Woodfield Country Club Kid Interactive Wet Playground a Big Hit

Just last week Woodfield Country Club opened the doors to the new pool complex which includes a revamped resort style pool, a lap pool and an interactive wet playground (aka splashpad as some Woodfield residents were calling it).  I had the chance to hang out with my son Aiden at the pool before anyone showed up.  Using my handy iphone, I shot a video using the time-lapse feature which covers pretty much the entire wet playground

 

The biggest hit with the kid's is the waterslide.  It's wide enough for several toddlers to use at once  and when they go one at a time, they can show off their freestyle skills.  You'll see a life guard always on duty because a little bit later in the day, there are a good dozen or so kids using this playground at a time.  On the other side of the wet playground are 2 waterguns good for soaking your friends in the hot sun.  There are a bunch of rainfall and waterfall features including a bucket that fills up with water and spills over on those lurking beneath at the right time. 

In the sky you will see a blue colored triangle.  There are actually several of those spread amongst the various playgrounds to provide shade.  Supposedly there wasn't enough shade during the opening week, so there is talk of possibly adding more shade to this area.

In the distance you can see one of the 2 dry playgrounds.  That playground is more for kids 4 and up.  There is a 2nd playground in the distance that is covered in synthetic grass and more aimed at kids 2 - 4 (in my opinion as a parent of a 2 and 5 year old) .  This 2nd playground is right off the new kidz korner giving access to the building from the playground.  

Woodfield Country Club Real Estate Market is Hot

As of today, July 26, 2016 there are 26 homes under contract for sale in Woodfield Country Club ranging in list price from $239,500 to $3,725,000.  There are actually 27 homes under contract for sale if we account for my private sale at 6359 Avalon Pointe.  There might be more private sales out there, not on the MLS (multiple list)

Inventory remains pretty tight with 70 places for sale.  Considering there are approximately 1300 home in WFCC, that means only 5% of homes are on the market.  List prices range from $235,000 up to $3,300,000

There have been 68 homes reported to the MLS as closed over the last 12 months.  Sales prices have ranged between $135,000 and $2.5 million

As we get closer to season, the colder months up North (typically November - April), we should get an uptick in number of homes for sale.  We might see a 10 - 20% uptick in homes.  Considering there are only 70 homes on the market now and 20 communities within Woodfield itself, that might only mean 1 or 2 extra listings in any given neighborhood.  Seeing how sales are robust and inventory is light, you can expect the list prices to edge up in price.

If you are a buyer, you might want to consider something that is currently on the market because once the majority of 'snow bird' buyers return, the inventory will keep thinning out eventually driving prices even higher.  Plus LRP Phase 1 is almost complete.  Residents have been hearing completion would be late June to early July 2016, but since we are almost in August, the date will probably be pushed to Labor Day 2016.

Please keep in mind the fee to join Woodfield is set to increase at the end of September 2016.  If you do not purchase prior to then, it will cost you are extra $10,000 to join.

Current Woodfield Country Club Membership fee (prior to $10,000 increase)  The non-refundable $20,000 fee will jump to $30,000

I have another home on the market going through extra renovations over the next few months and will prove to be the buy of the year.  If you want to be updated on that home, please send me an email at roiresearch@gmail.com

Thank you
Craig Greenberg
561-376-8540

Woodfield Country Club membership initiation fee update

Per Woodfield CC:

The Strategic Planning Ad Hoc Committee and Finance Committee both unanimously recommended that the Board increase the Initiation Fee from $20,000 to $30,000, effective October 1, 2016. The Board unanimously approved this recommendation at its meeting on Thursday, May 19. 

Woodfield is joining the party with other Boca Raton/Delray Beach Country Clubs raising their initiation fees.  The next strategic move on part of a Club is to reduce the equity refund.  Right now the least expensive equity is Sports at Woodfield CC which runs $38,000.  The refund at this time is 25%, which has been lowered from 50% in August 2014.  

Moves like this sometimes help increase sales because the least expensive buy in option is $20,000 initiation + $38,000 equity = $58,000.  Come Oct 1,  2016, the buy in jumps up to $68,000 for the same fabulous country club lifestyle.

