Ep. 47 – HOA Verses No HOA: Do you like matching mailboxes?

Matthew Maschler:
Welcome to the Real Estate Finder podcast. I’m Matthew Maschler, real Estate Broker with signature real estate finder.com. And
Staci Garcia:
I’m Stacy Garcia with, um, signature, but also I have my own website and I’m wearing my website t-shirt today. Love
Matthew Maschler:
The, I love that T-shirt. No, h hoa boca.com. Yep.
Staci Garcia:
So if you’re looking for a house without people telling you what to do on your house, in your house, around your house, um, contact me.
Matthew Maschler:
Should, should, should we put that shirt on the, uh, on the t-shirt store?
Staci Garcia:
Yeah,
Matthew Maschler:
Absolutely. I have the t-shirt store@prowrestlingtees.com slash matthew mania. But there are some, uh, signature and other, uh, real estate branded t-shirts on, uh, pro wrestling tees.com. Just go to the web website, real estate founder.com and click click pick a shirt on on the store. The link is right there. You can get identity of the realtor shirt. We have, uh, signature, uh, real estate funder shirts. We have a Matthew Mania podcast shirts, real estate finder podcast shirts in a, in a nice, uh, blue color. And, uh, and we can do the no HOA Boca. So, so what, what is your goal with No Ho a Boca?
Staci Garcia:
I’m not sure. I, I, I have it filtered so that only houses, hopefully only houses that show up on my website have no hoa. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, I mean, and there’s a very specific client, customer, uh, buyer for, uh, a no community, and they’re very limited here.
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of buyers who, who, who, who, who, who do not wanna live in an HOA community. They don’t want to abide by the rules, follow the rules, be told what color they could paint at their house, and, uh, the height that they can, uh, uh, grow their grass. So there, there’s actually, there’s a lot of, uh, houses that are not in HOA communities, it’s just that they don’t become for sale all that often. Um, so, uh, but that’s the, some of the tension, the, you know, there’s a dichotomy of boton, right? There’s a stereotype of Bo Raton, but Bo Raton has, um, a lot of, uh, different, uh, people. Right. You know, people think it’s old, but there’s colleges here. So it’s old and young. Uh, people from New York, people from South America, there’s a lot of everything. And, um, and, you know, some people don’t mind the hoa. Um, it was interesting. I was, uh,
Staci Garcia:
Are you gonna say, I was reading next door?
Matthew Maschler:
No, not next door. I was, um, when you and I were at, uh, Stasia South. Yeah. And, uh, what they, they, they’re governed by three HOAs. Yes. So there’s, um, there’s the, uh, Estancia hoa, which covers, uh, the park. There’s a park that, uh, all three are, the three or EIAs are 4, 3, 3 Estancia West Estancia,
Staci Garcia:
Just Estancia,
Matthew Maschler:
Estancia, Estancia West and Estancia South. Right. Uh, and they share a common park in the park. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Um, so there’s the Estancia Master HOA that covers the park. Then each of the three Estancia has an HOA that covers their own guard gate and presumably their own cable and their own rules. Right? It does. Um, uh, so it’s, you know, the, the, the, the bigger one is limited to just the park than three totally separate HOAs for the three different communities. But then there’s this other HOA Verde, is it called? What’s it called?
Staci Garcia:
Uh, VI Verde, I believe.
Matthew Maschler:
Vi Verde hoa. And, uh, when I talk to people, uh, that live there, they, they say it does nothing. Um, all, all it covers is, uh, is the lakes and drainage, but they don’t actually do anything. And, uh, the, it, it reminded me that was actually the original purpose of HOA is in Florida, if you go back, you know, 50 years, a hundred years to wherever HOAs in Florida were, were started, was all about those, uh, those, the drainage districts that the, the, the drainage, uh, the regulators needed a contact person, uh, to either enter premises or maintain the lakes sometimes. And, uh, so the HOAs were formed originally for that very purpose. Um, it’s not, it doesn’t mean that they, uh, that they cut the grass around the lake and maintain it and do plantings or anything of that nature. That is not what the, uh, the drainage, you know, the, the, that one H HOA that all they do is drainage. Uh, it’s a most HOAs that’s just a part of what they do. And it’s not even a, an important part because they can go 20, 30, 40 years without having to do anything, uh, from the, from the water authorities. Um, but there, but there’s that one hoa, uh, that still exists remnant from, from, from a long time ago, uh, that, uh, exists purely to be a contact person. It’s
Staci Garcia:
Interesting that that’s the origin, because that Palm Beach drainage authority, whatever it is mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s, it comes up all the time. Sure. It might, you might think it’s so obscure if you are new to real estate or if you’re just a, a real, a person who buys or whatever. If you have a house that backs up to one of these canals, uh, you don’t know how far back your property goes, or if it’s overgrown or if the water’s too high, or if there’s a ton of wildlife, there’s a million things mm-hmm. <affirmative> that could potentially happen back there. So, um, I think it’s awesome that Palm Beach County, or, and every, possibly, every county takes care of all of those canals. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, some people don’t like it. Yeah.
