cronkite replaced Edwards in 1962. The news wasn't any better then than it is now. In fact the news back then really rattled my forming brain as I was disturbed when I saw grainy black and white film of racial violence. Later videotape replaced the film. The violence was delivered to TV more quickly, but it was the same. It was always white government or white protesters assaulting black people or black people marching with signs. Or little black girls getting murdered in Sunday School. That kind of violence.

Two years later in Selma, Alabama this happened. I was in high school and could not imagine cops in Denver beating anybody up with  a baton for marching for Civil Rights. The march was peaceful. It was the government out of control.  America saw this on the nightly news.

Martin Luther King, Jr. became the leading Civil Rights figure of the twentieth century. He gave a voice and a presence that no other person has achieved - before or since. I got a chance to see him in person in Chicago in 1967 at the National Conference on New Politics. I wrote an entire blog about that event CLICK HERE.

On Monday night Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the speaker at a large old auditorium far away from the Palmer House Hotel where the conference was held. We had heard rumors all day long about some serious threats having been made against Dr. King.  It was feared Stokely Carmichael would disrupt the speech.  Carmichael was the leader of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and was also a part of the NCNP, but he was not supposed to be a part of King's speech.  My buddy and I arrived very early so we could sit up close to the stage. I think we were in the first or second row. I will never forget that night.  The Internet is a repository of all kinds of information.  I found that speech which you can listen to if you CLICK HERE.

The speech lasted about forty minutes. Dr. King referred to his "I Have a Dream" speech.  He spoke of racism, militarism, poverty, the unending War in Viet Nam. The speech I heard was not memorable in itself except that I got to see and hear him and watch up close at the look in his eyes when all hell broke loose at the back of the auditorium. He had been looking around the room as if he was expecting trouble.  About thirty minutes or so into the speech there was a clamor at the rear of the auditorium. I said the hall was old. It had panic doors with glass windows with wire to protect against breakage. The doors had those metal push bars to permit quit exit.  The doors were thrust open and people at the rear made a lot of noise. I looked back but could not see what was going on. I could tell some people tried to force their way inside. But they were forced back and not allowed to enter. That was the end of it.  Dr. King continued with his speech unphased except that he looked grateful that nothing more serious happened.  Of course, we all now what happened a year later.

And after King's death, President Lyndon Johnson got the Congress to enact the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act along with other legislation that established a lot of entitlement programs designed to help the all persons. In 2013 the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula in the Civil Rights Act as unconstitutional, reasoning that it was no longer responsive to current conditions which made much of the act unenforceable.

During the following fifty years (yes fifty plus years) various politicians and groups have been doing their best to undo what King inspired and what Johnson achieved. 

Key West Real Estate Horror Story No. 17

Many moons ago I emailed a new single family home listing located in Old Town to a buyer who had previously purchased several properties from me. The property was a dump but it had a large clean lot with no trees, and a great location. My buyer emailed back, asked a few questions. Then he texted me and later made a sight unseen offer for my. It was a good cash offer with no inspection issues - he knew the building was in horrible condition and that the project would be a total renovation from foundation to the roof. After some back-and-forth with the seller, a deal was agreed to and we closed - still sight unseen. I never actually spoke with the buyer in person or on the phone while making this deal. 

A few months later that I met with buyer's architect at the property. He had done some exploratory demolition to see what could be saved. He said "Gary you've got to see this!" whereupon we went into a shed that had slyly become a bedroom at the side of the house. This happened decades earlier. The filth and dust was decades old.

As I entered the room the architect warned to watch my step. The entire wood floor had been removed. All that remained were some rotting joists. The architect said the wood floor had been laid over a wall to wall shag carpet. The carpet was laid over crumbling old floor system with a big hole in the middle. The carpet in essence was supporting the wood floor. The photo below demonstrates the hole, but is not from this house.While this is scary, it is not why I consider this house a Key West horror story. Read on.

As we left the house a neighbor approached and asked if we were the new owners. I explained who we were and what we were doing. The neighbor had questions about what would happen to the dump and invited us inside to see their house.  The neighbor's house was was totally restored and amazing.

We spoke for ten minutes or longer about the area and the new owner's intentions.  Then the neighbor asked if we were aware that four men had died in the recently purchased house. No. The neighbor said the house had been a drug den for years. The deaths were accidental - probably overdoses. Florida law does not require Realtors or owners to disclosure of death on the sale of any house. Such a disclosure would not have impacted my buyer's purchase. Still it would have been nice to know this.