More than 1000 Kids call Woodfield Country Club home

Woodfield Country Club in Boca Raton published that more than 1,000 kids call Woodfield CC home:

http://www.woodfield.org/family-and-kids

Woodfield really does cater toward the young.  I have 2 children myself and have taken advantage of the facilities meant for our kids:

-Social Events:  parties, story telling, character dinners, youth nights, scavenger hunts, etc….

-Just for Teens:  video game trucks, pool parties, video arcade, etc…

-Juniors Golf, Tennis and Fitness programs

-Juniors Dining

-Juniors Spa & Salon

-Kid's Korner:  after school actives, dance, sports, arts & crafts

-Winter, Spring and Summer Camps

and let's not forget about Woodfield's current renovation about to open within weeks (for our kids)

-new Kids Korner (brand new Clubhouse just for kids)

-Interactive Waterpark and Dry Playground right outside Kids Korner

For anyone who is not familiar with me, my name is Craig Greenberg.  I am a realtor who lives in Woodfield Country as well as an investor who fixes up homes meant for young families.  My website can be found here:  www.wfccsales.com

When I say my home renovations are meant for young families, I am fixing up homes that usually have at least 5 bedrooms (for growing families) and  a 3 car garage.  Even if you don't have 3 cars, that extra garage bay comes in quite handy when you have to store years and years worth of toys your kids (or you) can't part with yet… or an armada of bikes, mopeds, scooters, etc….  Trust me, a 3 car garage is a must. 

Our decor is along the line of Transitional and Modern, something like GL Homes is doing with The Bridges and 7 Bridges..  We don't go too far overboard where we make a home feel 'cold' if it's too modern, but we make sure we are not considered Traditional.  If you are in the market for a luxury home and want to be in Woodfield, please feel free to contact me:

Craig Greenberg

Craig@WFCCsales.com

561-376-8540

Woodfield Country Club "New" Gym

Woodfield Country Club

New Fitness Centers Opens | Boca Raton, FL

The city of Boca Raton granted Woodfield CC a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy to open the Fitness Center early on October 5th.  The remainder of the Cascades complex is set to open November 9th.  This includes the Spa, Blendz Café and the lower level Fitness Studio.

Per Woodfield Country Club:

Blendz - In addition to the traditional morning offerings like bagels, fruit and coffee, Blendz will now feature complimentary oatmeal. New items like Greek yogurt, cappuccino and espresso will be available for a charge. 

Salon - The Salon will feature a brand new makeup display filled with Babor makeup products as well as an expanded Boutique complete with fresh lines of retail goods.  

Fitness Studio - The new studio will be utilized for our gentle class formats such as Yoga and Pilates. It will also function as additional space for Small Group Training and expanded functional training. 

So far my expectations for the gym have been exceeded.  There is more than enough cardio equipment to handle peak hours of training.  Treadmills, Ellipticals (both Precor and True Fitness), Octane Fitness lateral ellipticals, traditional stair masters, the difficult stair masters like walking up a flight of stairs (aka the Gauntlet), fan bikes, upright Life Cycles, and recumbent True bikes.  I might be missing some cardio equipment, but if you like variety with cardio machines, Woodfield has it's members covered.

The fitness center also has a spinning room, upstairs private studio for training and classes as well as the upcoming downstairs fitness studio which was touched upon earlier.

As for strength training, the fitness center is well equipped.  I have been strength training for a good 25 years now, and even competed in bodybuilding shows when I was in college (and won the 21 and under), I can be a bit of a snob when it comes gyms.  I grew up on Long Island and trained with pro bodybuilders from Jimmy "the bull" Pellechia at Gold's Gym in Northport to Jimmy Quinn at Worlds Gym in New York City, and now Dareem Charles at my other Boca Gym, BusyBody, the type and variety of equipment will determine the crowd the gym draws.

There is a plethora of Cybex Eagle NX and Cybex Prestige machines that cover all body parts.  Legs are well equipped with lying leg curls and seated leg curls for hams, leg extensions for quads, glute blaster for the rump, adductor and abductor combo machine and a leg press.  There is also a smith machine and power rack for those that prefer free weights as well as a Cybex leg press.  Not a fan of the Cybex leg press as that is where my only training injury came from when I had 990lbs on the machine and my knee gave out.  Sounded like a 5 year old jumping on bubble wrap.  Gave me a limp for a few years but I have recovered

New to the gym are the Hoist Fitness line of machines.  I think there are 4:  chest, shoulders, back and biceps.  I like these machines.  They are very smooth and hit the muscle groups even better than Hammer strength machines (in my opinion).   The trainers in the gym tell me 30% of the resistance comes from your own body weight.  That's good because it's hard to find enough plates to load on these machines.

