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One of the things I enjoy most about selling real estate in Key West is that most of my customers are vacationers who end up falling in love with the island and want to own a piece of paradise. The pattern is always the same; after about the third trip down they start looking to buy that “perfect” Key West get-a-way home.
This perfect home either has to be smack dab in the middle of Old Town Key West or on the water. It must be minimum 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, off street parking, central air, wood floors, huge lot, pool, 12 foot ceilings, Dade County Pine walls, walking or biking distance of Duval Street and all new stainless appliances. Oh, and all for under $200,000.
Well, we know better, don’t we? Add another million to that and you too can have your “perfect” Key West home. As a matter of fact, such a home sold earlier this year in Old Town for $1,225,000. And to think that only a few short years ago this same home was probably worth double that.
So is the Key West real estate market dropping, have we bottomed out or are we seeing an increase? All of the above. Kinda. It depends on what part of town, price range and ownership. Lower end properties (in the $200K to $300K range) in New Town that are not bank owned continue to see prices slightly dip. On the same hand, bank owned properties in New Town that are priced below market are seeing bidding wars and in Old Town where property values are traditionally higher the market seems to have stabilized.
Overall for the city of Key West, the market for single family homes and condo/townhomes have improved over last year. One indication is that the inventory has decreased which follows traditional supply and demand theory and another indication is that the average sale price is up over last year’s. For example, the average sale price for a single family home in July of 2009 was $376,047 whereas the average price for July of this year was $392,607 bringing the increase to 4.4% over last year. Condo/townhomes saw an increase of nearly 35% over last year.
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