Toni's sale on Journey's End featured in The Daily Business Review, February 6, 2009.
 

NBC News reporter buys Coral Gables estate

NBC News correspondent Michelle Kosinski, a former South Florida television reporter, will soon spend her down time in a Coral Gables estate she bought for $5.3 million from developer Richard Meruelo.

Kosinski, who worked for local NBC affiliate WTVJ before landing the national news gig, paid about $430 per square foot for a 12,328-square-foot home on nearly two acres in the high-end gated Journeys End neighborhood on Jan. 14, according to Miami-Dade County records. She obtained a $5.3 million mortgage from Midwest Mortgage Associates for the acquisition.

The 9540 Journeys End Road estate is the second Miami-Dade County residence Kosinski, 34, has owned this decade. The Cinnaminson, N.J., native owned a condo in Miami for five years before selling it at a 100 percent profit in August 2006. She relocated to New York in 2005 to begin working at NBC News.

Kosinski declined to comment on the Coral Gables purchase.

Meruelo, the seller, is part of a family of developers who are prominent in South Florida. His brother Homero is principal of the embattled developer Merco Group. Homero’s company made headlines in December when the planned $300 million West Palm Beach condo project Palladio Terrace collapsed in the midst of a foreclosure lawsuit.

Meruelo lives in Miami Beach but does most of his business in Los Angeles as chairman and chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based MerueloMaddux Properties, one of the city’s largest downtown property owners. The publicly traded company focuses on commercial and residential development and redevelopment projects in Southern California.

Despite putting substantial work into renovating the 20-year old Journeys End home after purchasing it for $4.45 million in November 2004, Meruelo was never able to complete the move from Miami Beach. He was unable to sell the pair of Miami Beach homes, so Meruelo and his wife, Maria, chose to market the Coral Gables estate, said listing agent Toni Schrager of Coral Gables-based Avatar Real Estate Services. Schrager was the sole Realtor involved in the transaction, representing both sides.

To help expedite the sale in a struggling housing market, Meruelo priced the six-bedroom, six-bathroom home realistically, Schrager said. He originally asked for $5.9 million and settled on $5.3 million during the 40-day closing period.

Renovations made by Meruelo included hurricane-resistant windows and doors and upgraded interior finishes. The home includes a gourmet kitchen, four-car garage and tropical pool with a waterfall.

Phone messages left for Meruelo at his company headquarters were not returned.

Meruelo “priced the home so it would sell,” Schrager said. “It was an attractive price and you could not get anything like it at that price. Homes priced attractively will sell, while everything else just sits there.”

At $5.3 million, the sale price is on the lower end for homes in the exclusive Journeys End neighborhood, which has 28 homes, she said. Properties in the neighborhood with direct waterfront access can fetch as much as $15 to $20 million.

Journeys End was developed by Hank Green, who built the Datran Center in the Dadeland section of Miami. Green initially kept the 43-acre site for his family to live on exclusively. Once his children grew up, Green divided the site into 2-acre parcels suited to build large homes lined by winding streets and ancient Banyan trees.

Green still lives in the neighborhood with his wife. Members of the philanthropic Blank family also reside at Journeys End.

Homeowners in the neighborhood tend to be long-term users, which limits sale activity, Schrager said.

“Not a lot of properties change hands in there,” she said. “Not much comes up for sale.”

Now Kosinski is set to become the newest Journeys End resident. After graduating from Northwestern University with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Journalism and television stints in Rockford, Ill. and Charlotte, N.C., Kosinski was hired by WTVJ NBC 6 as a general assignment reporter in the fall of 2001. She was named “Woman of the Year” by Women in Communications of South Florida in 2005.

Kosinski’s high-end purchase appears to be an outlier in the current Coral Gables housing market, Schrager said. The pace of home sales in the city has declined with many residents on the sidelines and the removal of speculators from the market.

“Sales are happening, just at a much slower pace,” she said. “People still have normal needs and need to move. A lot of people have the wherewithal to purchase homes.”

Schrager is advising her clients who do not have a pressing need to sell their homes to wait.

“We do not need so much [inventory] in the market,” she said. “If people have a compelling reason to sell then that’s great.”