Presentation by the Residences of Lake Osborne at Tuesday's City Commission meeting (5/6)

Here we learn that, for some unknown reason, this neighborhood association has changed its name from the "Residents" to the "Residences" of Lake Osborne. We can assume that this reflects a change in focus of the association to represent inanimate objects instead of the people that live in the neighborhood. We learn that the neighborhood has been stable over the past 50 years, which parallels this public comment by a resident of this neighborhood. This comment was made at the meeting when the City Commission passed a resolution of support for a Spring training facility in John Prince Park. Which the same neighborhood representative at the podium signed off on. You can see examples of the neighborhood's "stability" interspersed through the video.

So, this rosier than reality presentation before the Commission led me to do some fact-checking. Here is what I found from a local real estate agent with access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

The Residences of Lake Osborne Heights area, shown in gray-green on this neighborhood association map, makes up almost all of the area west of I-95, north of the City limit, to Lake Osborne and an area north of Sixth Avenue South.

Portion of Utility Service Area Map

This map shows multiple jurisdictional lines including water, sewer, electric and the Lake Worth city limits. Note that the electric service area is in yellow. The north/south road, south of the "r" in Lake Osborne on the map,  is High Ridge Road and is also the city limit.

• In the area delineated by the MLS which takes in much of the same area as this neighborhood association, 136 properties were on the market during the last 24 months. Condominium/apartments made up the vast majority of sales with a total of 87. Traditional single family residences tallied 49 listings. Note that per the MLS map, this area also includes all the properties between the southern Lake Worth city limits to Lantana Road. This is outside the city of Lake Worth and is served by FPL. See a portion of the city utility service area map from the city's website showing the service area.
• Thus, about half of this area enjoys electric service provided by FPL which carries lower rates and the market would reflect this in higher property values. If anything, this skews the sales value data upward for this area since it does not solely reflect sales in the city of Lake Worth.
• One particular address, 2204 Lake Osborne Drive, which shows up as Building 6 on the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's website, had three units sell at a median price of $26,500 and an average price of $28,000. If you look on the map above, the area where this particular building is located is outside of the boundaries of the neighborhood. This is odd as this building houses a person that is "glued to the hip" of any representative from ROLO at city meetings. This building's real estate performance is the lowest performing "outlier" of the set of data. Which makes one wonder if there is something unusual or unique about this building. Hmmmm.
• Of the 87 condominium/apartment sales (how they are listed in the MLS), 52 of them were from the high density Murry Hills development. This waterfront property tallied a median sales price for individual units over the past two years of $40,950 and the average price was $35,074. With the average price being lower than the median, there were more lower value sales than were at the higher end of the range.
• It's important to note how other sectors of the city have performed with sales volume in the wake of the Great Recession during this two year period. Sales in the northeast part of the city (traditionally referred to as District 3) totaled 174. A smaller geographic area southeast of Lake Avenue and Dixie Hwy. (District 4) rang up 78 sales. The northwest area of the city (District 2) had 105 sales. And the part of District 1 west of Dixie and east of I-95 had 64 real estate transactions. As stated above, the area that includes ROLO includes areas outside of Lake Worth, all the way south to Lantana Road. Not all of the 136 sales were in the city of Lake Worth or the ROLO neighborhood.
• Single family home median values in the MLS area that includes the ROLO neighborhood had a median price of $127,500 and an average price of $116,100. This is not exactly setting the residential real estate world of south Florida on fire. It actually represents an area under-performing to what its potential actually could be.
• Quite to the contrary of these facts, Mr. Waples states in his presentation that "the housing inventory keeps shrinking." I'm not sure what he means by this. Does he mean there are less houses available on the market due to their dilapidated condition? Or does he mean that there are less homes on the market currently? Or, does it mean that they are actively deterring new redevelopment opportunities? If the Commission wanted to ask questions like this, the neighborhood association provided no opportunity as the three made a quick exit, stage right out the door immediately after their presentation. Most all other neighborhood presentations at the podium wait and ask if there are any questions from the Commission. This presentation was different.
• And, just for the record, there are 13 properties in this MLS area that are under contract and 22 active listings as of the date of this post.
• Mr. Waples talks about the neighborhood's "location, location, location" as being a key to its attractiveness and 50 year stability. These strengths include "world class diversity with cultures from around the globe", "very little if no absentee landlords", "close to I-95 and the Tri-Rail station", that is waterfront property "surrounded by beautiful Lake Osborne", "proximity to Palm Beach State College and of course the park for the people, John Prince Memorial Park", etc. With all these strengths and inherent assets, it should be performing better in terms of property value. For some reason it is not and that means that something is holding it back. Could it be the residents themselves or at least their leadership?
• Again from the presentation, Mr. Waples says "our values are increasing which makes us a very desirable place to live." This statement is contrary to Mr. Waples' experience with his own property! Check out the assessed value history of his property. This is public information from the property appraiser's office. Contrary to his presentation, his own property decreased in assessed value between 2012 and 2013 by $8,758 or a little over ten percent. How does the property appraiser determine a property's assessed value? He does so by looking over sales values over the previous year. According to this, property values must be falling for similarly situated properties. Why? 

These are the facts as I could assemble them since Tuesday night. All I know is that the city promoted itself as a city with two waterfronts for a very long time. Here is a sign from back in the 1960s along U.S. 1 in front of the current City Hall building:

The ROLO neighborhood is on the waterfront, in the middle of Palm Beach County, Florida. It is not currently the shining neighborhood on the hill as the presentation suggested. What we heard on Tuesday night was contrary to the facts and reflected a denial of the real conditions present in the neighborhood by its leadership. The presentation left more questions than answers and this neighborhood continues to be a drain on city resources. When presented with opportunities to improve the situation in their neighborhood, this small group of people does everything in their power to resist change. Maybe they are the biggest part of the problem.