Manatee in Dubois Park, Jupiter Florida

Jupiter is a great place to live.  Just ask the manatees.  We see them here all time but yesterday I was at Dubois Park for a public dedication and found this guy lazily lying on the bottom while fish cleaned the barnacles and other crud off his skin.




Looking for a home in the Jupiter area? You can see them all by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate in real time. Every home listed for sale and every picture is there.  If you would like a little guidance, drop me an email at coastalflrealestate@gmail.com.  Between mandatory club memberships and hurricane insurance and school districts, you need to have some critical information to make your search time more productive.

If you would like to speak with me personally, you can visit me in the official, on-site real estate office in Jonathan's Landing, Keyes at Jonathan's Landing or call me at 561-762-4073.

Richard Sites
Keyes at Jonathan's Landing

Palm Beach Gardens waterfront home

Palm Beach Gardens homes are typically known for the prestigious golf courses that surround them.  When you think of Palm Beach Gardens real estate you think of communities like BallenIsles, Old Palm, PGA National and Mirasol Country Club but on the east side of the Gardens is an older section along the waterfront.

The waterfront homes are in communities like Maheu Estates and Snug Harbor and line the small, finger canals that come off the Intracoastal or they face directly on the ICW.  These homes were built in the 1970's so they exhibit typical Florida ranch style characteristics although most have been upgraded.  Take this short video tour of the area.  Then, if you want to see all  Palm Beach Gardens homes for sale you can visit me on the web at Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every house listed for sale is there in real time along with all the pictures.

Tiger back on top again

Tiger Woods is back on top, again.  The Jupiter Island resident claimed a multi-stroke victory in Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill tournament yesterday in Orlando.

Some time back I published this video on his yacht, "Privacy" which was docked in North Palm Beach across from the yacht of Jack Nicklaus.  Interesting that two of the top professional golfers of all time should have their yachts so close.

I thought I would put it on the web again so take a look and send along to your friends.




If you would like to see why people who can afford to live anywhere in the world call this area home, you can see all Jupiter homes for sale and those as far south as Singer Island by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every home listed for sale along with every picture is listed in real time.  No other site has any more or more current information.

Riverbend Park full moon bike rides

Jupiter Farms is home to Riverbend Park. Here, the headwaters of the Loxahatchee River are located and  the 750 acres are home to a resident population of deer and turkeys.  Since the park is big, seeing it on a bicycle is a great idea.  And seeing it by bike on a full moon night is even better.

The park hosts monthly full moon rides. You can call the park to reserve a spot, or two, or three.  Once there you can ride in a small group with a guide along shell rock paths that shine in the moonlight.

The bike trails are very easy to follow by the full moon although your own source of light is recommended.  Children are required to wear helments.  You can ride with a group which has a leader or set off by yourself.  The Park also provides a bonfire at the end.  

Is Jupiter a great place to live?  You bet it is!  If you think you might like to know more you can see my Riverbend Park videos on my You Tube Channel and I post the latest on the Jupiter and Tequesta real estate market on my website Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every home listed for sale in this area is available in real time along with every picture.  No other site has any more or more current information.  Enjoy then send to your friends!

Tabebuia trees in full bloom right now

Spring in Jupiter is wonderful. The days are the perfect temperature and the nights cool. We also have our tabebuia trees in bloom right now. Take a look at this short video I shot in Jupiter Farms.

Landowners Family Day in Jupiter Farms 2012

Jupiter Farms is the largest of our western communities among the others like Ranch Colony and Old Trail.  But the Farms is more loosely organized and we don't have an HOA to impose rules.

If you like zero lot line communities, Jupiter Farms is not the place for you.  Out here we like our neighbors, but  we like them at a distance.

But there is a real sense of community here and each spring the water control district hosts the Landowners Family Day where we all get together for music, bar-b-que and general fun.  Take a look at this year's event.



If you are looking at homes for sale in Jupiter Farms, you can see every one in real time by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate.

