Modern Public Architecture: Cultural Center & Library in Pompano Beach, Florida

What is it:
  New two-story, 46,000 sf library, cultural center building and civic campus adjacent to City Hall, replacing the old library on E. Atlantic Boulevard open from from 1952 until November 2017.
  The new facility features a standard library, media labs, 5,000sf of theater/flex event space and an exhibition gallery of 750sf. Construction included also a multipurpose room, three tutoring rooms, a group study room, conference room, storytelling/program room, computer lab and the Teen Tech Studio, which is designed to encourage young adults to creatively explore digital media.
  The new library houses a collection of approximately 50,000 items including books, DVDs, CDs, publications and reference materials.
  Site improvements included a new civic plaza featuring raised planter areas, street furniture, a lightning bolt plaza and a new paved breezeway connecting the parking areas to the civic plaza.

Read on about more building and construction details and see all the photos on https://www.modernsouthflorida.com/modernist-angle-blog/modern-architecture-in-public-cultural-center-library-in-pompano-beach-florida

On Modern Architecture and Motorcycle-Riding

I wrote about the obvious benefits and clear connection between motorcycle riding and modern(ist) architecture before. But perhaps you didn’t read that post here, possibly you forgot about it, or maybe you even consider riders a loud bunch of stinky low-lives out to pilfer the local Savings and Loan bank.

Not so.

On Saturday, trying to avoid everything St. Patrick, I ran errands on the bike and then went riding in a nearby area. Did I get lucky.

In one single quiet residential street, I discovered fourteen (!) mid-century homes, some of them even sporting one of my favourites details, a butterfly roof. So today I checked the whole neighbourhood in our broker property database MLS, and found a plethora of mid-century modern homes. A few sold examples are shown below to give you an idea.

The catch: prices in this rather small area have jumped by leaps and bounds – 46% in the last 4 years, now reaching from the $350Ks to $900Ks – and are forecast to go up another 10% this year.

The other catch: I can't tell you about the location on my blog. Modern homes make up under 3 percent of all single family homes for sale in our area, and are not easy to find. Specialising in preserving, promoting and brokering modern architecture, I can not give the secret sauce away for free: brokering is the part that pays the bills. But if you’re interested in buying or selling, I’d be delighted to speak with you.

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Photos: SEF-MLS

Halloween Treat: Buyer’s Market In South Florida

As I had anticipated in a previous post, the property market in South Florida is now firmly favouring home buyers.

Hurricane Harvey (Texas), Hurricane Irma (Florida) and Hurricane Maria (thankfully never made landfall) on the TV screens every minute every day was enough to scare a lot of buyers away.

The September numbers for closed sales (closings taking place) were down 37 percent. That is not astonishing, as closings are routinely postponed as soon as an area is “in the box”, a large rectangle of drawn around a hurricane that moves with it.

Much more telling are pending sales, meaning the number of sales contracts being signed by a buyer and a seller:

42 percent fewer contracts were signed this September versus September 2016. Colleagues from various offices confirm this tendency for the current month as well.

While only few properties for sale were taken off market, all these homes and condos now encounter far fewer buyers.

So while the timing is bad for sellers, it's an invitation for buyers: they face much less competition and often a seller willing to negotiate a bit more than a short while ago.

So if a home (or condo) purchase in South Florida is on your radar, right now is a very opportune time to make it happen.

Please don’t wait too long then if you want to discuss a purchase – and a happy and fun Halloween!

 

(Pumpkin Camper ©unknown)

Revolutionary Real Estate Service Takes Off

In an enlightened twist to traditional real estate services, a boutique brokerage firm in South Florida added a revolutionary service for potential buyers: FACAFUNDS (Future Appropriation of Clients' Advanced Funds).

The boutique firm, Kaiser Associates, Inc, has successfully specialised in an unusual niche in South Florida: the market for contemporary and mid-century modern architecture. A second division of the office focuses on buyer representation in triple-net investments.

Founder and principal Tobias Kaiser, an affable German with a US Master’s degree and 22 years experience as an independent broker, explains his newest client service which is to be introduced today:

“When a buyer contacts a real estate broker, client and broker sort of sniff each other out and then establish property criteria and a price corridor. Often though, these criteria are a moving target."

"Consequently, clients have to constantly adjust their budget and their expectations, which can be very frustrating for both parties.”

Kaiser goes on: “With FACAFUNDS, select clients now have the possibility to transfer all of their earmarked acquisition funds into our escrow account – even before we identify one or more matching properties. The funds stay in the designated account until either we have found a property or until they are earmarked for other purposes and cleared out by the client or by us.”

Typical acquisition budget flow in a FACAFUNDS application; here a nightly refresh cycle.

Only select clients will be invited to participate in the program, and fees for the service are kept on purpose at an affordable monthly 0.9999% of the parked deposit to cover all sorts of expenses.

“FACAFUNDS is not meant to generate a profit for the brokerage while the funds – with a minimum US$130,000 – are parked, which can be as long as 13 years ” explains Kaiser. “Any profit is generated through the acquisition, or when the funds are transmogrified and withdrawn by the authorised parties”, which only include the client and the broker, whoever comes first.

“With FACAFUNDS, the question ‘It’s 11 pm - do you know where you money is?’ has become obsolete. The client has total budget transparency as long as the funds stay in the account, and to a certain extent even after they are gone.”

As much as the new service sounds like a forehead-slapper for consumers and dead-simple to imitate by brokerages, title companies or attorneys, it should be noted that working closely with loan experts from Madoff Bank NLC, Kaiser has spent considerable time and espresso to develop FACAFUNDS, virtually ensuring it will be a huge success for someone.

If you are interested in learning more about Kaiser Associates, Inc. and their FACAFUNDS program, contact them here.

©Pookeeboo Real Estate Times, April 1st, 2013.

Happy Independence Day!

Roaring Gap, NC, ©tckaiser