1 Nassau Lane, Key West - Newly Renovated Cottage in Old Town

I have written and rewritten the true story about the time sixteen years ago when a couple walked into my office one morning and told me they wanted to buy a small house in Old Town Key West.  I showed them several properties on my computer. They selected a few to see that afternoon including one located on Nassau Lane which was owned by a fellow agent. I called him and asked if we could see it before noon. He said "Yes", and we drove over soon thereafter. We parked on Fleming Street and started to walk up the lane. As we neared the house the lady started to gush and said something like "Gary, I love this! This is exactly what we were thinking about." As we approached the house she said "That's it!  We are going to buy this house." I suggested she wait until we see the inside. But she had already made up her mind and that of her husband. We did not look at any of the other houses I had lined up for the afternoon. We were under contract within a couple of hours. Such was the charm of Nassau Lane.

Loyal readers of my blog may recall that I listed and sold the house they purchased (11 Nassau Lane)  it in early 2017. They owned that little treasure for over fifteen years.

1 Nassau Lane, Key West

Yesterday another little charmer, 1 Nassau Lane, appeared as a new listing in the Key West MLS.  The listing Realtor describes the property this way:

Recently Renovated! Charmingly quaint and cozy 1BR/1BA Key West Cottage stands tasteful & modest on rare & quiet lane located just off of Fleming Street & conveniently close to the Historic Seaport & many more fun attractions & activities Key West has to offer such as restaurants, parks & local art galleries. More... The one story home includes a great sized kitchen with built-in cabinets, cathedral ceilings, laundry/utility room & hardwood/tile floors. Curtained by mature tropical foliage rests the perfect home for any young bachelor or retired couple seeking a tranquil island life setting.

I wrote about this cottage style home last year when it had potential. It didn't sell, so the property was taken off the market and updated. The most visible changes are the new kitchen and updated bath.. The interior and exterior were painted and the laundry was relocated to the rear.

One of the things you quickly learn about small cottage homes like this is that you pretty much see most of the house when you open the front door. Here, the front door opens into the living, dining, and kitchen area. Notice the door at the back of the kitchen and also the door off to the right with a spiral staircase.

The remodeled kitchen includes popular new white cabinets and stainless steel appliances. The last photo show a door opening into another room - the one and only bedroom.

If you watch a lot of those House Hunter TV shows have heard so many of the potential buyers make comments about wanting to buy a place for their family and friends to come and stay. If you buy any place in Key West, they will do that. And stay, and stay, and eat you food and drink you booze, and stay for as long as they can. They will return year after year as long as you permit. If you have a lot of money, an extra bedroom in Old Town will probably add at least $150,000 to the purchase price of any home. The thing is, you cannot add an extra bedroom onto this house. The lot is too small. But there is a really charming guest house at the foot of Nassau Lane and the famous Eden House is located across the street. Both offer nice accommodations at affordable pricing. So if you want to foot the bill for your guests, you can put them up in style for a few hundred bucks as opposed to many thousands of dollars.

This little rooftop deck couldn't get built today. Our Historic Architectural Review Commission would not allow it. But it is grandfathered and protected. A new owner could take it down. But with a sweet view of the Key West sunset so alluring as that shown, maybe it would be best to keep it right where it is.

1 Nassau Lane abuts a home which fronts onto Fleming Street. This cottage first appeared on the 1912 Sanborn Fire Maps.  The 1889 Sanborn Map identified this same lane as "Cologne Lane" at which time a structure two lots to the south was identified as being a horse shed. Maybe nobody wanted to live next to a horse shed and maybe that explains the lane change after the horse shed went away. I looked through my old shoebox and found the black and white photo below which was taken 53 years ago. The color photo was taken two days ago. Imagine how cute this will look after the new owner dolls it up just a bit. The hard part is over. The decorating and accessorizing can begin.

The chief axiom of real estate is "Location, Location, Location" and 1 Nassau Lane has it. The mansions on Fleming Street are located forty feet from the front door of 1 Nassau Lane. You can walk to Duval Street or the historic seaport in a matter of minutes. There are two incredible bakeries located about three minutes away by foot. There are two nearby convenience stores on White Street also located within a five minute walk. There are several gyms and yoga studios about seven minutes to the south. CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS datasheet and listing photos on 1 Nassau Lane which is offered at $599,000. Then please 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.  http://www.preferredpropertieskeywest.com/.

