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February 2004 Folks who have put their money into the belief that the Biscayne Corridor would be a great place to live and play should pat themselves on the back. A recent review of raw real estate data by CNN Money has declared that 33137 and 33138 were in the top eight zip codes in the United States for gains in real estate appreciation for the last five years. The report also expects the double-digit gains to continue for some time to come. Nobody knows this as well as the Humbertson family. When they moved from West Palm Beach to Belle Meade in 1975, they paid $75,000 for their split ranch style four-bedroom, three-bath house located on the canal. “We were young and not knowledgeable,” said Grace Humbertson, a homemaker and mother of three daughters. “We didn’t know if we would like Miami. So we bought here on the water so we could sell the house easier.” The family was hopeful despite their neighbors’ continuing flight from homes that were considered less desirable since they were small and built in the 1930s and 1940s. Area public schools’ reputations were poor, crime was on the rise and more homes were being rented than owned. For those reasons, Humbertson and her husband worried about their investment, and on top of that they had paid much more than they could realistically afford. But before they could give up and consider packing up their bags and their 16-month-old daughter, “the gays started to buy in Belle Meade and fix it up. Yards started to look better, and they weren’t concerned with schools,” Humbertson said. “Then we got the guard gates and that really helped real estate values. I wasn’t crazy about [the guard gates] at first, but they offered some kind of feeling of protection…I don’t know how crime stats compare, but I would guess it went down.” Fast forward to 2004. The Humbertsons are now living in one of the country’s hottest zip codes according to a recent CNN Money report. The median price for a house in 33138 is currently $205,500, an increase of 86 percent over the last five years, and is expected to increase 11.8 percent by June 2004. In 33137, the median price for a house is currently $155,000, an increase of 87.7 percent over the last five years, and is expected to increase 12.5 percent by June 2004. “I don’t know how much our house is worth now,” said Humbertson. “But I can tell you no house on the island is being offered for less than a million.” DAMN! So will the Humbertsons cash in? “We’ve lived here 29 years – if we stuck through the rough times, why leave now?” Exactly. The Humbertsons have a lot more improvements to look forward to, from a new performing arts center – which has been established by developers, investors and economists to be the single catalyst for the spike in real estate values – more restaurants, businesses, foot traffic and an overall improved quality of life. The Humbertsons are increasingly being surrounded by newcomers at the peak of their careers: doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, who are “looking for a good investment and a wonderful area to live that is on the cutting edge of change,” said Marc Gordon of Avatar Real Estate Services, a resident of Miami for 13 years. “What’s happening on the Upper Eastside, the way I always describe it to people, is when I lived in New York 15 years ago and I was watching Chelsea going through its gentrification process. It became the hottest area there.” The forecast for a 12 percent increase in real estate values isn’t particularly remarkable, he explained, “but taking everything into consideration, it is a decent increase. We’re going to see higher increases as condos go up and other changes occur along the Boulevard.” Some people are even going as far to say that the change occurring in Miami is comparable to that in New York at the turn of the century when the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) was built. “Miami is growing up and becoming a world class city,” said Seth Gordon, chair of the Miami Arts & Entertainment Council and M.C. for a recent panel discussion, or rather a cheerleading session, about the future of not only the Omni area just north of downtown Miami, but for all areas surrounding the Boulevard. For more than an hour, speaker after speaker – including Jeff Morr, executive president of Majestic Properties, David Martin, executive vice president of Terra International Developments for Quantum on the Bay, Tina Spiro of Chelsea Gallerias, among a handful of others – spoke about every possible positive impact of the new development with huge smiles on their faces, no doubt because profits have proven to be, and will continue to be, exactly as CNN Money is reporting.
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