I was actually shocked to learn about the deaths. On the other hand, I see crazy stuff all the time in this little town located on an island out in the middle of the ocean. I write this story today because of a phone conversation I recently had with a different client who has also bought a couple of properties from me. He told me the story of him visiting a man's home in located in Bahama Village. He described a tropical paradise surrounding the house which had no air conditioning.  Instead the windows were left open like in olden days. This house, he said, also had a big hole in the floor.

Key West Real Estate Market Timer - Mr. Smarty Pants

Some lessons in life are learned the hard way. Some are learned the easy way. Before Google maps, guys like me would drive by intuition. I would head a direction assuming my destination would appear.  Eventually I would stop at a gas station or someplace and ask someone how to get to where I intended to go. I know I am not the only guy who did that.

Thirty years ago I took a road trip from Denver to Palm Springs, Los Angeles, and back.  I rented a car so as to not put all that many miles on my Mercedes. It was near sunset when I drove through Las Vegas. The gas gauge was showing that I was getting low on fuel. I was on a big four lane road when I saw a turn-off at a huge gas station complex. As I approached I saw what seemed like dozens of cars waiting in line to buy gas. I decided to get back on the highway and go to another station. I drove and drove. There were fewer and fewer cars. Darkness set in. Forward I drove occasionally looking at the gas gauge.  It got really dark and there were fewer cars. I don't recall anybody passing me. I was on a large divided highway with a concreted median lined by huge trees on either side. The inevitable happened. The car slowed down and then stopped. I had been having discussions with my self as well as my Ex who kept reminding me that I could have bought gas in Las Vegas but was too impatient.

I started walking forward. We had been driving well over an hour. I had no idea where I was or how long it would take to reach civilization. And then my luck changed. There was a light on the opposite side of the highway. As I got close I realized it was a gas station.  I thanked God, looked both ways, and crossed the median. I explained my plight to the gas station attendant who sold me gas and took a big deposit on an ancient gas can that held about one gallon of gas.

I returned to my rental car. The gas can did not have a nozzle.  I broke the fat end of a large vodka bottle thinking I could insert the bottle into the gas tank opening. That didn't work and I didn't have any vodka to drink either. Then I decide to use the Rand McNally road atlas. (I didn't need it. I drove by intuition anyway.) The covers were thick. I wound the paper into a funnel shape and was able to pour the gas into the hole. The car started. We drove past the gas station several miles before I found a place to turn around to go back to fill the car. Then I had to go back toward Las Vegas many miles before I could turn around to head toward Denver.   I recall that night very well. Even thirty years later.

I tell you this story because I deal with people all the time who think they know what is ahead of us in life.  Most of the people I deal with are very smart. Really smart. I have written that statement many times and have almost always noted that is why they have the money to buy a second home in a place as expensive as Key West.

There is a lot of information available on the internet about Key West real estate. A lot of that information comes from Zillow which in turn extracts and repackages information it gets from our Multiple Listing Service and other governmental and technological websites.  I have worked with several buyers that have created very sophisticated computer programs and files to help them analyze the market. I think they think that data is the key to understanding the Key West real estate market.

I also need to report that a lot of Realtors have been discussing the state of the Key West real estate market and are asking the same questions I hear from potential buyers:  what do you think is going on?  I think we have all perceived a slow down in sales and an increase in prices. Lately we have witnessed a large number of price reductions. Then in the past two weeks we had a very large number of new homes listed for sale. One successful agent with multiple annual sales of million dollar plus houses suggested the public is scared by the government shutdown and Trumps' trade war with China. Other agents have expressed general concern over Washington in general. Some say we are headed toward a recession. Everyone has an opinion. No one knows the future. That is for sure.

I just checked the Key West MLS. We have 22 single family homes under contract in the Old Town, Casa Marina, Meadows, Truman Annex, and Sunset Key areas of Key West. We have a glut of very expensive homes and not enough lower priced homes listed for sale. Lower priced houses in the Old Town and surrounding areas are more likely need new money to make them habitable to the standards of our community which often times makes our lower priced homes very expensive compared to other parts of the country. But our weather and quality of life is probably better than most parts of the country.