Before and After Martin Luther King

I don't know what it is about white old 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. Well, reflected a vision of 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 did not allow certain races or ethnic groups to live in specific places. 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 I 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 profiling.

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. I wrote an entire blog about that night CLICK HERE.

On Monday night Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the speaker at a large but old auditorium far away from the Palmer House Hotel. 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. But it was memorable because of it being made by Martin Luther King, Jr.s and the look on his face when and particularly 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. 

During the following fifty years (yes fifty plus years) various politicians and groups (you know who you are, I won't mention you by name) have been doing their best to undo what King inspired and what Johnson achieved. 

I am very disturbed by what is going on in Washington DC at this time in our history. Maybe the people in power in Washington think we need to take the country back to the days of Andy, Barney, Opie, and Aunt Bea. They sure as hell are not comfortable with the America that we have become. I am afraid of where they will take us.

1214 Von Phister Street, Key West - Follow Your Dream

Just Listed, but not by me, 1214 Von Phister Street, Key West, This Casa Marina east 2140 square foot home has it all - ALL!  The home was built new in 2002, not remodeled. It has four bedrooms, three baths, and an open concept living area. It is a spacious two story with abundant main floor living area which seamlessly flows out to the covered lanai and pool area. There is also convenient covered parking for two cars.

There is a phrase about a photograph telling a thousand words. Well, these photos show this home is lived in. There is a lot of stuff in the rooms, and if you read the MLS details, you will learn the furniture is included in the asking price. The personal items are not included, including the juke box located near the front door. (I looked at the record selection which was opened to Pink Floyd.) What I would like readers to envision is these rooms without so much stuff - maybe buying the house without the furnishings or taking the furnishings until the new owners edit and paint the walls "their colors" and makes this home "their home". I am not being negative about the owners' home. There is just so much to see that readers may miss the simplicity of design that these spaces offer for relaxed Key West living. The fourth bedroom is located on the far side of the staircase. Note this room has a set of small French doors which open out to the covered parking. This is an ideal room for a home office, but it could easily work as a genuine guest room where your guests don't wake the entire household when they stroll in at 3:00 AM after partying hard on Duval Street.

The master suite is located on the south or rear side of the home. A set of French doors opens out to the covered porch which overlooks the pool below. This is a quiet part of town. Imagine sitting out on the porch late at night appreciating all the you have achieved in life. Maybe you will take a late night dip then go to sleep with the doors open and in the wee hours waking up with birds singing.

There are two additional bedrooms located at the front of the house. Both are good sized and are very suite for full time living as opposed to some of the pretend bedrooms you may have seen on some condos over at Truman Annex. This is a big house and built for full time living. But it works equally well as a second home where generations of a family can gather.

Von Phister Street is located one block north of Flagler Avenue and just four blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and Higgs Beach, the dog park, and Salute on the Beach. Louies Backyard is about a five block walk when you want a date night. And doggie beach is next door to Louies when your pup needs to go for a swim. (There are people who get a couple of weeks vacation each year. They save their money and go to Louies to have a drink and dream of living in a place so wonderful. Imagine being able to walk over for lunch or dinner any time you want.)

CLICK HERE to view the Key West MLS and view a lot of photos of 1214 Von Phister Street in Key West offered at $1,750,000. Then please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642, email kw1101v@aol.com, to schedule a private showing of this spacious home. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. I live a little over one block away. Let me show you the Casa Marina Area I know and love. This house is really easy to fall in love with and so is life in Key West.

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.

Fire and Fury & Fatbutt

Today's blog has nothing to do with Key West real estate except that if you want to buy a place or sell a place and you want an agent with life experiences beyond self-aggrandizement and self-promotion, you may want to call me. Info below on that.

I want to share a small true tale that may explain why so may people in the White House seem to have made derogatory statements about the boss, Mr. Trump. I think what might have happened was quite insignificant at the time. I did something similar about forty years ago and it changed the course of my life to some extent.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about negotiating with bullies where I mentioned traveling to Omaha to meet with other creditors of a farmer borrower I called "King". In the late 1970s I was a commercial loan workout guy at a big Denver bank. It was my job to correct the ill advised and unsecuredloan by getting security. The problem was there were other lenders who had also given King money, most of whom were also unsecured lenders.

