Who knows the Florida area well..?
 

I see that condos and houses in Florida are going pretty cheap these days and I have my eye on a place that I found online in the town of Rivera Beach on Marsh Harbor Dr. My questions are if anyone knows....

1.) What is the area like
2.) I do not want to be in the ghetto
3.) I am just going to go down in the winter so is there a market to rent it out in the summer..?

Any help would be great

I live in NE Florida but I'm not familiar with that area specifically. What I can say is the a condo will be nealry impossbile to finance due to many condo associations being in deep financial trouble and unable to manage the property.

Yeah I heard the same thing. The realtor that I talked to said that Florida is 50% off right now...which is good for a buyer but really bad for a seller. I would be able to pay cash for the one that I am looking at if I could get it for the right price.

Do you know how to use google earth?

Still do some due diligence on the HOA. Just becuase you are paying cash doesn't mean a troubled HOA will not be a problem for YOU.

Google earth does not tell me what type of neighborhood it is. But they should offer that capability.:lolhit:

Riviera is where Miss Geico is located and doesn't seem to be the best area in town I actually would reach out to Scotty Begovich

Riviera= RUN and GUN... :eek:

Unless it's the Loggerhead Marina and Marina Grande area. Real Estate is my business.

Greg Harris

Hey bro give me a call when you have a chance!!! We had a conversation and then we got busy doing other things!!!

We have a condo in the Singer Island and thats a beutiful area. Anything in that area east of the causeway wont be hard to rent in the summer time especially in winter for snow birds like yourself. Good luck with your search. Again stay to the east of causeway which is on the island side (Singer Island). Theres a huge marina that you can keep your boat at in the island. Anything close to I95 or turnpike is the GHETTO. Hope this helps a little better

Thats the man right there

Drag and drop to the roadside camera. It will show you the ghetto first hand.

Go to Goggle MAPS & If there is a Martin Luther King Dr/Ave/Blvd.....any where close you probably don't want to live in that area...Just saying. My broker always told me to go to the school bus stops and see what gets off. Pretty much sums up the neighbor hood.....

Here's a good site for demographics, etc.:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Rivier...h-Florida.html

Riviera's not looking so good.

Thanks guys I really appreciate the info

Cashbar is 100% right on....marina grande is the only property west of the intracoastal worth looking at (but the hoa fees are like $900 a month on a 200k unit).:eek:

Marsh Harbour, Sonoma Bay and Thousand Oaks all sold in the boom for 250-350k new and now sell below 50k regularly. They were beautiful townhouses built in one if the worst ghettos in the county.

You can fix up the house, you can't fix the neighborhood!

Yeah the neighborhood is very important even though I wont be living there for any extended periods of time its nice to know that when I go down my place wont be looted :evilb:

Area property for sale
 

my son has a house for sale in Palm Beach Gardens. in the MIRASOL community.Mirasol is a golf community and is the site of the PGA HONDA CLASSIC.This is not the ghetto,so if you are an avid golfer and want a great place this it.

They call that profiling!!!! just sayin!!! :eek::eek:

Honda Classic hasn't played there in years......the Mirasol club members didn't want it anymore (traffic, crowds, THE PUBLIC). It has been played across the street at PGA National for the past few years.

Mirasol is tough on sales, the club membership is over 100K and if you buy a house without one you will have to get on a long wait list/can't play there/probably can't sell the house easily. Once you are in, the dues are 10K a year plus what you spend on food/drinks/golf. Add this expense to the 15-20K tax/HOA bill and the cost of the house itself and suddenly it isn't a cheap place to get away to on the weekends anymore!

Mirasol is very beautiful though! Houses range from low 300's to over 2mm.

An aquaintance had a place in MH, he is from the Phillipines and was saving for a trip home (several thousand dollars in airline tickets alone, he has wife/3 kids). 2 weeks before the trip his house was looted, luckily the tickets were bought/paid for but they lost all the kids electronics (Wii, handheld Nintendo games, TV's) in addition to jewlery, digital cameras. He was convinced a neighbor did it. He simply packed up, moved his stuff out and went back to the Phillipines for his vacation never to return to Marsh Harbour. His house was 100 ft from the guard house!

Marsh Harbour is the worst of the three complexes. All 3 were very heavy on speculators, which later became section 8 landlords which further wrecked the complexes.

The local Walmart is only a couple years old and has been a hot spot of crime. Shootings, arson (yeah, girl was lighting clothes on fire in the store/on the racks), robbery and this was last month's SuperCenter excitement:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/cr...n-2042671.html

Look at the guy's pic...........He is a serious looking guy!