Matthew Maschler:
Well, cause what people don’t like about it is maybe they built a dock because they haven’t heard from anybody in while <laugh>. Right. And then all of a sudden they come in with the plows and they cut down all the vegetation cuz it’s in the vegetation’s interfering with the flow of water, and they just clear cut the, the, any of the vegetation that’s blocking the canal, including, uh, that little dock that you, uh, that you, uh, that, that you built without anybody’s permission. Um, and then, then sometimes it can look pretty ugly. So then it’s up to the homeowner to, uh, to replant over by the canal. Uh, we saw that in, uh, in Fairfield, um mm-hmm. <affirmative> in the backyard there. They just kind of, uh, but it maybe, and you know, it might have been during Covid that they came in and they did all these things that they’ve always wanted to do. Right. You have employees and they’re working and they can’t come the office or Right. You know, COVID was a good chance for any company or person to, you know, that’s
Staci Garcia:
True. Because they did, to stop doing, they did come and start building. Oh, you can talk about this with anyone else, like Robert or Anyon, they start building on every single street. Yeah. Yeah. Every single street has traffic cones and every single street is under construction. Yeah.
Matthew Maschler:
So, um, so anyway, so, um, so yeah. So, um, you have a situation in a community, beautiful community, uh, in the Estancia. It’s right on glads near the, between Caroline and the Turnpike. And, uh, they’re, they’re wonderful single family home communities. Uh, but they have, uh, three HOAs. So it means if you, uh, you know, you buy a house there, you have to apply to, and you’re subject to the rules of three HOAs. And, uh, and for some people that can be frustrating. I know my mom, I don’t think she listens, but maybe she does. But I know my mom, uh, had moved the house she’s in now, she moved, uh, to an HOA community. Uh, she lives out in Nevada. Um, and, uh, she was, um, it was a, a a one-way street. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it made a circle and then kept giving her a ticket for going the wrong way down the one way street.
I said, mom, stop going, stop going, you know, she, they’d give her a tickets. She wouldn’t bring her garbage can and said in enough, the H way just kept giving her tickets. Tickets. Well, the first time you get a ticket, you learn the rule, then you have to stop doing it. Right. Right. Stop driving your, your, your, your car the wrong way down, down the street. Um, but her car was, I guess her house was like the second one in, or third one in. She didn’t wanna walk, drive around the whole circle to get to her house. But, um, when you’re in a no HOA book, no HOA community, you, you can do that. You can get away with, uh, with, with things. Um, uh, so yeah. Uh, some
Staci Garcia:
People love it and some people don’t love it because my neighbors, they can park on the grass. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think that there is a rule no blocking the sidewalk in the city, but, and we live in the city, but, uh, you can park on the grass, but it looks like a parking lot. Right. It looks like we’re, when we used to go to concerts at the, what is it? The original Miami Bowl,
Matthew Maschler:
That was the Orange Bowl.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah. And everybody would charge like $21 or $20 to park on their grass. Yeah. The people of their banks, every single concert. That’s kind of what my neighborhood looks like at night. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, sometimes if they’re college students, but there’s, those are, those are the few and far between houses. Right. They’re not every house.
Matthew Maschler:
Right. So, so there are people that are just very anti, uh, for me it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, growing up in Staten Island, um, you know, you had a lot of cops and you had a lot of wise guys. So if someone was parked on the grass, or if there was furniture, or if there, if there was a problem with your house, it was dealt with. E people had the, either had the pride of home ownership or, uh, the, the neighbors, they, they would, they would let you know if, if it was, if
Staci Garcia:
That with a dead horse head in your bed, <laugh>. No,
Matthew Maschler:
It doesn’t have to be that drastic, but somebody, somebody would say something to you and like, Hey, you know, and you know, there was problem in Staten Island. Everybody’s grass was done and there was, there was no cars parked on the block on the sidewalk. But, um, you know, you have this, you know, free spirited attitude in Florida, and also a lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds. So a lot of what’s what, what their, a lot of people’s norms are different. So, so having an HOA come in and just, uh, you know, because nobody wants to live next to the house that’s completely overgrown or has a filthy roof or, or cars are parked the wrong way.