Jupiter Farms Landowners Family Day this Saturday

Jupiter Farms is a great place to call home and this Saturday we will again be enjoying the Landowners Family Day.  Here's the fun from 2011.


You can see all Jupiter Farms homes for sale by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate.

After 1,300 days on the market you should get the message

Sellers are a difficult breed to understand.  Why?  I've written about this so many times but yet I see it over and over.

A house in Palm Beach Gardens went on the market priced near $ 4 million with a very experienced agent.  And it sat...as one year became two, became three.  We've got a problem, Houston.

Now this house, listed currently with another experienced agent, is still sitting and what was once a unique and beautiful home is now a white elephant.  Changing agents now or ever again won't fix the problem.  Let's talk value.

If, at the beginning of this saga, the owners had listened to their agent and aggressively re-positioned the house when it failed to sell, they could have walked away with hundreds if not millions more than they will now realize.  How?  Let's say on listing day they didn't price it near $ 4 million but instead priced it at $ 3,000,000.  I would postulate that the value would have been so great it would have sold.  Or to look at it another way, when it didn't sell at $ 4 mil, if the price had been cut to $ 2.5 million, they would have still been light years ahead of where they are now which is close to $ 1.75 million.  And they have had the carrying costs for 3 1/2 years which drives down their net check by tens if not hundreds of thousands.

And now they have a tainted house on their hands.  You see the listing history is available to all agents and the Days on Market is printed on every MLS data sheet.  So this info is no secret.

Would you buy a house that had been on the market over 1,300 days?  If you did, I bet you would be very, very suspicious.

Buyers market or sellers market, you have to provide value and when buyers don't see it, they don't buy.  All the "special things" you did to the house mean nothing if the buyers don't see value.  That is unless you have a one of kind property then the rules change.

You can see all Palm Beach Gardens homes for sale at Coastal Florida Real Estate.

Jupiter single family homes: Paseos from the $300's

Jupiter real estate offers a wide variety of styles from the ranches west of town to the riverfront estates and condos along the beach.  But since we are a family oriented community, there are plenty of single family homes.  As of March 12, there are 641 single family homes for sale in Jupiter.  This includes Jupiter Farms.  The median price is $ 595,000 and has about 2,600 square feet of living space.  The most expensive Jupiter home on the market right now is Alan Jackson's oceanfront estate on Jupiter Island.

We have some great single family home communities and one of our most popular is Paseos located in the heart of Jupiter.  There are about 350 homes in Paseos which is located between Toney Penna Drive and Indian Creek Parkway which puts the location just on the north side of Abacoa and right around the corner from the North County Aquatic Center, Jupiter High School, Jupiter Elementary School and Jerry Thomas Elementary.  The homes were built around the 2003-2005 period.

Right now, there are only 6 houses on the market with the median price around the mid $400's.  The lowest is priced near $370,000 and the highest at $589,000.

In the last 60 days, four houses have sold at a median sale price of $356,300 and at an astonishing 98.4% of list price.  Homes for sale in Jupiter have really stabilized in the $ 300-$400,000 range and that's why you find such high SP/LP ratios.  You won't find this on multi-million dollar properties.

So, if you are looking for a great community with a cool clubhouse, pool and tennis courts you might want to consider Paseos.  You can see all Paseos homes for sale at Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every home and every picture of Jupiter homes listed for sale is available in real time on this site.  No other home has any more or any more current information.

Need help right now?  Email me at coastalflrealestate@gmail.com.

Admirals Cove, real estate market update

Admirals Cove is Jupiter's premier waterfront community.  900 luxury homes line 6 miles of waterways and 45 holes of golf.  It has traditionally been a haven for the very wealthy and celebrities like Tico Torres who are seeking a little privacy.  Celine Dion lived here before moving north to Jupiter Island.

Captains Way at Admirals Cove

As of March 12, there were 90 homes for sale in Admirals Cove.  The range from the lowest at $ 295,000 which is a 2/2 with about 1,900 square feet to the largest which is nearly 11,000 square feet and is priced just under $11 million.