I love driving through riviera beach, there are always some gangster olds in there riding on 26's. But I would not stop and take a walk around there. I am also a fan of convenience stores that have lots of bullet proof glass. haha

If the exact location isn't completely locked in to Rivera Beach, I'd take a look in Fort Lauderdale at Sunrise Harbor. They have beautiful apartments/condos that are ON the Intracoastal, with less than a 1/4 mile walk to the beach, as well as the nicest marina in Fort Lauderdale in opinion.

They are right across the street from The Galleria Mall, & pretty much right in the middle of everywhere to go hang out on A1A & the beach. There's not a ghetto thing about it, or it's location at all, and it's all gated with covered parking.

We had a place there for a few years & really liked it. We ended up moving a few miles South for a bigger place, but we have ZERO complaints about Sunrise Harbor.

View from the East side of the building:

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/573/pic014ck.jpg

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/3087/p4110012j.jpg

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/7285/p4110013.jpg


View of the marina:

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/299/pic012k.jpg

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3307/p4110014.jpg


One of the two buildings that make up Sunrise Harbor. Almost all of the units have an uninterupted view of the ocean, as well as North, East, & South of the beach & Intracoatal. A few of the units have a beautiful view of downtown as well:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7448/pic013o.jpg



Two pools:

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/692/p4110015.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/1654/p4100006y.jpg

My wife and I bought a condo in bonita springs in 09, the market has stayed flat since then. We each made a couple of visits to see the areas and the condos. Like anything else research will help out. Our fees have stay flat but I do get a special assement for the dead beats in the complex but its small enough that we should be Ok some of the bigger complexs had so much unpaid fees that property management companies are not doing any work. Good luck It was a short sale previus owner paid 235,000 we bought it for under 60 K

Yea, to bad the TSA doesn't do it...........Just saying.........They would rather pull my MOTHER in a wheelchair out of the line and harass her........

Sunrise harbor looks very nice but are they only apartments or can you buy a condo in the building.?

Not trying to knock on my own door but Clearwater has a LOT of nice, water front condos for sale and for a steal of what they are. Not sure if you looked at the area but I would not over look it.

Google THE PORT condo in Ft. lauderdale. Great building with a dry rack attached.

If you like what you see let me know. I work in the building regularly.

Similar style, in a larger complex, at MARINA GRANDE in Riviera Beach. Loggerhead Marina attached.

Greg

wowsers:eekdrop: those look very nice but they are way to rich for my blood

That's the one shaped like a penis right?

How about just renting a place. If it sucks, go to a different area. It's only part-time anyway. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself and my friends. All of us have looked at places to buy down in the sunshine state, but it didn't really make sense. Even if a beautiful waterfront condo that sold for $500,000 six years ago is now selling for $240,000, it still doesn't make sense. If I go down there and rent a place for 4 months a year, it wouldn't cost me $240,000 in my life time. Trust me, if it made any financial sense, me and my buddies would buy places in Fla to vacation with our families and set up our retirement homes in a NY minute. It just doesn't add up anymore.

I agree it is nice to just rent but I want to be able to take off whenever I want and not have to worry about anything. I am not looking to spend a real lot on a place and I do not even really care if it is on the water. I do not plan on bringing my boat down or even buying a boat to leave down there. I would just rent a nice fishing boat or something. I am only looking to spend 50-75k depending on the location.

I live on the west coast of Florida, Tampa bay area, but I have spent quite a bit of time on the east cost for business matters. Riveria is not where you want to be. Boyton is about 20-30 min south and is much quieter. What price range are you talking about? Also have you ever thought about going in with another person to split the cost?

Chris

OK...I have lived in SE Florida for 36 years and live in Palm Beach, Co. I looked up Marsh Harbor Drive.

Dude...not no ...but HELL NO!!! In that part of town, if you aren't on the Intracoastal or East of it on Singer Island you are in the HOOD!!! Riviera Beach has an interesting demographic. If you are on Singer Island which is a barrier island separating the Atlantic from the mainland...you are good.West of the Intracoastal and west of US 1...look out!!!

I don't know you ...but I suspect you might not fit in style and persona wise...if you know what I mean.

Keep looking. i understand there are some great deals to be had at Marina Grande which is a luxury condo on the ICW at the Blue Heron Bridge and about a mile north of Palm Beach Inlet.

Here is a pic of Singer Island looking south towards West Palm and Palm Beach...stay close to the water and to be safe...east of the ICW in that area and you will do well.

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/w...ngerIsland.jpg

I'm not a Realtor but can tell you alot about Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and the Palm Beaches having spent most of my life here.

That looks beautiful!
Thanks for the info I really appreciate it.

:lolhit::lolhit::lolhit:

It DOES look beutiful, but that is an older picture. If you look to the right of the island behind the bridge you will see 2 smokestacks, that is Riviera beach, and mostly industrial, and low rent with a few nice places on the water.