Staci Garcia:
One thing I do miss, I mean, there’s a couple things I miss about an hoa mm-hmm. <affirmative>, one that I just notice when I’m in a community, not a country club, just a regular community with uniform mailboxes, uhhuh. So I do miss that. When I walked down the street, I have a flamingo, a manatee, uh, all the mailboxes are animals, you know what I mean? One looks like a firetruck.
Matthew Maschler:
Some people go really nuts. What they, I
Staci Garcia:
Think it’s cool if every, like, it would be like Key West if every single person did some crazy something theme with their mailbox.
Matthew Maschler:
You like variety of mailboxes?
Staci Garcia:
I, no, I like uniformity
Matthew Maschler:
Uniform mailboxes.
Staci Garcia:
I just think it looks cleaner as you look down the street. Yeah. So I look down one street and coincidentally, most of the mailboxes are similar mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But then you look down another street in my neighborhood and there is a flamingo, a manatee, and a firetruck. And they’re all like, they happen to be on that street and
Matthew Maschler:
It looks good in the keys, it looks good. Right, right. When everybody has their funky mailboxes, tries to outdo each other with the, the colorful and animal mailboxes. But sometimes it just looks,
Staci Garcia:
If everyone did it right, that street would be famous for it. Right. You know. But
Matthew Maschler:
When I lived in New Jersey, the neighborhood, um, uh, they, they built the, the builder of the house built the mailbox. So if, if your house was built with white bricks, they did a white brick mailbox. And a lot of times they would, um, they would do the features of the, they would replicate a feature of the house in the mailbox. So if there was a very modern house with a very slant roof, same building materials, and a very slant roof on the mailbox, uh, I remember there was a, not my, not my little development, but I remember an older development, uh, where, uh, house number eight had a giant eight as their mailbox, the same building material as their house, but it made a giant eight. Um, and it, it really look looked amazing. But, uh, yeah, the neighborhood I grew up in, it was the, the, the mailbox matched the house, the same colors and building materials. Um, so that, that’s a good way to do it. And that’s pretty cool. And it, and it looks, uh,
Staci Garcia:
What if everybody on the street had it be like, count? I’d be like the count. If
Matthew Maschler:
Everybody, if everybody on the street did numbers, yes. It would look ridiculously bad. Like Sesame Street, I
Staci Garcia:
Think it would be great. I’d drive down the street and I’d be like, that’s one, one, whatever the street is house
Matthew Maschler:
Number one, <laugh>, two houses, <laugh>. Haha.
Staci Garcia:
Seriously, there is the guy that met me on my street and he said, I got a little lost. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, is there really a one on this street? Uhhuh. <affirmative>, because it was at 33. And I said, well, yeah. And he goes, I’ve never been on a street with a one.
Matthew Maschler:
Right. Cause like, I, you know, my house is like, um, like my first house in Boca was 4 91. Right. There’s like eight houses. <laugh>, why is it 4 91? Right? I’m the second house from the curb. Why can’t I be two? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, two <laugh> main street. Right. 4 91.
Staci Garcia:
That’s why this guy said, he goes, I couldn’t believe it. As soon as I saw the first house, and I said one on it, he turned around to see if all across the street, the other house said two. And it did. And then he was like, wow, this is the first street I’ve ever seen in Florida. We’re the first house is number one. And I’m like, that’s how every street is over here.
Matthew Maschler:
And growing up, uh, my, the house I grew up in was seven. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> can’t say the street name because then you’d have access to all my bank accounts and whatnot. <laugh>. Um, obviously any of my friends from, from, from from middle school where I know, know the name, they all know the name of the street I grew up on and my pet’s name. Right. Anyone
Staci Garcia:
That’s the first concert that you went to? Anyone?
Matthew Maschler:
Anyone who knows me from elementary school knows the street address I grew up on. That’s right. They know my older brother’s name. They know my pet’s name. <laugh>, my first pet’s name.
Staci Garcia:
Who’s your favorite teacher? Right?
Matthew Maschler:
I mean, what was your They know my first car. <laugh>. So, so anyone from South Island can access to all my bank accounts, apparently, if you look at all the questions. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what’s your favorite topic of pizza? It’s not a secret. So, um, but it was, so, I’m not gonna say the street name, but it was seven, but it was the second house in. Mm-hmm. And, and I was always so confused. I’m like, how could I be seven? Right. If it’s, if it’s odd. Right. I’d be 3, 1, 3, 5. How am I seven? I’m the second house in, on the street. But, uh, yeah, I grew up on seven. Yeah.
