Monday, April 30, 2018

It's hard to make me gasp about real estate, but......

The sweet two-bedroom, one-bathroom at 31 Elk St. right across from Glen Park Canyon was listed for $1.295 million on March 23, and sold only five days later for $2.105 million. Source.

810,000 over asking. It makes the days of the housing bubble seem sane. I never saw ANYTHING like this then.

15 comments:

  1. Probably had 4 or 5 foreign buyers engaged in a bidding war driving up the price. They pay in cash.

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  2. Capital of Texas RefugeeTuesday, May 01, 2018 11:05:00 AM

    This is a funky little house over in Coral Gables that might be more at home in SF: 5129 Riviera Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146.

    Originally listed in December 2015 at $1.895 million, it has so far not been sold and it's currently listed at $1.175 million after spending a lot of time at the exact same $1.295 million that the place in SF originally started at.

    That's the South Florida real estate market for you: there are several hundred houses for sale in that ballpark, give or take a couple hundred thousand dollars or so on the asking price. Competition is tough, and a lot of houses aren't selling, even funky little ones like this one which really is one of a kind.

    Coral Gables isn't a place where I'd want to live, but if you want a reasonably nice free-standing home in the Miami area with decent shopping options in the general area, it isn't a bad choice.

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  3. Civilty-wise, Miami makes the Bay Area look like Mayberry.

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  4. That is a cute little place. There is definitely something going on in the upper end of the market. Which I've never really been a fan of. It's not that they aren't cute or great in some way. But I always feel it isn't safe to be in that range just in case I have to pull the ripcord. Million dollar houses are hard to get rid of. I've always felt you might have to sit on that house for about a year. Those aren't houses you can't just bail out of.

    So I don't watch them as closely as say the middle market or rental level market. but I have started to lately because something is going on there and I can't figure out what yet.

    MacD - It's funny to think of the Bay Area being Mayberry. We will put up with just about anything though.

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  5. Yes, it sounds weird, but a couple I know who moved from Miami-Dade to the south Bay Area were astonished at the politeness of the people there! They also took a road trip up to Portland and were doubly shocked.

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  6. Wow. Astonished. That is high praise. I wish some of those Miami transplants would bring some cuban coffee with them. So far it's the only thing from Florida I'm not sure I can live the rest of my life without.

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  7. They also didn't miss the bugs and humidity! We have to look on the bright side here on the West Coast, as bad as it may seems sometimes.

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  8. Capital of Texas RefugeeTuesday, May 01, 2018 11:09:00 PM

    Even Starbucks is trying to invade the Cuban coffee scene in Miami.

    But you already have Cuban coffee in San Francisco ...

    Order a cortado as a "Gibraltar" and see what happens, it's a cortado in a glass. It's sort of like a double shot espresso or ristretto with a lot of foam on top. Even if you don't see it on the drinks list, a few places in SF will make one for you, especially if they roast beans that would work in it.

    If you actually like the original "cubano", see if you can find some dark rock crystal sugar or good demerara sugar, it does make a difference.

    Demerara sugar cubes are also great for absinthe, BTW.

    Otherwise, I like how in South Florida people just announce that they're going to be irritating and unreliable assholes. I don't have to spend any significant amount of time learning about these people so I know enough to avoid them. Florida natives (a.k.a. "Florida crackers") will mess with you lightly like Texans do, so if you can do that back to show you're not thin-skinned, they'll take you as one of their own eventually.

    That's one thing I prefer over the West Coast states: everyone's trying to be so damned polite that I can't figure out who the real assholes are just by talking to them for a few minutes.

    This isn't Austin where people get nicer the farther you go up the social ladder, that's definitely for sure, although good manners will get you farther up the social ladder you're already on ...

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  9. The locals don't go to SF unless we have to. And definitely the cubano. But it has to be served by a real Cuban.

    The Texans never accepted me as their own. But then I probably had a California beach girl accent. I used to say "like" a lot. That always gave me away. Yet when I left, I did acquire a slight Texas accent that If I'm in the right crowd pops back up slightly. It's weird.

    I guess I don't know how to describe Californians. Fun to watch? I think we are mostly polite though. But it's nice to see we leave a good impression on others. Cause sometimes we be crazy. It's like a large embarrassing family sometimes.


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  10. Capital of Texas RefugeeWednesday, May 02, 2018 5:52:00 PM

    Yeah, well, about that authenticity ...

    Café Bustelo is now owned by Smuckers. Yeah, the fruit jam people.

    They've always used Colombian coffee.

    It's no longer all roasted over in Hialeah -- some of it's roasted in New York, and the company's HQ is in Ohio.

    Still, the K-Cups aren't bad if I don't want to drag my butt over to one of the local ventanitas, and to be honest the Italian places that make their ristretto shots with Lavazza Qualita Oro coffee have better coffee.

    But you'll have to pay a premium for those authentic Italian shots, and ventanita coffee's usually super cheap.

    Unlike you, I don't demand that my Italian coffee be served by an actual Italian. :-)

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  11. Hahahah. Not only does the server have to be Cuban - they need to have set foot on Cuban soil. Smoked a Cuban cigar and the coffee needs to be brought down on a Cuban donkey Juan Valdez style. It's the only Cuban coffee I will accept. ;P

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  12. Capital of Texas RefugeeThursday, May 03, 2018 1:45:00 PM

    So I went to Publix today ...

    Yes, they have big bright yellow bricks of Café Bustelo ... *yawn*

    Oh, right, what else do they have? :-)

    They have Café Pilon which still says it's made by Rowland, so Smuckers hasn't totally Borg'd the company (yet).

    But there was one coffee they had that isn't Cuban that might do the trick for you ...

    Café La Llave is an Argentine-style espresso made by people from Buenos Aires in California.

    Seriously though, if you put enough demerara sugar in your cubano, you're never going to notice whether it's más mejor auténtico, and if they turn up the Perez Prado, nobody's going to notice you sniffling about Argentine coffee instead of Cuban. :-)

    "Not only does the server have to be Cuban - they need to have set foot on Cuban soil."

    Jeez, not even the Versailles would be good enough for you then, and they're the best in town ...

    ¡BASTA YA! ¡BASTA YA! ¡BASTA YA!

    :-)

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  13. Hahahahah. I'm just being dramatic. But honestly - I'm not as much of a coffee snob as much as I like it's efficiency. With Starbucks you have to drink a giant amount of liquid to get your fix. The cubans came in and just said screw it - just put a bunch of sugar in there sissy.

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  14. Capital of Texas RefugeeFriday, May 04, 2018 12:09:00 AM

    The Starbucks "cubano" cheater version: order two espresso shots, ask for them to be ristretto shots, and then dump some Sugar In The Raw packets into it ...

    It's close enough for government work. :-)

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  15. Yeah.... I still feel like it's missing something - like humidity. I kinda feel like things are better in the place you found them.

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