For a good many years, the corner of Fourth Street North and 30th Avenue was the home of the Cocoanut Grove Motel, a grouping of cottages that hummed with activity every winter, as the tourists flocked back down to St. Petersburg to [...]]]>

Fresh Market Coming to Cocoanut Grove Site (click on photo for larger image)

For a good many years, the corner of Fourth Street North and 30th Avenue was the home of the Cocoanut Grove Motel, a grouping of cottages that hummed with activity every winter, as the tourists flocked back down to St. Petersburg to escape the cold north.  But by the 1980’s, the old cottages were getting pretty ramshackle and the motel’s days were numbered.  In February of 1987, bulldozers rolled in and razed the old place, followed soon by the construction of a brand new shopping plaza, one that retained the Cocoanut Grove name. 

For a long time, the new center stayed busy, but a few years back, the place seemed to go downhill and tenants began closing down or moving to other locations.  The very last active business in the center was the Athenian Garden Greek Restaurant, and they moved out several months ago to find a new home downtown, at 21 3rd Street North.

I’ve been wondering about Cocoanut Grove each time I drive by, because it’s on a good sized piece of land and it’s in a very good location, one where the right kind of business should be able to thrive.  And then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the new sign spring up in front of the place.  Fresh Market.

For those who don’t know Fresh Market, the nearest one is in Clearwater, at 25961 US Highway 19.  They’ve been there since 1998, and everyone I know who has ever entered the place has become a devoted fan.  Fresh Markets specialize in high quality perishable products, presented in an environment that feels good and by people who seem glad to be working there. 

Just to be clear, I’m not getting any kickbacks from Fresh Market!  But I want you to have a little feel for what’s coming:  Their produce departments have over 400 items, including a large selection of organic produce.  Their bakeries sell 30 freshly baked breads each day and 15 varieties of freshly baked pies each day.  Their delis have more than 200 varieties of cheeses.  They have a full service meat counter with butchers on site.  They sell ’signature’ sandwiches, and you can call or fax ahead to have them ready for pickup.

In addition to all of that, there are all sorts of specialty items that are hard to find in other stores.  My wife’s brother lives in San Francisco, and he got us practically addicted to Peet’s coffee, a local brand out there.  No chance of finding it here – we either had to wait for her brother to visit or we had to order online.  And then we walked into Clearwater’s Fresh Market, and there was Peet’s!  Similar scenarios abound through the store. 

St. Petersburg’s Fresh Market is scheduled to open in late Summer of 2010.  I’ll keep an eye on progress and will update in a few months.  Meanwhile, my mouth is watering…

Old Cocoanut Grove Shopping Plaza

Today’s Monday, and that usually means that I’m going to say something about Real Estate.  Today’s post is a little bit of advice about purchasing a condominium in a newly constructed condo building. 

My wife and I have some friends who decided, somewhat on a whim last week, to go [...]]]>

Signature Place (click for larger view)

Today’s Monday, and that usually means that I’m going to say something about Real Estate.  Today’s post is a little bit of advice about purchasing a condominium in a newly constructed condo building. 

My wife and I have some friends who decided, somewhat on a whim last week, to go downtown and look at the new Signature Place condominiums.  They had considered selling their house and moving into a downtown condo last year, and I set up a search for them and took them to see some condos downtown.  But then they decided that it wasn’t time for them yet, and maybe they’d reconsider in a few years, after their son finished college and they were certain they wouldn’t need to have the extra room that they had in their house.

But on this day last week, they awoke and they just happened to see an article in the St. Petersburg Times about Signature Place, and they thought it would be fun to go downtown and look around.  Much to their surprise, after walking around and seeing several condos, they decided to make an offer on one.  Within a couple of days, their offer was accepted and they bought the condo.  Nothing wrong with that; Signature Place is gorgeous and I know they’re going to love living there.

But they, like so many other people, thought that, because Signature Place is a newly constructed building, they had no options other than to walk into the Sales Office and deal with the nice sales agents who work there.  And that is simply not true! 

I hope that they got a good deal.  They probably did fine, since Signature Place recently dropped prices of all their units by 25% to recognize the current market.  But they did not have anyone representing them, looking out for them, negotiating for them.  And that’s just foolish.  Virtually any Real Estate expert will tell you that you should have someone working with you, someone to be your advocate, someone watching out for your interest when you’re in the process of purchasing a new home. 

And it’s a shame that the reason that they had no one representing them is because they didn’t know that they had the option.  I do not blame the sales people at Signature Place – they were simply doing their job, and that’s why they are there.  But if our friends had known, they could still have chosen, on the spur of the moment, to drive down to Signature Place, and when they walked into the Sales Office, they could have said “We are working with a Realtor”.  They would still have had a friendly, courteous sales agent show them around, and they would still have had the same experience.  But before submitting their offer, they would have had a chance to work with a professional Realtor who would be representing them, acting on their behalf, to ensure that they got the best deal possible. 