In the last 30 days two houses sold in Admirals.  One for just over $2 million and the other for a little under $4 million.

Looking at homes for sale in Admirals Cove?  You can see them all along with every other home listed in the MLS by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate.  You won't find any fluff on the website since it is designed to load as fast as possible.  If you need a little guidance I have lived here for 22 years and can show you the best values and locations.  You can reach me at coastalflrealestate@gmail.com.

Jupiter Island condos, a market update

Jupiter Island is a tropical paradise located just off the of Florida near Tequesta and Hobe Sound.  This barrier island is about 10 miles long and stretches from the Jupiter Inlet in the south to the St. Lucie Inlet in the north.  It is best known for the celebrities like Tiger Woods and Alan Jackson that live there but the truth is old-money has known about Jupiter Island real estate for decades.

What is not so well known is that on the south end of the island, condos line the beach and Intracoastal waterways and provide the same fabulous lifestyle.  In fact, these condos are nearly the only oceanfront condos until you reach Juno Beach a few miles to the south since Jupiter did not allow building right on the beach.  And there are condos at nearly every price point.

As of March 12, there were 69 units on the market with a median price of  $650,000.  This is a 3/2 with 2,000 square feet of living space.  The highest priced unit is a penthouse listed for $3.9 million.  Here is the view from the unit.

Jupiter Island view looking north

In the last 30 days, 7 units have sold.  The lowest priced unit sold for $ 192,500 and the highest priced unit sold for $ 1,125,000 and was an oceanfront penthouse.

You can see all Jupiter Island condos for sale by visiting Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every unit and every picture is listed in real time and no other site has any more or more current information...it's all here.

Coyote at the Honda Classic

A week or so before the Honda Classic was played in Palm Beach Gardens, crews were busily at work preparing the grounds.  Part of the preparation was keeping the large flocks of birds from walking, sitting, pulling up the greens and other usual bird things.  The traditional method of keeping the birds moving was to post a plastic owl, usually a great horned owl, nearby as if he was watching the birds with an eye toward a meal.

In fact, you see these plastic owls all over on places like patios and around marinas.  They are all great horned owls so this species must be the baddest of them all.

I was at the PGA National Resort the week before and found the latest addition to the faux predator crew working near the 18th green.  Here's what Mr. Coyote looked like as he did his job.

Looking at PGA National homes for sale?  You can see every home listed for sale along with every picture at Coastal Florida Real Estate.  And this site is designed to load as fast as possible.

Cypress Creek Natural Area Grand Opening

Jupiter real estate, while centrally located near the ocean, is also surrounded by natural preserve areas.  What this means is that Jupiter will never be subject to the congestion of a Boca Raton or Broward County where civilization stretches out west to the boundary of the Everglades.

Boca congestion near Glades Road

Just west of Town is the area known as Jupiter Farms and the five communities that make up Ranch Colony.  Along the way, you will pass the 750 acre Riverbend Park and now the County is adding the Cypress Creek Natural Area to the mix.

Located on the north side of Indiantown Road, the main road between the Beeline Highway and the ocean, Cypress Creek is about 2,000 acres of high quality pine woodlands and meadows and marshlands that provide a natural buffer for the scenic Loxahatchee River headwaters.  The first section to open is about 2 miles along the historic Jupiter to Indiantown old road.  Here you can hike, bike or ride a horse for fun.

On March 24th, the County will be hosting a grand opening so our "city mice" friends can come out and see what they have been missing here in our western communities.

If you are looking at homes for sale in Jupiter, don't be afraid to check on the Farms.  There are about 150+ houses on the market right now at every price point and they are still only 15 minutes from the ocean.  If you like privacy, wildlife, as well as peace and quiet, you will love Jupiter Farms.  If you need some guidance, let me know since I have lived here for 12 years and can point you in the right direction.  And before you leave this page, please subscribe to the blog.

Would you move your shower for $ 600,000?