We (my bank) worked out a plan to take liens on various assets of King including his homestead located in Kansas. We thought the passage of time and a good crop season would put King in a better position to repay a portion of our loan. Our short term goal was to perfect our security interest in each of King's assets against the claim of other unsecured creditors.

I went to Omaha with our bank's new ag lender to attend a creditors meeting to discuss our mutual bad boy borrower. I sat quiet throughout the morning meeting as all to the other lender reps were discussing throwing King into involuntary bankruptcy. Just before we broke for lunch one of the other creditors said something like "Gary, you have been quite all morning long and have not said a thing" (which anyone who knows me is an improbable thing).  He asked if I had an opinion at which time I said I thought we should give King time to take his crops to market to see how much cash he generate to pay to the creditors. What I was really recommending was that they do nothing which would give us the necessary time to perfect our recently recorded mortgages and financing statements.  In a contest between secured an unsecured lenders, we would then prevail over most of the other lenders. We broke for lunch and later that afternoon the group of lenders agreed to do nothing.

That night Howard Fatbutt, the ag lender, and I went to Gorat's world famous steakhouse in Omaha to celebrate our diversion tactics. For those not familiar with the name Gorat's, it is Warren Buffett's favorite steak house. I remember having a couple of drinks and eating a great steak. I have eaten there several times since that night, but that night had consequence for me because I told Fairbutt that my boss was an "***hole". I thought what I said was both a joke and more importantly private.  I assumed that most people think their their bosses are "***holes" to some extent. In point of fact I really liked my boss and respected him greatly. He was a former US government attorney and very smart.   I said something stupid that I should not have said.

The following week my boss invited me into his office and told me Fairbutt reported that I had called him an "***hole". My boss was genuinely pissed and did not care for any defense on my part.  A couple of weeks earlier he had told me about an upcoming promotion. On that day he said the promotion would not happen.  He wouldn't fire me, but he would not promote me either. I couldn't figure out why Fatbutt had told my boss anything except perhaps to recommend a bonus for pulling off a win for our bank. We worked in different areas of the bank and had not had any prior business or personal meetings before. 

I can imagine a scenario where Micheal Wolff, the seemingly ever-present bald guy hanging around the White House, would get a lot of people to make ill advised remarks about President Trump. I can't imagine anyone would have envisioned their quips would have been repeated in a tell all book about the boss. Howard Fatbutt was my Micheal Wolff. 

If you are looking for a Realtor in Key West and want someone with life learning experiences, please consider calling me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or send me an email at kw1101v@aol.com. I am a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West.

2017 Key West Real Estate Sales Report - My View

Photo found in my old shoebox taken in the 1970s from the White Street Pier in Key West - before the condominiums and town homes were built along South Roosevelt and Atlantic Boulevards.

It is that time of the year to look back at calendar year 2017 to see the sales prices for single family homes in Key West and to compare those sales to an earlier time to glean a sense of the direction for sales in the near future. This year I decided to compare 2017 real estate sales to 2015 for the simple reason a little distance in time may reflect a trajectory rather than show a spurt or a drop.

The above photo is to remind readers of my blog what the weather is like up north right now. As if they needed reminded.

According to the Key West Association of Realtors MLS a total of 416 single family homes sold in calendar year 2015. I excluded all sales east of Shark Key (a total of 34 sales) to Stock Island from the analysis as I feel those houses are not located in areas my readers would consider as suitable for a for a new full time residence or as a second home. The revised number for 2015 shows 334 single family homes which sold between $200,000 to $5,000,000.

In 2017 I used the same search parameters and determined there were 301 single family home sales. The lowest priced single family home sold for $230,000 (on Stock Island) and the most expensive listing in Old Town sold for $5,000,000.  While the price paid for the lowest priced home increased by $30,000, the price paid for the most expensive home remained the same - $5,000,000.  The total number of sold single family houses decreased by 22% from 2015 to 2017.

Let's look at the two most important areas of home sales, Old Town and the Casa Marina areas. These are the two prime sales areas that drive a good portion of our economy. These are the areas where most second home buyers and buyers looking to purchase a future retirement home (full time or part time) want to buy a house.  My experience has been that most of these buyers will resist even looking in the Meadows area or on the "other side of White Street" which I often refer to as Casa Marina east. A lot of the homes in these two areas are equal to or better than many similarly or higher priced homes in Old Town or the Casa Marina. But if buyers won't look, the house may go unsold or the seller may be forced to reprice the house to attract buyers.