Staci Garcia:
I wouldn’t make a, it makes a big difference for me. I, I would love to have a number eight right in front of my house. Uhhuh, you know, <laugh>. But, um, so, and a house also, I bought a new mailbox for, for my house, and I’m moving my mailbox to the other house. They, I bought one that locks mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cause I’m on a corner and I feel like when people are just bored, they just open mailboxes.
Matthew Maschler:
Okay. So I’m on, um, I rented a Airbnb this summer mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and I did a lot of, you know, we, we ordered from Amazon and GoldBelly. We, we were there for four weeks. So they had the locking mailbox. Right. So if something went into the top, it was going right. And I was so nervous. What if I order something, if they put it in the mailbox? Right. You know, usually it’s just mail. So I make sure I do everything UPS and FedEx, but easy enough to just throw the thing into the Yeah. Top and then I’ll never get it. Uh, so at the very uh, end of the trip, I said to the management company, I go, do, do you think you can just open the mailbox boxes or anything in it for me? And sure enough, there was something I ordered at one of the very first, first few days What totally forgot about.
Yeah. And it was there in the mailbox. Uh, but going back to HOAs, um, I’m on the HOA of my street. So I’m in Woodfield Country Club. So there’s, uh, two HOAs. There’s the Master HOA for all of Woodfield that does like the guard gate and commonary maintenance. And then there’s, and, and the master also does like cable and alarm and everything like that. Um, and then there’s the sub hoa, the each little sub development has an hoa. So I’m on the, um, HOA board. And, uh, really my purpose, there’s a few purposes why I wanted to be on the HOA of my street. One is, um, I just figured if there’s a bunch of people in a room talking about me and my house,
Staci Garcia:
You wouldn’t hear what they’re saying.
Matthew Maschler:
Comp, she’s overgrown. My, my, my roof st dirty. Why don’t, why don’t I be in the room? Well, and, and, and not being on the board and being in the audience of one of those ho meetings is very dry. <laugh>. I fall asleep. So at least if I’m on the board, I could like, participate. So, uh, so yeah. So if people are talking about me or my house, I kind of wanna know it. Um, I, joking, joking around, missed a meeting a couple months ago and I said, Hey, um, I can’t go to the meeting, but if there’s any problems with my house, uh, please feel free to send me a nasty letter. Okay. <laugh>,
Staci Garcia:
Don’t make it nice.
Matthew Maschler:
Don’t even, just don’t, don’t send me a text. Oh,
Staci Garcia:
We don’t have Nice,
Matthew Maschler:
Don’t send me a text, heads up or anything like that. Just tell me, gimme a nasty letter with a deadline. <laugh>,
Staci Garcia:
How many houses do you have on your street? 30.
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah, maybe 30. So, um, so that was one reason I wanted to be on my, on my hoa. The other reason is, um, every once in a while, like a, a kid grows up to be a teenager. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And while they’re a teenager, they drive too fast on the street. Yeah. But then they go away. So then it doesn’t, the problem goes away. But every once in a while when there’s too many teenagers on the street, that’s how, you know, you’re old. Right. When kids grow up, become teenagers and then move away. But, uh, uh, every once in a while when there’s a teenager on the street driving too fast, someone might suggest speed bumps.
Staci Garcia:
Oh,
Matthew Maschler:
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m the second or third house in, so I just wanna be there for the meeting. Because if they’re gonna do speed bumps, I want it to be after my house, not before my house. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. That way I can come in, turn into my garage, not hit the speed bump. Right. Make it just right after. No problem. But, uh, don’t, don’t, don’t be, I don’t, I just didn’t want speed bump my house. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> speed bump every single day. Especially
Staci Garcia:
Just listening to a speed bumps and not the, I still
Matthew Maschler:
Don’t want, don’t wanna deal with speed bump for the rest of my life.
