A house in front of the beach, is it possible in Miami? (Largo: trailer, single)

[chopchop0]

Originally Posted by straight shooter

Like others have already mentioned, it will be impossible, even a home on a canal in Miami or Miami Beach will be tough with your budget. If you want a beach front home for $600,000 you are going to have to look in the Treasure Coast or the Space Coast of Florida. Even there it is going to be hard with only a $600,000 budget.

May be tough even in those areas. If the OP finds something, it will likely be an old house that you are essentially buying for the land

[oronzous]

In Miami a house in front of the sea is not the same as a house in front of the beach.
Biscayne Bay provides a long coastline, but without sandy beaches.

Besides tiny Golden beach, i can't think of an area where houses (not condos) have direct beach access.

[Cubanchic]

A house no but in fort Myers maybe on the beach a condo right on the beach. In the keys maybe a very old house but it would be canal leading to the ocean. Sister's place that they bought in back in 2009, is on the canal one house away from the ocean. They paid 580k for that place and that was a sweetheart deal during the bust times, same property was recently appraised for 900k.

They just recently purchased thier nieghbor's corner lot right on the ocean next to thier house and they paid a million for that for a 1960's home.

[Miserere]

A condo in Key Byscaine, perhaps...not a house, of course.

[MadManofBethesda]

Originally Posted by oronzous

Besides tiny Golden beach, i can't think of an area where houses (not condos) have direct beach access.

There's a small area of North Beach along Atlantic Way that has sfh's with direct beach access. In fact, here's a nice little 4br/3ba one you can rent for only $19,500/month.

An Unaddressed Home for Rent in Miami Beach, FL 33141 - realtor.com®

Or, if that is too "low-rent" for you and you'd like something a little nicer, here's a 6br place for $50,000/month.

Home for Rent - 7737 Atlantic Wy, Miami Beach, FL 33141 - realtor.com®

And on a related matter, it's listings such as these that make me laugh whenever some uninformed poster describes North Beach as some sort of low-rent, sketchy area full of undesirables.

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by ace587

500k will get you a house on the beach but down on the keys though

Um... NO. This person has never even been to the Keys. We don't have beach, much less a house on the beach. It is a chain of coral rock islands, and the reefs alongside it block nearly any sand that could naturally reach us.

You can truck in a beach-full of sand on your waterfront home, and then pay for its replacement when it washes away every year with the rain season. Oceanfront or bayfront homes, by the way, start at around 1.1mil, and easily soar to 15mil.

Please though, help me to laugh hard again, because that was fun, to think you can get an oceanfront home (on a BEACH!) in the Keys for 500k. There are not many houses even on a canal to be had for that, although you can find a few. But guess what, everybody else is waiting for them to come on the market too so you're probably down for a bidding war unless you have cash and can close ASAP. There were a bunch during the foreclosure crisis but they have all been bought up, and those that come on anywhere from $350-450k tend to be in bad enough shape that it will cost 100k in repairs, or are not FEMA compliant and have tens of thousands racked up in fines and of course unpaid flood insurance. Real estate here is a lot like buying real estate in Manhattan (except of course in terms of single family lots and not highrises).

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I don't usually write negative posts raining on people's dreams, but the above comment was too ignorant not to correct.

Please keep in mind, to the OP, the cost of hazard insurance which is mandatory if you have a mortgage on the house. If your house is on any waterfront of any kind, likely it is in a flood zone (or if not, outrageously expensive). You will be required to keep wind, flood, and homeowner's insurance for the full replacement value for the life of the mortgage. Cheaper homes are usually older and not up to recent building code, so will have the highest rates. You are looking at around 4k minimum total per year, to easily upwards of 20k for properties in violation of FEMA, just for the insurances. Then add the tax. Expect tax and insurance rates to rise every year without end, the taxes especially as your beachfront house gets more and more in demand with a recovering economy and no major hurricanes.

Please also keep in mind that protecting your house each year for hurricanes has a significant price tag, something you're not used to on the West Coast. You'll need hurricane shutters and possibly a generator, provisions, and money for repairs.

This sounds all gloom and doom, and it doesn't have to be. But you need to have realistic expectations to be happy with your move and not end up in bankruptcy and foreclosure - there is a reason FL was the #3 foreclosure state in the nation during the crisis. It's not cheap, and beach front is the least cheap of them all.

I sympathize though, all I want is a tiny house on the beachfront too. Maybe someday I will do so in Maine or Rhode Island or Maryland or wherever it is I might find such a thing that is affordable, if it exists anymore.

It's not as fun, but you could consider a condo. There are plenty in Miami for relatively cheap, if you can stomach dealing with the building management, which is often poor. I had a friend who had a really nice place on South Beach with the most amazing view I've ever seen from a home, plus a nice pool and you could walk right out onto the beach at any time. But of course when you do so, you're sharing it with at least 100 people - which is not my type of thing.

[himain]

Never going to happen in Miami or the Keys. You need to head further north-way north

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by himain

Never going to happen in Miami or the Keys. You need to head further north-way north

And please write back and tell us where it is when you find it, I think we would all (who wouldn't?) like to know where there is even somewhat affordable modest beach housing anywhere in the state. Certainly people in SFL clearly have no clue as to where to find some... all we see here are sky-high prices for a lot of very meh homes - houses that you could certainly get for $100k elsewhere, that are going for more than 1mil because they're waterfront. Which is kind of a rip-off when you think about it, because with the constantly rising seawater and the beach erosion every year, your property is smaller and worth less and less every year, plus could easily be taken out altogether by a bad storm.

I move we change demand for houses to focus on safe stable inland homes (but not the ones near sinkholes), and beach houses should become the lowest priced! Only the crazy people like ourselves will want to take the risk still to buy them...

I dream of a small house on a deserted beach with neighbors 5 or 10 minutes' walk away on each side, that costs 150k. Peaceful, with nothing but the ocean and the seagulls. If anybody has found it, please post.

[Reptoid Humidian]

Use THIS satellite map to look at homes and property values in the Miami area.



TerraFly Geo Databases at FIU sponsored by NSF, USGS, NASA, and IBM

[blueherons]

Honestly, there are probably very few places anywhere you can get an oceanfront tear down for $600,000.