Harbour Place Condominium - Key West

If you are reading my blog, you are probably a baby boomer. Maybe you weathered the financial storms and are looking for that special place, perhaps a condo like Unit No. 313 at Harbour Place at Truman Annex in Key West. When you step onto your private balcony and overlook the boardwalk and then view the private yachts and giant ships and Sunset Key and the smaller keys beyond, you will know you came out just fine. Harbour Place is Key West's most prestigious building, the former U.S. Naval Headquarters at Truman Annex. Your friends will be green with envy.


The listing Realtor describes this property thus:

"Spectacular Truman Annex waterfront penthouse with amazing open water views and transient rental license. You'll fall in love with this open and spacious 2BD, 2.5BA brilliant condo with panoramic water views. Beautiful end unit features extra windows & glass doors throughout, spacious bedrooms, gourmet kitchen with new appliances, copper backsplash & granite counters, tile floors, new a/c, TWO parking spaces in the covered garage, 24 hour security & waterfront pool complex. Relax on your huge entertaining balcony & enjoy beautiful Key West sunsets. Walk to all Old Town attractions on famous Duval Street."

Unit No. 313 is priced at $1,750,000 or $1,080 per sq ft for this 1620 sq ft luxury residence. CLICK HERE to read more about the unit and to view photos. A retired Navy officer once told me that the United States Navy always, always takes the very best waterfront property for itself. There are some really nice condos for sale in Key West right now and a lot of them are priced at incredibly low prices. Unit No. 313 may seem that it is priced incredibly high. The views and the location are un-paralled in Key West. People from all over the world come to Key West and just about everyone makes the pilgrimage to see sunset at Mallory Square which is a stone's throw to the right of Harbour Place. Most of those pilgrims just fall in love with the sunsets and the easy living in Key West. The new owner of Unit No. 313 will get to see those incredible sunsets every day. And the rest of the living is easy.

If you are looking for a place in Key West, please consider contacting me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or by email at kw1101v@aol.com. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties in Key West Florida. Let me help you find your place in Paradise.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

I had two conversations last Friday regarding Key West's current real estate market. One was positive and the other negative. I thought I would share those perspectives with you.

Bob Cardenas is a realtor with a company that sells many of the homes on Sunset Key including this one CLICK HERE. That is the island just west of Mallory Square where the nightly sunset celebration occurs in Key West. Most of the homes there are priced in excess of $2 million. And Bob usually represents the buy or seller of every property out there. He was the realtor who sold the $5.8 million home referenced above.

He said his buyers held back a bit last year thinking that the market would take a dip and that they would then buy at a lower price. They got it wrong, he said. Bob said his niche market has actually increased since last year. Bob mentioned that he had just put another doozy under contract that day. CLICK HERE to see the house that is under contract for very close to the asking price. Bob wasn't boasting about the sale and said his activity has been very brisk all season. I pointed out that his niche market is different from the rest of Key West. He agreed to some extent, but he said he felt too many Realtors are bemoaning the current market and that the negative comments abut the market are helping to keep it down.

Bob said if Key West gets through the summer hurricane season without any serious storms that he thinks the market will vigorously rebound this coming fall. Let's hope he is right.

That same day I talked with a local real estate investor who owns about 20 properties (mostly single family homes) in Key West--most of which are listed for sale at ridiculously high prices. He owns most of the properties in partnership with other investors. And he acquired most of the properties over the past four years or so--at the height of the Key West real estate boom.

Surprisingly none of his properties has sold during the past 18 months. One of his houses is a single family that he has not made a mortgage payment on since Hurricane Wilma (October 2005). The house is rented so he is getting income from the property, but he is not servicing the debt. He said he called the out of state lender and asked to speak to someone about a workout. He said the lender told him not to worry, that the lender was not going to foreclose. The lender offered to restructure the loan and add all arrearages to the loan which could be paid in a lump sum when the house sells.

That reminded me of two similar situations that I had heard of. Another investor bought two different properties. One was a single family home in Old Town and financed it through one of the national lenders that does lots of television advertising. When his world turned upside down, he tried to do a workout with the lender. Impossible. The company is so big, they lost him in the mix. He hasn't made a payment in over a year. And the lender still has not started to foreclose.

He also bought a commercial development project which he proceeded to royally mess up. (I could use more colorful language on this deal!) He had a first mortgage on part of the property from a national bank and a first mortgage on another part of the property from the prior owner (purchase money mortgage on a part of the project, but not all). He had some retained un-mortgaged interest in an additional parcel that was integral to the entire development. The banker responsible for the project has continued to fund interest payments out of the loan reserve established to pay construction costs. So the lender has avoided declaring the loan in default. Then the purchase money lender foreclosed it's mortgage on its collateral. The borrower walked away, but the property is a mess.

Getting money to buy property is Key West has never been difficult. Maybe it was too easy. And I think maybe too many lenders have yet to recognize the extent of the mess that is out there. I used to do commercial loan workouts and I know how bankers operate. They are great at making loans and terrible at collecting them.

I guess the answer to the question posed in the title to today's blog depends on who you talk to. If you are an optimist like Bob the realtor, you see good things heading your way. And if you are like the real estate investor who can't sell his over-priced homes or if you are like the banker who refuses to acknowledge an impending loss, the end is near.

As for me, I think this is a buying opportunity. CLICK HERE to preview all current MLS Listings in the Lower Florida Keys.

A Room with a View

3 Sunset Key Drive is the exception, not the rule, in Key West real estate sales today. Click the address and you can see what this ocean front home priced at $6.5 million has to offer. But the catch is: it SOLD in mid February 2007 for $5.8 million.

We have had several big sales on big houses during the past year. But the market on low-end and mid-range properties is stagnant. Very little is moving. The properties that are selling are either priced "to sell" or are special, such as the house on Sunset Key. There are several homes on Sunset Key currently available, but they are not waterfront and do not have the allure of the aforementioned home. It is unique.

The aerial photo at the upper right shows Sunset Key--just to the west of Mallory Square in Key West. The house that sold is just below the pier on the left side of the photo.


There are 26 days of prime selling time between today and Easter Sunday. The day after Easter most hotels and guest houses reduce their rates. The budget minded traveler's start their annual treks to Key West in search of sun and fun. They make toy with the idea of buying a home in the Keys, but my experience has been that people that are too cheap to pay full fare to come here during season are also too cheap to buy a house--no matter how deep the discount.

There are some very nice properties with great views available at reasonable prices. Why not plan a trip to Key West to check buy your dream home in Paradise.