Today during our open house tour, I was pleasantly surprised with a series of new single family homes for sale in North Coral Gables. With the exception of 1220 Capri, which is beautifully updated, these are all Old Spanish homes that have been modernized without losing the character that buyers of Old Spanish homes look for.
All listings are courtesy of EWM International Realty.
Total sales (24) still outnumbered total new listings (11), which is to be expected in the middle of the holiday season. Buyers are still out in full force and are purchasing in all price ranges. The highest sale in our office was the home pictured below. It sold for $7,030,000 and was listed by EWM.
Total sales (24) still outnumbered total new listings (11), which is to be expected in the middle of the holiday season. Buyers are still out in full force and are purchasing in all price ranges. The highest sale in our office was the home pictured below. It sold for $7,030,000 and was listed by EWM.
The real estate sales continued to mount the week leading up to Art Week. Even though Thanksgiving coincided with Chanukah this year, our sales for a normally quiet week were over $24,000,000, just for our Coral Gables office. The highest residential sale was for the Pinecrest home pictured above.
We had a total of 18 residential sales, which includes single family and condo/town homes, one commercial sale, and 12 new listings.
November was a busy month in Pinecrest. There are currently 127 listings on the market, 18 of which were added to the MLS in November. There are a total of 42 listings under contract, 12 that went pending in November. 14 properties closed in November out of a total 227 sales to date for 2013. The highest sale for November is pictured above. It closed for $3.175 million. Coldwell Banker was the listing broker and EWM was the selling broker.
The highest priced sale so far this year was 6500 SW 98 Street, which was listed by the Campins Group and sold by Shelton and Associates.
Unobstructed water views from this spectacular unit, which has been professionally designed by Adriana Hoyos. Enter your private foyer directly from the elevator, open your front door and water views greet you. The spacious unit includes two bedrooms, a den, 3 full baths, large kitchen with built-in Miele coffee maker, wine refrigerator, Subzero, and laundry room with a utility sink. At $1,150,000 it is the lowest priced unit in the popular “9” line of the modern state-of-the-art Jade building.
I just received yet another e-mail on a new construction project; this one is coming to Coral Gables. It seems hard to believe that we went through a MAJOR real estate crash, with many of our prominent developers themselves involved in foreclosures of their projects, just a few years ago. It also seems hard to believe that there are so many new developments selling their projects, when foreclosure activity in Florida is leading the nation. Is this a contradiction in the real estate market, setting us up for another dip? Not necessarily.
New projects extend from the Gables all the way north to the Broward county line. They cover Coconut Grove, Brickell/Downtown, Midtown, South Beach, Mid Beach, North Miami Beach, and Aventura. Pricing starts from the low $200,000’s in the Gables to the several million for those projects in the Grove, Miami Beach and Aventura. Based on what I am seeing, buyers are definitely leaning toward newer, more modern buildings and inventory in newer buildings is extremely tight. Builders are using a formula more commonly used in South America, where there is no financing, and the buyer pays a significant amount of money down at various stages of the construction process. The range in starting prices, demand for new buildings and the new purchasing requirements make for a bit more stability than the previous building boom.
What does all of this new construction mean if you are a buyer? It means that you will have more options in a given price range. You will be able to choose between existing units where you know exactly what you are getting and one that is under construction that you can finish to your specifications. Check to see how many new projects are going up in the area you are looking in and what the price ranges in the different development are. Too much supply of the same type of property could point to price decreases or stagnation.
If you are a seller of an older property in an area where new projects are going up, it means you will be competing with projects that are newer and offer more amenities than yours. Make sure you know your competition and highlight your property’s positive attributes. Many older units tend to be larger or offer more closet space than many of the newer construction projects.
EWM’s Coral Gables office had another amazing week in sales. Over $23,000,000 in sales and leases this week, the week before schools start. That follows last weeks’ $19,800,000+ in sales and leases. The fact that sales are so high the last two weeks of summer vacation is a sign that the real estate market in Miami-Dade County continues to recover. The number of sales (25) equaled the number of leases this week and were only slightly lower last week (21 sales and 25 leases). This week we had 14 new sales listings. Last week we had 8 new sales listings.
These numbers show that the luxury market is starting to recover, the lower priced inventory has significantly dropped as investors pick up properties, and demand in the middle price range is still strong. If you are in the market to buy or sell, give me a call to discuss prices in your specific area.
Just south of Red Oaks and next door to Wayside Fruit Stand is Arboretum. This gated community of 11 single family residences was built between 1991 and 1993. Homes range in size from 4,000 to 6,000, lots from 15,000 to 19,000 square feet.
The residents really love Arboretum; there has not been a property listed for sale in there since 2010! It sold for $1,600,000 ($320 per square foot). Homeowners fees are $1,000 per quarter.
Stay tuned for my next featured community in this “Gated Communities in Pinecrest” series.
A new condo project, Grove at Grand Bay, is coming to the center Grove. Overlooking Sailboat Bay and the Coconut Grove Marina, the stunning architecture will be a nice addition to the Miami skyline. There have been very few new condos built in the Grove; there are currently only 49 listed for sale that were built after 2000.
These two towers will have 94 residences, each with spectacular terraces and outdoor kitchens. The pre-construction pricing starts in the high $800,000s.