Happy New Year!
My holiday's were excellent and I hope yours were too. On Friday I got a late Christmas present or an early birthday one... While in my office on White St. a little old lady and her grand daughter walked right in and asked if I could help sell her house. No problem! I took down the preliminary information and began researching. It's an intensive process that kept me busy for about four straight hours. On Saturday morning I had a package full of disclosures, listing agreement with addenda and a comparative market analysis.
We met at her house at 10:00AM and I got a tour of the property and the grounds. It's almost 2,000 sq. ft. sitting on a 10,000 sq. ft. lot! That's enormous for Key West! The structure is a true Concrete Slab house. The foundation, the external walls, the internal walls and the roof are all concrete. That's how they did things in 1958! The current owner bought the house with her late husband that same year. Can you believe it was wired for surround sound throughout the entire house? Way ahead of it's time.
Unfortunately, the winter of '58 - '59 followed by the summer of '59 paired with the house settling on it's foundation was enough to send cracks through out the entire structure. Every wall has at least a minor crack and the corners of the house show veins of cracks. It's the biggest detractor from the homes value but because it happened so long ago and hasn't gotten any worse over the last 60 years, we're hoping it doesn't turn off any proposed buyers.
It's wall to wall terrazzo floors which are comprised of 3' by 3' squares with brass inlay. It needs a professional polishing but it's going to really sparkle for the next owner. The bathrooms are all original and are in great condition. It's pretty amazing. Everything in the house is original from 1958 except for the kitchen appliances and the washer/dryer.
The ceilings are made from "California Yellow Pine" which allegedly are termite proof. In Key West, anythings possible... There are scars on the ceiling in a few places that represent the battles that have been fought against termites from time to time over the last sixty years. We've been termite free for over five years now and have a contract with an exterminator with warranty. 97% of the pine wood ceilings are in mint condition.
In the late 1950s and early 1960's the owner and her late husband would take their boat out to Sand Key which is the site of the old Sand Key lighthouse. A brick lighthouse was built in the 1827 and destroyed in the "Great Havana Hurricane of 1846." The owner's would grab a few bricks, sea shells, conch shells and pieces of coral each weekend and built a unique brick wall in the house and a coral/shell wall that goes around the entire property. It is very cool.
She signed all the paperwork and by noon I was taking pictures. I took over 150 photos and widdled them down to 55. All of them are in the virtual tour I put together, 30 of them are in the Key West MLS listing and 25 on Realtor.com. Here is a link to the virtual tour!
We're going to start at $449,000 which is honestly the lowest price per square foot within all of the listings within 1/4 mile. I wanted to list it a little bit lower but we compromised at $449,000 because I wasn't giving as much credit for the super big lot we were working with. Most comparables were on lots less than half as big! I'm very happy with the listing I've put together and the list price.
Wish me luck!
