Million-Dollar Mobile Home?

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In Florida Keys, that?s ?affordable?
RISMEDIA, Aug. 19, 2005 ? (KRT) ? While California may lead the way in many areas, both good and bad, the Keys aren’t far behind.

A recent Knight Ridder Tribune story about million-dollar mobile homes in California focused on one such double-wide trailer in Malibu. Now the Keys have their own version of the same thing. Only this million-dollar baby is a single-wide.

The ad reads, “Ground level, single wide, manufactured home on oceanfront property in Marathon.” The price? $999,000.

You read it right. Nearly $1 million.

What makes it even more amazing is that the property, which does include two small waterfront lots, sold for a mere $30,000 in 1997. The California property included no land.

However, if La-La Land leads the way, trailers in trailer parks - if any remain - may soon match those high prices.

The reason for the high price on this particular Keys property is complex.

A trust based in Jacksonville is redeveloping 35 individual lots on 105th Street, converting part of them from mobile homes to modulars selling in the $630,000 range, according to Jim Willey Jr., listing agent with Coco Plum Real Estate. In addition, the trust will construct four high-end homes on double lots.

The new modulars have features such as stucco exteriors, two-car garages, Jacuzzi tubs and so forth. Though not in the affordable category, they are reasonably priced for the Keys.

So why the million-dollar single-wide?

According to Willey, the owners are trying to raise cash to move the project along. Another single lot with a mobile home on it lists for $525,000.

The idea is to create a community on 105th. The homes would have docks, there’s talk of a boardwalk along the canal, and sewers are already in.

Apparently other owners of other trailers in the area have also put their homes on the market, many with very high prices on them also.

While businesses throughout the island chain complain about how difficult it is to get workers, these kinds of sales likely will make it increasingly difficult for anyone of moderate means to afford to live here. Add to this the higher taxes that local and county governments contemplate and skyrocketing windstorm insurance, and it’s a formula for some serious problems.

Mobile homes, which really are no longer mobile at all, in the Florida Keys are seeing prices approaching a cool million, including one waterfront trailer on Stock Island that’s on the market for $799,000, said listing real estate agent Larry Salas, 47, of Miami. That price also includes land, however.

“It’s crazy because these trailers, before, they would be like a bad neighborhood. There was a stigma being in a trailer park,” Salas said. “But here it’s gone through such a metamorphosis.”

Copyright ? 2005, Florida Keys Keynoter, Marathon

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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