There were a total of 88 single family home sales in Old Town in 2017. (I went thru all sales and  strictly selected houses located on the west side of White Street to the water's edge west of Truman Annex. I did not include anything on the east side of White Street - period. I included all sales from the Gulf of Mexico south to the north side of South Street. The least expensive house that sold was located at 1016 Varela Street B and sold for $325.000. The most expensive home was located at 707 South Street and sold for $5,000,000. The average sales price per square foot was $726.00. The average sales price was $1,132,955.

Only five homes priced under $500,000 sold in Old Town. Up north in America a person could buy a very nice home for half a million bucks. In Old Town the house would likely need substantial to total renovation.  The average price paid on a per square foot was $473.65. Consider this - general contractors often quote a projected remodel or renovation at $300 to $500 per square foot. If you add $300 to the $758 per square foot price paid, you end up at over a $1,000 per square foot for a freshly renovated house.These high prices are having a depressing effect on our sales. I galls me that sellers demand so much a fixer. I still sell them, but I don't like seeing buyers being taken advantage of.

I then checked single family homes sales priced between $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 in Old Town. There were 27 sales where the average price paid per square foot was $758.07.  The average price paid was $1,311,346.

I did one final check to determine the number of single family home sales located in Old Town which sold between $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. There were 11 such sales. There were four sales of houses priced between $3,000,000 to $5,000,000.

I then set out to see how the Casa Marina single family homes compared to Old Town. There were no sales under $1,000,000. None! Nine houses sold for prices between $1,150,000 to $1,850,000 with an average price paid of $724.72 per square foot.. The highest price paid on a per square foot basis was for 1105 Washington Street which sold at $1,500,000 or $924 per sq ft. It was a very lovely mid-century modern totally updated with pool and guest cottage added. We had five sales priced between $2,350,000 to $3,650,000 with an average price per square foot of $876.39.  But keep in mind these homes are larger in size than those in Old Town and sit on larger lots. The higher priced sales have increased by about one million over the past five years.

 I next revisited all Key West single family home sales in 2015.  46 homes sold for $1,000,000 or higher. The median sales price was $1,612,357 at an average of $683 per sq ft. In 2017 the number of single family homes sold in Old Town and Casa Marina (strictly enforced border patrol Mr. Trump) increased to 52 with an average price per square foot of $878.25. The median sales price was $1,525,000. The average sales price per sq foot was higher - $2,018,756.

Intuitively we know prices have gone up. Statistically, the number of sales in Key West as a whole are down by 22% compared to 2015. The demand for houses has remained intense for the twenty-two years I have been selling houses here. In 1996 and 1997 a buyer could purchase a cigar maker cottage for somewhere around $250,000. Now a cigar maker cottage will cost near one million dollars.  Back in 1996 the highest priced homes sold around one million dollars. In 2017 there were no sales under one million in the Casa Marina but there were 14 over one million - three over $3,000,000. The demand for nice homes in good locations is there. The inventory of available homes for sale in the lower price range in Old Town and Casa Marina is missing. 

Buyers who were previously unwilling to look in the mid-town and new town areas are now looking there. Sales prices on a per square foot level are reduced. However, many of these homes are now over fifty years old and are in need of repair or renovation which then gins up the renovation costs.  Remember the $300 per square foot price quote many contractors give to buyers. And there are rules which restrict the amount an owner can spend on a home and limitations of the size to lot ratio. These governmental impositions are spurring many new owners to take down existing structures to build new and larger homes with cost saving features such as hurricane impact windows and Hardi plank siding which dramatically reduce annual insurance costs.
 
The 2018 sales season has just started. As of January 4th there are 181 active single family homes listed for sale priced between $365,900 to $15,850,000 in Key West and Stock Island. Seven of the highest priced homes are offered between $5,000,000 to $6,950,000.  There are already 49 single family homes under contract priced between $398,000 and $1,795,000.

The most telling thing I continue to see on a daily basis is the reduction of asking price on properties in all areas of Key West. While we have 21% of the existing listings under contract, we have about 147 days left of our selling season to sell the 181 active listings. We will need to put more than one house a day under contract. I hope we have a lot of million dollar buyers headed down to Key West looking to buy.

I am a buyers agent and a full time Realtor at Preferred Properties Key West. Please call me, Gary Thomas, 305-766-2642 or email me at kw1101v@aol.com. Let me help you find your home in Paradise.