This past March I joined forces with Lisa Ferringo, a supreme sales agent out of our Big Pine office. She does a ton of business and was trying to expand into the Key West market. I'm Lisa's full time Key West Real Estate assistant and take orders and do business directly through her. So far, so good, but it's imperative that I drum up some more Key West listings. To do this we've expanded our Key West marketing campaign, done a bunch of open houses and have started touting our Real Estate Videos. You can check them out at http://www.youtube.com/FerringoRealEstate
I'm close to mastering the video tour but now I need more properties to take a video of. I've made some videos out of still photographs that were taken before I came on board. It gets the job done and the more videos up on YouTube, the better. Especially when it comes to the Coldwell Banker channel.
With my new venture with Lisa, I've found it incredibly difficult to maintain a steady schedule with Florida Keys Community College. The greatest thing I ever did at the college was create a visual tour of Lagoon Landing with my real estate listing skills. Occupancy will be at or near 100% this Fall and it's in large part due to the tour I created. AWESOME! I'll miss my FKCC friends but won't be too far away. I hope to visit often and rejoin the family a little later on.
Enjoy your Summer and wish me luck with having the most productive one ever!
-Brian
Showing posts with label Real Estate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Real Estate. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, January 9, 2011
New Year = New Listing!
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!
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!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Real Estate and Bad News
"When are we going to catch a break?" Actually, it's more like, "when will the news people pick on someone else?" So there is that whole BP oil rig disaster leaking millions of barrels a day. It's been over a month and there is no sign of it coming towards the Florida Keys but that hasn't stopped the news people from reporting "tar balls" and "sludge sightings" on the front page of the papers and the news tickers, etc. We've been inundated with education on how the loop current will doom us all by transporting the oil through the Keys, into Miami and up the eastern seaboard. Ironically, not on the front page, there are just as credible scientists who insists the oil will never actually make it's way this far south. Why are the news people so dang negative?
It'd be a real horrible thing IF oil reached our beaches and mangroves but why are we panicking so much, so early? I'm of the mindset to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. Seems like everyone else would just like to freak out.
June 1st starts the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane season and NOAA has forecasted a slightly above average probability of hurricane encounters. On average there are 11 named storms, this year they think there might be 12. What's troubling though, is the news anchors interpolation of this forecast compared to the 2005 hurricane predictions. In 2005 there was more than double the number of named storms than they had predicted so CNN will tell you that we should expect twice as many named storms THIS year than has been predicted.
If this isn't all just the worst, wait - there's more! All of the "experts" are coming out of the wood work to commentate on the idea of the what-if scenario of a hurricane - oil spill super blow out. Obviously all of the experts disagree with each other on what might happen but the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know. That and now everyone is afraid of moving here!!! Thanks national news media...
The truth is, if it wasn't a great time to buy before it sure is now! Sellers are lowering their prices, buyers (the competition) are getting cold feet and the deals are out there. We have a natural lull in the real estate market this time of year in the Keys so while most people down here are fearing fear itself, there are a few highly intelligent buyers grabbin' up some great deals. I know, I represent them!
Things are good and business is great!
It'd be a real horrible thing IF oil reached our beaches and mangroves but why are we panicking so much, so early? I'm of the mindset to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. Seems like everyone else would just like to freak out.
June 1st starts the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane season and NOAA has forecasted a slightly above average probability of hurricane encounters. On average there are 11 named storms, this year they think there might be 12. What's troubling though, is the news anchors interpolation of this forecast compared to the 2005 hurricane predictions. In 2005 there was more than double the number of named storms than they had predicted so CNN will tell you that we should expect twice as many named storms THIS year than has been predicted.
If this isn't all just the worst, wait - there's more! All of the "experts" are coming out of the wood work to commentate on the idea of the what-if scenario of a hurricane - oil spill super blow out. Obviously all of the experts disagree with each other on what might happen but the only thing we know for sure is that we don't know. That and now everyone is afraid of moving here!!! Thanks national news media...
The truth is, if it wasn't a great time to buy before it sure is now! Sellers are lowering their prices, buyers (the competition) are getting cold feet and the deals are out there. We have a natural lull in the real estate market this time of year in the Keys so while most people down here are fearing fear itself, there are a few highly intelligent buyers grabbin' up some great deals. I know, I represent them!
Things are good and business is great!
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