Staci Garcia:
<laugh>, we have the, I’m at the bus stop. So it’s funny, the week before school started, I heard the, like, the break sound, uhhuh, like the shh. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, and then the break sound every morning and I’m like, oh, school’s starting, you know, there’s no kids out there or anything. Right. But they’re going through the route and it stops at my house like maybe four times, cuz four different, three different times of day and one extra bus. So, um, now every time the, we were on the, across the street, Uhhuh, we used to watch it from the back. Now it’s in the front of the house. So the dogs now go looking for the kids. Uhhuh. <affirmative> because my dogs love to play with the kids while they were waiting for the bus. So it’s so funny now when they bark at the front, they wanna go outside and play with the kids that are, cuz the kids used to totally play with the dogs. Uh, now waiting in line. But, um, yeah, I don’t mind it. I actually like it. There’s a bench in front of my house and people sit on it. I think it’s totally cool. And, um, I guess if that bothered you and you want your privacy, you’d move to a different house.
Matthew Maschler:
Move to a different house. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, um, so going back to my hoa mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, because everybody’s like intends to like a lot. There’s a couple houses have been knocked down and reconstructed and other houses have been, you know, remodeled and, and, and modernized a little bit. But our mailboxes are very old fashioned mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. So they don’t match the character of the community anymore. So I kind of floated up the idea of, uh, new mailboxes and, you know, a little bit more modern, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it didn’t go very well. So I, I bring it up like once a year. I’m like, one, one day we’re gonna have to do all new mailboxes, but nobody wants to go for the expense. I think
Staci Garcia:
It’d be so cool if some community got creative about it, if they could, you know, if they were available because I, I was searching for a mailbox mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and there is some sort of, uh, you go from a plain regular mailbox to totally off the wall mailbox, Uhhuh, <affirmative>, you know, so there’s, there’s a diversity or there’s a, uh, you know, you can get as creative as you want. Imagine if you, your HOA said, okay, you can get the goofy mailbox or the Mickey Mouse mailbox, you know what I mean? And every mailbox on the street was Disney.
Matthew Maschler:
Right. That before,
Staci Garcia:
I think that would be hilarious if you drove down this street and you saw, like, you’d be like, oh, my house is goofy <laugh>. You know what I mean? Right. Instead of saying the number. And, um, I, I like to, I like to think like that, but I don’t know if I know I, I don’t love Disney’s, but anything like that would be creative and fun for me. So that’s why I like no Hoa. I’d like people to be creative Right. And do something interesting.
Matthew Maschler:
Right. And maybe somebody else wouldn’t want their neighbor to have a shark or a goofy mailbox. And you need to,
Staci Garcia:
We do have a shark in our neighborhood. Do you that cement one? Yeah. Big ones. And I’m, I know that there’s a surfboard one on the second Avenue Bocato Boulevard in East Boca Uhhuh <affirmative>, which I love the surfboard one. And anytime I drive by it, I’m like, that’s such a cool mailbox in my neighborhood. It would fit perfectly in, it wouldn’t be weird, except that we’re not right near the beach. So it’d be a little off. But, um, the, the Flamingo one is super tall. It’s probably like seven feet tall. So the, just looking down the street, you know, which house it is. That’s kind of cool too, though. You can say, I live at the Flamingo, you don’t need to look for my house. You know, look for the mailbox. And that’s where I am. So, um, I mean, in a way I like that people live in my neighborhood are creative and they, they wanna be left alone.
Matthew Maschler:
Tell me more about that ascia south, uh, listing that you have.
Staci Garcia:
Oh, it’s really awesome. It’s totally redone and it’s got two of everything in the kitchen for people that need to have everything mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, it has also two driveways and a lot of parking.
Matthew Maschler:
A lot of parking mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Staci Garcia:
And, um, the house is shaped like an l goes like an L shape around the pool. So it’s, it almost has two primary suites with bathrooms in them, both of them. And then it also has, um, three other bedrooms. So it’s a five bedroom, but one of the bad bedrooms right now is an office and
Matthew Maschler:
Five, four in an,
Staci Garcia:
Yeah, it’s four in an office and three and a half bathrooms. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So three bathrooms full. And one of the full bathrooms is a cabana. It goes outside and, uh, there’s a powder room. So there’s a half bathroom. And it’s, um, beautiful. Absolutely beautiful, completely redone, very, um, I wanna say modern, but also just not like the white modern with the gray that everybody has. It’s modern, but like with character and it has a fireplace, which I love. And people that do that, I show it to say, why did instead of fireplace Right. You know, but for that one day year where it’s cold out, you, you probably appreciate the fireplace and it’s gorgeous. White,
Matthew Maschler:
White. Sometimes it’s just, it’s, it’s decoration. Like you just, you need things that are, uh, uh, visually pleasing to the eye. So even if you don’t swim in your pool, to be able to look in your backyard and see that blue of a pool mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And to see the orange of a fire, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just very nice. Uh, makes a very nice visual. It’s
Staci Garcia:
A nice place to sit. Also, there’s, you could put the TV above the fireplace if you wanted and make it a nice, cozy living room. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, it’s got two islands and also on the outside there’s tons of seating and the whole area of the back of the house is covered except the pool and the, and the grass and all of that. But basically you have your own area, which is not small, where there’s no, um, blaring sun outside. Mm-hmm. You can mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they have a table and then they have another sitting area and you can have, and then they have another sitting area with two chairs.