So, readers, if you should ever find yourself (or if you know of a friend) in the position of even considering purchasing a condominium (or a newly constructed home, for that matter), I encourage you to contact your favorite Realtor and arrange for them to be your advocate, your Buyer’s Agent, before you go off for that ‘just for fun’ look!  Using a Realtor to help you purchase a new home does NOT cost you a cent.  The Realtor’s commission is paid by the selling party.  And your Realtor can even call ahead and pre-register you to see condos in several new buildings, and you’ll get the Royal treatment when you arrive.  But you’ll have someone watching your back before you sign on the dotted line!

Last Monday, I wrote about Short Sales.  Buyers can get some pretty good deals if they purchase a house or condo via a Short Sale, but anyone considering it needs to have supreme patience.  Many banks are now taking from three to six months  to give a decision on a Short Sale offer.  A few are [...]]]>

Last Monday, I wrote about Short Sales.  Buyers can get some pretty good deals if they purchase a house or condo via a Short Sale, but anyone considering it needs to have supreme patience.  Many banks are now taking from three to six months  to give a decision on a Short Sale offer.  A few are better than that, but there is no way to know up front just how long the process is going to take.  So, it’s not for those who have issues with impatience!

At the end of my post last Monday, I mentioned another non-traditional type of home sale, and that’s what I’m going to write about today.  This type of listing is known as a Bank Owned property or an REO.  REO stands for ‘Real Estate Owned’ – not a particularly clear phrase, but it doesn’t matter.   If you see the term REO, it means that a bank or other financial institution has taken ownership of the property.  They might own the property because they foreclosed on it due to the owner not making payments.  Or, they might own the property by virtue of a process called ‘Deed in Lieu’, or ‘Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure’, wherein the owner turns over the deed and all rights of ownership to the bank in order to save themselves the costs and trauma of a foreclosure suit.

Whatever the method, once a bank has taken ownership of a property, there is usually a specific person at the bank who is assigned to that particular property – that person is referred to as an Asset Manager.  The Asset Manager’s main goal in his or her role is to mitigate further losses to the bank to the extent possible, and to sell the property for as high a price as they can get in as reasonably short a time period as possible.  Banks do not want to own these foreclosed homes.  They want to sell them, recover whatever money they can from the house, then move back into the business of being a bank.  Remember that foreclosures are a very long and costly process for a bank, so by the time they finally take ownership on a foreclosed property, they’ve lost a lot of time and a lot of money.  They are usually ready to move that property off of their books just as soon as possible.  But they need to balance the speed of the transaction with the amount of money that they can get, and an experienced Asset Manager does a good job of this.

So, if you’re a potential Buyer and you’re looking at houses and you find a Bank Owned house, it’s not nearly as daunting a process as the Short Sale process that I described last week.  Because the bank has already assigned an Asset Manager to the house, there is someone ready to look at your offer and respond to it within a reasonable period of time.  And because the list price on the house has generally been okayed by the owning bank, the bank is likely to be much more responsive to reasonably close offers than they are in the case of a Short Sale, where they have NOT normally pre-approved a list price.

Typical scenario for a Bank Owned property:  Buyer finds a house or condo that they’re interested in.  They ask their agent to write up a contract and present an offer to the Listing Agent.  Listing Agent submits the offer to the bank.  Many Banks respond to the offer within a few days.  Some may take a week or two.  But you will NOT find yourself waiting for months, as with a Short Sale.  Also, if the Bank does not accept your offer, they will frequently respond with a Counter Offer, just as an individual Seller might do.  

Some things to be aware of with a Bank Owned property.  First, you can be assured that it’s an As-Is deal.  The bank does not want to spend any money on fixing problems or issues.  So take the condition of the property into account when you make your offer.  Second, people who have been foreclosed on sometimes do bad things, like removing appliances such as ovens, dishwashers, refrigerators, etc from the property just before they are evicted.  They may take them to some new place of theirs or they may sell them.  In any case, lots of Bank Owned properties are missing their appliances.  Some Buyers are very turned off by this, but I think that, as long as you factor the cost of new appliances into your offer, this should not be a big deal at all.  In fact, if you get a good enough deal from the bank, then the concept of walking into your newly purchased home and being able to afford to buy brand new appliances (because you got such a good deal on the property) is often much better than having the old and possibly beat-up appliances that used to be there. 

Bank Owned properties are out there  – you can find them in virtually all areas of the city.  And if you find one that appeals to you, the chances are good that you can purchase it at a very nice discount from what a ‘normal’ market value would be.  If you have any questions, or you’re interested in finding a Bank Owned house or condo, feel free to contact me – my contact information is always available in the right column of this page.