Every time you  think you have heard it all in life something comes along that rocks your boat...again.

One of the jobs of being a real estate agent is to counsel people on how to effectively get their homes sold.  However, someone once said that anyone who acts as their own lawyer has a fool for a client and the same could be said of real estate.  If you are an agent just because you are selling your own house doesn't mean you won't fall into the same traps that keep only 1% of the For Sale By Owner homes from selling.

Remember, hope is not an effective selling strategy.

In selling your home, only five things make a difference.  And one of these five is accessibility.  Now I'm not talking about providing ramps to comply with ADA, I'm talking about making the home easy to show.

NAR statistics show that homes on lockboxes get shown 30% more than those that are not on lockboxes.  But what about the valuables we have around the house?  Move them out and lock them up, then put your house on a lockbox.

So what about the $600,000 shower?

Recently, I tried to schedule a showing on a home listed by the agent/owner for nearly $ 600,000.  I wanted to show it at 10 AM, but when I called her she told me she left for work at 11 and showered at 10.  Could I please make it another time?  Really?

Are you telling me that you wouldn't take a shower 30 minutes earlier than normal for $ 600,000?  YES, that's exactly what she was telling me.

Now, since every other house I had scheduled was "Appt. only" I took the only reasonable course.  We skipped her house.  If she thought I was going to reschedule my entire day so she could shower at her normal time she was really, really wrong.  Forget my schedule, what about everyone else involved.  Should I call them all again and ask them to move their appointments so she could take her normal shower?

Hope is not an effective selling strategy even if this owner thinks it is.

You can see all Jupiter homes for sale at Coastal Florida Real Estate where every home and every picture is listed for you in real time.  No other site has any more or more current information.  And before you leave this page, please subscribe.

iPad HD...does your agent have one?

Okay, the big news everywhere is the expected release tomorrow of Apple's iPad 3.  Apple, a master of marketing, releases cryptic notes to the media who then fly into a frenzy checking every nook and cranny that might give them an idea of what is to come at these big events in the Bay Area.

The current thinking is that the new device will not be called the iPad 3 but rather the iPad HD.  Just the prospect that this will not be a totally new device but another incarnation of the already popular iPad 2 is enough to give Mac Heads the shivers.  Reports have surfaced that web resellers like Gazelle have been swamped with people trying to dump their iPad 2's before they become old news.  In fact, I just checked eBay and found over 5,000 iPads of different generations listed for sale.

Apple has sold 55.3 million of these nifty tools, no doubt many to real estate agents.  Those who like to boast of having the latest toy/tool have enjoyed parading around with their iPads brandishing them at every opportunity.  At a conference last year I was entertained by a woman who was positively ecstatic about what she said she could accomplish with her new tablet.  When I suggested that a netbook could do everything she mentioned, and more, I thought the room full of people was going to lynch me just for daring to suggest that the little device was not the be-all, end-all of technology.  I do not suffer from tablet envy.

So what is the point?  Well, if you are impressed by a tablet totting agent, how will this help sell your house?

The answer is:  It won't.

Now, I've got nothing against tablets.  But, people buy houses when they recognize value, not when the listing agent carries around a tablet.  I watched once as a listing agent tried to take notes of the property on her iPad, notes that could have been taken much quicker and easier with a pad and pen or better yet dictated into a recorder or the recording portion of the phone.  That would have saved me and the owners the time of watching her tap letters, one at a time, with her index finger.

So, there are five things that will get your house sold...and an iPad 3 or HD or a Galaxy 10.1 or an Archos or any other tablet is not included on this list.  Stick to the basics, provide a good value and you will sell  your house!  Period!

Remember, hope is not an effective selling strategy and a tablet is not either.

You can see all homes for sale in the Jupiter to Palm Beach Gardens area by visiting my website at Coastal Florida Real Estate.  Every home, along with every picture, in the MLS is there in real time.  No other site has any more or more current information.  And the site is designed to load fast.  And before you leave this page, please subscribe.