Matthew Maschler:
So when I was there last time mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I, uh, I went to meet a friend of mine over at the ba at the bagel shop. Yep. Um, it was close enough that I, I just, I left my car. I didn’t, you know, because you could, it’s just, um, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s, it sounds south. It’s very, it’s a residential neighborhood. You don’t see a shopping’s one circle Yeah. Or anything like that. But, um, but if you go outside to Power Line, it’s just, just past it as, uh, the Boca Grove Shopping Center and they have the Kosher bagel sh shop and the not so kosher, uh, and, uh, Anthony’s Coalfire Pizza <laugh>. Um, but I went to the bagel shop and I was talking with, uh, my buddy who’s the executive director of the Boca Jewish Center mm-hmm. <affirmative>, which, which is right there.
And it was, uh, amazing cause I, I, he took me on a tour. I’ve been there before, but I didn’t see their new expansion cuz they keep getting, uh, new members. Um, they’re up to like 480 members, uh, of the book of Jewish Center. So that, that area is, uh, is on fire. And a lot of the people, uh, that, that are members there live in, in, in one of the Estancia, uh, because, um, Estancia South is, is close enough, uh, that people can, um, you know, get back and forth easily to the temple. But, um, uh, in that park that I told you about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that Estancia Park, there’s a gate. Um, there was never a gate before, but there was a wall that divided between the park and the shopping center. So they built a beautiful gate, um, in the wall. Uh, so now people who were in the, uh, other DIA’s, uh, Estancia West or, or, or just, or Estancia, um, can just, uh, walk down and walk, walk through the gate, uh, to get to the, uh, to the Boca Jewish Center. Um, the one guy was telling me his walk, he was, when he, when he moved to Estancia, um, he had a 22 minute walk and, uh, it was reduced to an eight minute walk. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, so I thought that was, uh, really incredible that they, uh, that they built that, uh, that gate. So, uh, so from Estancia you can go out to power line and, and walk, but then you could just have a really, really pretty walk through the park.
Staci Garcia:
All of this you would know nothing about. You’d never see it, you would never see it. You would never see it. You
Matthew Maschler:
Could drive by, you could drive by every single day of your life. Seriously. And never see, uh, this beautiful park with tennis courts, <laugh>.
Staci Garcia:
That’s so true. <laugh>.
Matthew Maschler:
And, uh,
Staci Garcia:
You will never see it cuz it’s for Estancia. So it’s kind of varied. Yeah. But it is in between the three Estancia. So, um, it’s definitely an asset for all three communities. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it’s not for anyone outside the community. And it’s, it’s not a secret. I mean, I feel like we’re kind of telling a secret, but if you are looking for, uh,
Matthew Maschler:
You know, it’s not a secret, but as realtors, there’s things that we’re allowed to say and not allowed to say. Uh, so we haven’t broached anything that we’re not allowed to say. But, you know, there are some, you know, look, it’s not, it’s not a secret that Jewish, uh, or religious Jewish people, uh, can’t drive on the Sabbath and other festival days. Right. Uh, which means that they, um, want to live close to their temple. Um, you know, you could see, you know, in a, in a Christian Church, you could see these megachurches, right? And people can drive an hour to a, to a megachurch that has 10,000 people or 20,000 people. You’ll never see that at a, uh, at a Jewish synagogue. Uh, you know, you have Boca, uh, BS Bo Raton synagogue, uh, on Palmetto power line, Montoya Circle, that’s been there for a very long time.
Um, and you know that that whole area, most of the people that live in that area are, you know, religious or orthodox Jews. The, the temple can’t grow any bigger because there’s just not enough housing. So then, you know, they, you start, you know, so then there’s another temple with another rabbi. Um, and, and since he’s been there, um, more of the area has, has become, uh, become ob observant because people want to buy in a place that’s close to enough for them to walk on, uh, Sabbath. So, you know, it is, you know, the realtors, um, you know, it, it gets touchy when you talk about religion. You, you, you, you don’t wanna be steering, right? You don’t wanna say, oh, okay, you’re, you’re, you’re from this area, so you have to live here. No one’s saying you have to live here. No one’s saying you can’t live here.