I represent three of the twenty-two home buyers with properties under contract. My buyers are buying houses in a high demand but limited supply market. They chose to buy now rather than wait for the market to do whatever it will do. We really don't know what that new market will be or when it will be. But we do know what now is. 

If I had known there was not another gas station for miles and miles, I would have never gone down that lonesome highway driving on gas vapors. I made a bad decision based on a false assumption that there would be another gas station. That is one mistake I will never make again. I would rather stand in line or to pay too much for gas than to get stranded on a roadside in the wilderness. 

Mr. Smarty Pants might be wise to take advantage of the general apprehension in our real estate market. We know what is available now. We can try to negotiate the best deal now. Sellers should share the apprehension of the future. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Cash now is better than less cash tomorrow or more cash three years from now after you have died of a heart attack.

1500 Albury Street, Key West - Just Listed

1500 Albury Street is a brand new custom built home resembling the charming historic architecture of Old Town Key West.  While this home looks like a house of the past, it is very much a home of the future. Let's take a look at some of the features of this new 2240 square foot home.

The front entrance suggests there might be two residences here. There aren't, but the second door does lead to the main floor front bedroom which might be used as an owner's lockout or an in home office. The doors are custom made wind impact resistant as are all the doors and windows in this home. The shutters are for decorative purpose only. The siding in Hardy Plank, a man made siding created to withstand fire and pests and which stand up to the tropical climate in Key West. Hardy Plank will not need to be painted as often as regular wood siding. Not seen but forever present is the tough engineering behind this house and the superior materials used in framing the house which result in very affordable home, wind, and flood insurance premiums. The front doorbell has iPhone connectivity which allows an absentee owner to see who is at the front door from anyplace in the world. Old look yes, but this is a house of the future.

When you first enter this seemingly old fashioned home you see travertine marble floors, high baseboards, wainscoting, large crown molding, and coffered ceiling in the living area. The main floor bedroom (with en-suite) is on the right of the entry. A guest bath is on the left. The intricate stairway follows. As you walk toward the living area the kitchen and dining come into view. And you are awed by the beauty. 

The kitchen is the star in this open living area concept home. Custom cabinets are topped with KOSMOS granite. LED lights provide subtle illumination of the abundant work spaces. All appliances are Thermador stainless steel including the 36 inch duel fuel range. 

Unseen or barely noticeable features in the first floor bedroom but included in all other bedrooms include switched lights at bedside, lighted closets, home run wiring of all electric lines and cable/internet connectivity to a master panel. This allows an owner to turn on and off lights from in the room or any place in the world. This bedroom will provide a place for mom who may find climbing the stairs a challenge. 

Mahogany flooring was used on the second floor and the stairway. These floors ad a change in tone and texture to this private part of the home. Notice that the wainscoting continues up to the second floor hall landing. A door leads out to the covered second floor front porch which has exterior lighting, a fan, and AZEK decking.  There is a little seating area with in floor electric fixture. The stairwell is quite dramatic and is a feature I don't recall having seen in other Key West home. 

 The master bedroom has a vaulted ceiling which adds dimension to this part of the home. A sliding door opens out to the rear balcony that overlooks the pool area below. The master bath includes a large shower and bidet.

Guest bedrooms 3 and 4 share the Jack and Jill bath. Notice the crown molding and detailed wood trim continue in this space as well. All water lines have home runs to the water supply source. This means the new home owner will never have a change in water pressure while taking a shower. By the way I need to mention our water tastes good. 

The swimming pool includes a waterfall and LED light technology which provides endless underwater lighting possibilities. (The net around the pool  is a safety feature that may be removed after sale.) AZEK decking was used on all four porches and the pool deck area.  AZEK decking is a man made material that is resist scratches, stains, insects, moisture, mold, mildew, and fading. There is an outdoor shower tucked in the corner. Most locals use their outdoor shower all year long. You'll fall in love with it! Barely visible is the extensive outdoor lighting both on the building, hidden in the stairs, and throughout the yard which also includes a sprinkler system. A whole house generator with buried underground propane take is located adjacent to the two car driveway. 

 CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos. Please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, to show you this beautiful new luxury home that is a stunning addition to Key West. Cory Held and I are the co-listing agents on this property. We are both full time Realtors at Preferred Properties Key West. 1500 Albury Street will  be on OPEN HOUSE on Sunday January 22nd between 12:00 to 2:00 PM.