The Smithsonian is sponsoring Museum Day Live on Saturday, September 29. You can get two free tickets to participating local museums.
Author: jenniferwollmann
With real estate sales increasing and decreasing inventories, many developers are starting to launch new condominium projects. Many, such as the Porsche Tower in Sunny Isles, are aimed at the uber luxury market. This building is going to have special elevators to bring the resident and their cars up to the actual condo unit.
The Bellini on Williams Island, another luxury building, is requiring that buyers be primary or secondary home owners, not investors.
Most of these developers are counting on cash buyers putting significant down payments on their purchase in order to fund the construction. Considering how low prices are in comparison to the peak and how many mortgages are under water, I wonder if the real estate industry isn’t feeling just a little too confident.
Okay, Miami’s art scene has grown up a lot since I moved here from San Francisco over 21 years ago. Now there are concerts, monthly art walks, symphonies and a variety of art programs year round. However, with the cool weather teasers that usually start in October, so does Miami’s main season of the arts. Here is a list of things to do in October to get you started.
The New World Symphony kicks off their WALLCAST Concert series on October 6 with The Russian Musical Soul. This popular series runs from October through April and is FREE!
UM’s Frost School of Music kicks of Festival Miami on October 2. This annual music festival runs through November 4 and consists of a wide range of music concerts.
Pinecrest Gardens kicks off their annual Jazz Series with South Florida Jazz Orchestra’s Great American Songbook on October 27. Prior to that, FIU’s Latin Jazz Ensemble starts their first of four concerts at gardens on October 10.
Pinecrest Gardens also kicks off their movie series with Chick Flick Wednesdays and Family Night Fridays.
The Miami City Ballet opens their 2012-2013 season on October 19.
Last week I wrote a blog about Miami Metrorail’s link to MIA and how much farther we have to go to have a great rail system in Miami. Well, it looks like we may be another step closer towards making that a reality. Florida East Coast Railway is proposing building a station, modeled after London’s Paddington railway station, on a site it owns along NW First Avenue. The station would be the starting/ending hub for a passenger rail line connecting Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando with a goal of 3 hours from Miami to Orlando.
Would you ride it?
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Unit 208 is an updated 1 bedroom 1.5 bath that would be great for an investor. Rented until April of 2013.
I saw two great homes during a Coconut Grove open house. The one above, listed by Carole Smith and Ken Tate of EWM, is a two-story Old Spanish built in 1924. It is beautifully restored with a spacious, modern kitchen.
The one below is a modern home, built in 2008 with wonderful open spaces. It is listed by Javier Gonzalez with ReMax Advance Realty. Both homes are approximately the same size, 3,817 and 3,678 square feet respectively, with very nice outdoor entertaining spaces. Which one would you choose? The Old Spanish or the modern home?
Like most Floridians, I headed north for a portion of the summer. I ended up spending some time with my brother in Pembroke, Massachusetts and traveling into Boston. I love the public transportation system via the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, but found their method of paying for parking a bit old fashioned and not very practical. The picture below is a large metal box with numbered slots in it. You push your money into the slot and use a key to make sure the money is all the way in. There are no machines to make change or take credit cards, so if you do not have the exact amount, you are out of luck.
Other than that, the whole public transit system was extremely convenient and easy to use. I look forward to the day when Metrorail has enough routes to make it a convenient mode of transportation throughout Miami-Dade County. The new link to Miami International Airport is a great start, but we have got a way to go. At least the way we pay for parking is better!
The entrance to Pincrest Grove is located on 60 Avenue, a short walk or bike ride to the Community Center, library, Pinecrest Gardens, Pinecrest Elementary School, and Wayside Market. This gated community in Pinecrest consists of 9 single family homes built on one acre lots. Most of the homes were built in the early 1980’s and range in size from 5,300 – 6,900 square feet. There is an annual maintenance fee of $1,050 per year.
There is currently only one house available for sale in Pinecrest Grove. It is listed by Josie Wang of Avatar.
This house was also the last closed sale. It closed in June of 2011 for $1,330,000.
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I Love Miami! Do You?
It is obvious by the name and content of my blog that I thoroughly enjoy living in South Florida. A new initiative by The Miami Foundation wants to make Miami more loveable and thereby attractive to skilled, talented people. A Knight Foundation survey identified 10 factors that make residents feel emotionally connected to where they live.
- Leadership
- Social Capital
- Basic Services
- Economy
- Safety
- Education
- Community Involvement
- Openness
- Social Life
- Aesthetics
Miami only scored well on the bottom three, which results in it being perceived as a place that is not caring about other people (low community involvement) and is not a good place for talented college graduates to work. In an attempt to create discussion and change those perceptions, the foundation has launched OurMiami.org.
This is an important discussion to have if we want Miami to be have a diverse economy and be more than a tourist destination. Do you agree with the survey findings? Why or why not?
Many homeowners who are under water have been thinking of short selling their home 
because they have not been able to negotiate a loan modification with their mortgage lender. If you are one of them, now may be a good time for several reasons.
- Banks are more willing to work with a short sale than they were just a year ago.
- A short sale is less damaging to your credit than a foreclosure.
- Inventory is low, so your property has a better chance of selling as a short sale now than it did last year.
- Although Congress is expected to extend a 2007 law that allows homeowners to avoid paying taxes on forgiven debt for their primary residence, it will expire at the end of this year if Congress does not act.
- It takes a lot longer than a normal sale to complete a short sale. If it is an approved short sale, 2-3 months. If it is not approved, significantly longer.