It’s just a, it’s just a choice. So, you know, but we can’t discriminate based on religion or physical ability. So when someone says they wanna be able to walk to temple, um, but what if someone has a disability? They can’t walk. Okay. So we wanna be close. I try to, so I, in my mind, I think, uh, a mile away, someone wants to live a mile away. So, so you, you can say it’s a mile away. You can’t say it’s walking distance because what if someone Oh, yeah, yeah. Has a handicap. And that’s true. A handicap and can’t
Staci Garcia:
Walk. Well, before they had to climb the wall, so now they don’t climb
Matthew Maschler:
The wall. Oh, yeah. So here’s the story. <laugh>, here’s the story. But before they built the gate, that’s the most amazing thing. Part of the story, this is the
Staci Garcia:
Funny story.
Matthew Maschler:
Before they built the gate, a lot of, um, these families would climb the wall and the walls eight foot tall. So it’s one thing to climb in, it’s another thing to get down on the other side. Um, <laugh>. But you have, and I try to imagine sometimes religious Jews have a, have very traditional garb. Uh, this temple, this temple, not so much, but, but you’re wearing a suit. It’s a holiday if it’s rashana. Right.
Staci Garcia:
And it’s like nine degrees.
Matthew Maschler:
You’re wearing a suit, you’re wearing a suit in the summer in 90 degrees <laugh>, and you’re climbing a wall. And if, if you’re not Jewish and you live in stanza, you have to, and you see this, you have to wonder, <laugh>, what are these people doing? <laugh>, they’re guys in suits climbing the wall. But
Staci Garcia:
It wasn’t that the good they’re both ways. The person who said, who was 70, right? It was his wall.
Matthew Maschler:
Well, the guy, well the guy that was climbing the wall. And, uh, and, and he said he had, he had his parents and his 70 year old father. And, and so he is not gonna have, oh no. The 70 year old did climb the wall. Right? Right.
Staci Garcia:
He said, as long as I can climb the wall, everyone else can climb the wall too.
Matthew Maschler:
The guy was in his forties, he told me that there was a 70 year old duck climb, 70 year old guy climbing the wall. So he was like, oh, if you can do it, I can do it. But from a lifestyle point of view, you shouldn’t have to climb the wall to get to a place to get to. Wherever it is you’re going, including a, a place of, a place of worship. Plus the
Staci Garcia:
Bagels are delicious. I mean, if you have to climb a wall to get there, now they can just
Matthew Maschler:
Walk through again. Right. But, but to see a 70 year old guy climb a wall and other guy hosing his kids up to climb a wall, <laugh>, it could, it could be a strange religion sometimes. But again, um, you know, we get a little nervous as realtors talking about, um, talking about, um, things. But it was very important that they built the gate. Uh, and it came out really nice. Um, if you are, uh, whatever your religion, um, if you, uh, would like to know about, um, the, the temples, the mosques, the churches in, uh, Boca Raton, we, we tend to know, uh, uh, a lot of information about all the different areas. Uh, there are two mosques in Bo Raton. Most people don’t know, uh, that, that, that there’s a very, very vibrant, uh, Muslim community in, uh, Bo Raton. Um, um, but yeah. But, uh, anyway, um, but all religions welcome. All religions need housing. Uh, no discrimination or steering. Uh, but, um, but if you, you know, but people always wanna live where their friends live and where, and, and things of that
Staci Garcia:
Nature. One of the reasons why I know about my community is because, um, every Christmas or holiday time, there’s a humongous display of lights and at the entrance off of Glades. So my mom used to take me there because her best friend and her husband were part of it. So it’s not just a one house thing. Um, it was a whole corner, like a whole maybe five house thing. Um, that was 35 years ago. <laugh>, <laugh>. So, so some of the people have passed away and one of the houses I know was sold recently. And, but the one house where everything starts, because it’s such a big corner, Uhhuh <affirmative>, that house is like amped up a hundred times because they take over for the rest of the people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And it looks so beautiful when you drive in. It’s not just a traditional display, it’s, it’s like a 3D display, you know, any way you look at it looks different.
And it’s not, um, it’s been so long, you know, it’s been going on for so long. I think if they ever moved, everybody else would be sad about it or they’d have to make a deal with the buyer to keep it going, you know? So, um, that’s why I like my neighborhood. People are creative. I mean, I have twinkle lights out all year long, um, because I like the, you know, I like to have them. I think if it was in a community with an hoa, they would probably tell me to take them down two weeks after Christmas, that kind of thing. Sure. But, and they’re, they’re not Christmas lights, they’re just, they’re called what? Um, holiday lights? No, they have a name. They’re market lights. They’re called market lights cuz they have ’em in markets. But, um, they’re solar and then they just go on and, and I like it.