Before we get into free weights, there is a variety of other strength training apparatus.  There is the heavy bag for boxers, good selection of medicine balls, rubber band training and TRX tension training. Woodfield finally put a dedicated stretching area for people to stretch out of the way and also train abs. It is located in the old Blendz café.  The unusual thing about this area is the fish bowl off of the upper lobby - see below photo:

This may give some people apprehension about using the area located right in front of the window.  Then again, attention seekers might flock to train in this area as well.  Depends if your glass is half full or not.

On to the free weights.  The floor has great sound suppression, so if you drop a dumbbell, whether 5 lbs or 120 lbs, the floor absorbs the noise.  This is a big plus since the spa is located beneath the gym and won't disrupt those trying to relax.  Smart move.  As you guess, the gym is equipped with dumbbells from 5 lbs to 120 lbs.  I am probably one of 5 people in the entire Club that actually use the 120's.  There are preset barbells from 30 lbs to 120 lbs.  I have heard that 120 lbs barbell is about to be removed in lieu of it's 20 lbs counter part.  Makes sense and not a big loss.  If someone really  needs a 120 lbs barbell, there are more than enough plates in the gym to accomplish that with a barbell.

The free weight area is big and small at the same time. Woodfield dedicated a decent portion of the gym to free weights, but it should have been bigger.  If there are 3 people in this area at the same time, it feels claustrophobic.  Not good.  This is why I start my training at 6:15AM in the morning to avoid the crowds that show up at 8AM after they had bagels and coffee at Blendz café.  There is a Smith Machine, Power rack, 1 flat bench, 1 incline bench, a preacher curl bench, 1 seated calf raise and a variety of benches (3 incline/flat benches, 1 decline and 1 chair) that can be used with dumbbells or the smith machine, power rack or cables.  The gym finally has a cable cross over machine which has a connected lat pull down, cable row and assisted pull up and dip machine.  The gym permanently affixed the lat pull down handle and cable row handle to the machines, making less variety for back training.  The only reason right now why i keep my separate gym membership at BusyBody is for back.

Per Woodfield, Coming Soon!

• High-impact wall in the Functional Training area. 

• Water station near cardio machines.

• Gatorade, water bottles and protein bars will return to Cascades when the new Blendz Café opens.

• Junior Certification Program Wristband Policy - a new policy that will require certified Juniors to wear designated colored wristbands while using the Fitness Center. Stay tuned for further details.

• Fitness Studio - Woodfield's new first floor Fitness Studio will open soon and will provide additional space for gentle class formats and expanded functional training. 

• AudioFetch - a new feature that will allow you to wirelessly sync your smartphone audio to TVs anywhere on the Fitness Floor.

• Performance IQ - state-of-the-art training program that wirelessly connects heart rate monitors and cardio equipment to allow real time display of performance metrics. Performance IQ and heart rate monitoring will be featured in select cycle classes beginning November 2.

I am a big fan of Woodfield and am very excited for everything coming up.  The gym is a great introduction into what Woodfield has put into this 2 year renovation coined the Long Range Plan (LRP).  Can't wait to see the remainder of Cascades on Nov 9th and ultimately the pool area, poolside restaurant and kid center in the Spring of 2016.  This is a world class facility that is attracting young families in Boca Raton and I look to do my part to bring younger members into the Club now that the renovations are finally being unveiled.

If you see me in the gym, please feel free to say "Hi!"  I tend to keep my headphones on and remained focused so I can get in and out of the gym quickly to get back to my family and so I can work on selling more homes within the Club and Boca Raton area.  Definitely come up and introduce yourself.  Just don't do it while I'm pressing the 120 lbs dumbbells :-)

This is not an official Woodfield marketing piece and all photos are property of Craig Greenberg, Woodfield Country Club resident and realtor.

Craig Greenberg, realtor®
561-376-8540
Craig@WFCCsales.comWFCCsales.com

all rights reserved - copyright 2015©

Mold Inspections

We sell a lot of real estate in Florida, especially Boca Raton and Delray Beach.   