I have dogs. I like to see where my dogs are, and I think it’s festive also. And, um, they go off in the morning, you know, when they’re, when when the, uh, sun comes up, the lights go off. And I think they look cool. Everybody that put them up, you know, after me probably thought they, that mine looked cool too. You know, I’m just guessing. But, um, they don’t break a city code or anything like that. Right, right. I’m just thinking that in a regular community within hoa, there probably wouldn’t be allowed to be just like, you’d have to take your, your decorations down a certain time after. Sure. Sure. And I, and I know that I went, um, all the way through until July with, uh, Christmas tray once Uhhuh, <affirmative>. Like I was try trying to go as long as I could with the same Christmas tray, <laugh>, uhhuh <affirmative>. And we had Christmas in July and then I threw the, the tree out. But, um, just to see if anyone was going to ha have a problem with it, you know what I mean? Right. But plus I was almost making it to the next year where I wouldn’t have to start it over. You know what I mean? Uhhuh just use it for two years in a row. That’s cool.
Matthew Maschler:
I, uh, I have to run. And we, we cut this, I had to cut this a little bit short cause mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, one, I did a, uh, a very quick math mania podcast, uh, before we started. So starting eight into my time. But, but ask me where I’m going. Where
Staci Garcia:
Are you going?
Matthew Maschler:
I am going over to the Fred Stair Dance Studio. Um, and, uh, if you remember, I did the Boca Ballroom Battle in 2018 and you could actually watch, uh, my, uh, my dance routine on, it’s on Matthew mania.com, uh, webpage. Uh, but I did the Boca Ballroom Battle. Uh, we raised a half million dollars for college scholarships in Palm Beach County. And, uh, the 2022 Boca Ballroom Battle is coming up on September 10th at the Bo Raton, uh, resort. Uh, I can’t just call it the Bocato and leave that blank. Nothing else are you battling? No, no, no. That’s a one and done kind of thing. That’s what I thought. So, but I’m in, I’m in the opening act of the opening number. Oh, I did not know. And I think I signed up to be a judge. Okay. So if you want more information, um, you can check out, um, Boca Ballroom Battle.
Um, it’s a, we raise money for the college scholarships in Palm Beach County on scholarship dot, i dunno, scholarship.com, I think. Um, it’s the George Snow, um, uh, scholarship, George Snow Foundation. Um, and we will be, uh, with other, you know, other, uh, a lot, a lot of other podcasters, um, <laugh>, a lot of us have, uh, have come to this, uh, pod popular, the Royal Palm Plaza, uh, to do our podcasts. And, um, and we will be, uh, we will be dancing, um, for, uh, for charity. Uh, so I have to go run over there and work on my opening number routine. Nice fun. All right. So you can check that out on, at matthew mania.com. Check us out on real estate finder.com. You could also see a link to Stacy’s Estancia, uh, south, uh, uh, listing that is very close to the Kosher bagel store.
Staci Garcia:
Yeah, if you wanna see it, just, um, you can even call me.
Matthew Maschler:
Call Stacy. What’s your number?
Staci Garcia:
(561) 239-1449.
Matthew Maschler:
And she’s stacy@realestatefinder.com. I’m matt@realestatefinder.com. And we will see you soon.
Speaker 3:
The future looks bright and the pass by the skies dog blue, when it’s almost that time, light shows cameras flash when I pass living in the moment, forget about the past. They saved the best for last. Matthew Mania. We about to make a splash. Life is a marathon full of sharp turns, gotta keep pace. Water, hands on the pop turns, hot sticks. Five star real estate. I run show you can tell the boss, center plane, electricity, energy. If I, I’m always on time. Even if I’m, I make dreams come true. Living my life. Hope the same for you. Real clear. If you don’t know the, I’ll give you a clue.
Speaker 4:
You knows time. You knows you know what it is. You know what, you know what you know what is, you know what, you know what, you know what it is. You know what you know what, you know what it is.
Speaker 3:
You know what time it is. You know whose time it’s, you know what time. It’s Matthew Mania. The time it says, you know what time it’s, you know whose time it’s, you know what time Its Matthew Mania. The time says, yeah. Got shook, scared. Can look. We’re not afraid of the big bad wall. First comes the.