Whenever we represent the buyer, we always suggest three inspections: 

• Home

• Pest/Termite

• Mold 

Mold inspections have become more prevalent lately as part of a buyer’s overall due diligence (DD) on a property.  Whether you’re using a standard contract where the seller is obligated to repair items up to 1.5% of the purchase price (PP) for warranted items and/or 1.5% of the PP for wood destroying organisms (WDO) or an as-is contract where you have a kick out clause for the buyer if the Buyer does not approve of the property after inspecting it, a mold inspection should always be done. 

If you chose not to inspect within your inspection period, it will then become your buyer’s problem if and when he goes to resell and their buyer opts to do a  mold inspection.  We have run across two types of inspections – full inspections where the inspector takes air samples, interstitial samples and surface samples to detect for mold.  This is the desired inspection because if the air samples show elevated signs of mold, the interstitial samples and surface samples will help located the source. 

The other type of inspection, which I find instigates problems without a solution, is just taking air samples.  I have seen home inspectors whipping out the air sample machine taking multiple samples in different rooms/areas of the home.  The  problem with this method is IF elevated levels of mold are found, the inspector will only tell you in which room or area of the home the elevated levels are found, but won’t tell you the source.  In Palm Beach County, Florida, the buyer pays for inspections.  When a buyer uses this method of mold inspection, he now shifts the financial burden on the Seller to locate where the mold is coming from.  Your buyer might lose the property if their inspector does not give a protocol on what to remediate.  This is definitely a grey area that could kill a deal.  The buyer might feel they gave their inspection to the seller, but the seller is given a vague report, how do you proceed from here?  If the seller choses to proceed, then the Seller can hire a full service mold inspector to locate the source.  Full service inspectors in this part of Florida are in the $500 to $1000 range.   It's at this point any future reinspection costs are the responsibility of the buyer.

I highly suggest having a mold inspection if you are representing the Buyer, and more importantly to save time, stress and possibly keeping the deal together, use a full service mold inspection company and not only take air samples.  This is all my opinion and it is up to you buyer in the end what option they choose, if they do so.

Any questions, please feel free to call or email

Craig Greenberg

Realtor

(561) 376-8540 cell

Craig@wfccsales.com

Woodfield Country Club Real Estate

Out with the old, In with the new

Out with the Old, In with the New

If it were not for innovation, things would remain copacetic. Out with the old, in with the new.  What a timeless expression of progress.  An expression of "lets move forward."  Without it, we'd all be using AOL mail vs. Gmail.  We'd have to carry a phone, camera, calculator, compass, video recorder, voice recorder, moblie internet device, etc.... and now even a wallet, instead of one smart phone.  We'd all look like Fred Flintstone running ourselves ragged vs. driving a Prius.  What I am getting at is change is good.  Change is what helps get us to the next level.  In real estate, sometimes it's the agent that needs to change.

It's one thing if your realtor is making progress.  In that situation, change is not necessary.  When change is necessary is if and, I'd hate to think, when a consistent agent becomes stale.  Yes, just like a listing can become stale, so can a hotshot agent.  Whether we are dealing with mega-successful trader who can go from hot to cold, the same can happen to a realtor.

In the Boca Raton country club markets where I focus, Woodfield Country Club and The Polo Club, there are some listings that have been on the market for years, and with the same agent.  I can understand loyalty, which is hard to come by in real estate, but as a Seller, if my super listing agent has not been able to sell my home in one to two years, it's time to move on. 

It's time to think outside the box.  It's time for change.   Going from the well-known listing agent to listing agent seems like the right thing to do, but sometimes you need to think more creative than that.  Super listing agents tend to have 30 to 50 listings at a time.  It's almost like having to throw a dart at dartboard to chose which homes to advertise.  Typically it's the people who complain the most that we try to appease.  Do you really want to find yourself in this situation?  A bulls-eye on a dartboard?  If your home is listed with a top agent, I'm curious to know if your agent is showing up to accommodate showings or if they are sending one of their assistants to meet prospective buyers and/or realtors.  If you insist on using a super agent with too many listings, make sure you include a clause in your exclusive listing agreement that your 'super agent' be present at all showings.

If you are thinking about Buying or Selling  in Boca Raton country clubs, please feel free to contact me.  I will let you know about the latest innovations and creative marketing I will be using on our side to find the right home of your dream and fill you in on the strategy

Craig Greenberg, realtor

(561) 376-8540 cell

craig@wfccsales.com