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Welcome to the Real Estate Finder Podcast! I'm Matthew Maschler, the Real Estate Finder. And on this show, we will share my passion and knowledge of real estate. I'm a real estate broker with the Signature Real Estate Companies, and we sell Florida real estate here in Palm Beach County - where I live - Broward, Miami, the West Coast, Naples through Sarasota, and Central Florida - where we sell real estate in Orlando and near Disney World. Joining me each episode will be agents from my office and the very best vendors servicing the real estate industry. So, whether you're looking for residential, vacation, or investment properties in Florida; the Real Estate Finder Podcast will provide insider information, examine the latest trends, and reveal some of the tips, tricks, and techniques needed to make smart decisions and get the very best from this and any market! Each episode we will highlight amazing properties, take a deep dive into some recent deals we've done, chat with industry insiders, and explore some of the issues and challenges that come up when buying or selling real estate. So join us as we share stories, raise questions, find answers, and have a whole lot of fun in the fascinating world of Florida real estate!
Welcome to the Matthew Mania podcast.
I'm Matthew Mashler,
real estate broker with Signature Real
Estate Finder here in the great state of
Florida.
And Florida is so great.
I'm sure you heard the news.
Mark Wahlberg, yes,
Marky Mark has bought a forty seven
million dollar mansion right next door to
us in Delray Beach, Florida.
It's actually outside the Delray City
lines.
It's in unincorporated Palm Beach County.
But Mark Wahlberg,
Um, you know,
a lot of people saying he's moving to
Florida, moving to Boca, moving to Delray.
Well,
he's actually had a house here in Boca
for a very long time.
Um, uh, if, if anybody remembers,
you know, a couple of years back,
there was a big fundraiser, uh,
after a hurricane that,
and he was out there helping, um,
I think the people with the Broncos tacos
raise money for hurricane victims.
So like a lot of celebrities and famous
people, um,
that move live in South Florida, he, uh,
Mark has lived among us for a while,
but made a splash last week,
October of twenty twenty five,
when he bought a forty seven and a
half million dollar mansion in Delray
Beach, Florida.
And a lot of people blew up my
phone when that happened,
as they tend to do when anybody buys
in Florida.
But some people knew,
and especially a longtime listener of this
show,
knew that I actually specialized in that
community where he bought the forty seven
and a half million dollar home,
Stone Creek Ranch.
Go to stonecreekranch.com for my website.
And yeah,
no one has sold more properties in Stone
Creek Ranch than yours truly.
But no,
I did not sell Marky Mark that house.
He did not reach out to me for
contact.
Although when I heard the news that he
did close on that house,
I immediately called the listing agent on
the house,
someone I've worked with before,
to let her know about a property that
I had for sale.
It was literally the first thing I thought
of, a property I had for sale,
also in Delray Beach, Florida,
in Antiquers Aerodrome.
Yes,
that property you've probably heard about,
the one where you can build a hangar,
In your backyard,
you can build a house and an airplane
hangar up to six thousand square feet for
the hangar.
Not just the house,
the hangar alone can be six thousand
square feet and it's on a private
airstrip.
Just the people in that community can use
that grass airstrip.
And I was quoted in the Palm Beach
Post when Iron Mike Tyson bought in
Antiquers Aerodrome.
He had the choice between the lot that
i eventually had sold my customer and uh
the lot across the street he bought the
light across the street for a reason that
i thought was a negative but i actually
found out later when i went to sell
the same property that my customers bought
because they changed their mind when i
went to sell it i actually realized and
found out uh that that uh
questioned me, like,
why did I buy that house of this
particular thing that I thought was a
negative?
And when I was selling the house,
I realized, oh, yeah,
he thought it was a good thing.
And we'll talk about that later on a
different episode or feel free to ask me
in the comments.
I'll explain later or just somebody remind
me and I'll explain the negative turned to
a positive.
Actually, yeah,
the negative that turned to a positive in
Antigua's Aerodrome.
I need to make a special podcast about
that because I am on a tangent and
a tangent.
I'm on a tangent about Mark Wahlberg and
Stump Creek Ranch.
I called up the listing agent that I
presumably had the deal.
And then she did have both sides.
Mark's people had contacted her directly.
And so what I said is, hey, listen,
I'm sure you heard that Iron Mike Tyson
bought this house in Antigua's Airdrome.
It's two and a half miles away.
And I'm sure Mark has a plane and
maybe he'd want to buy this property,
build a residence for it.
you know not for himself to live in
but for maybe for his pilots some of
his crews of his staff some of his
entourage if you will um he's gonna need
a place to put the entourage um and
they can build a house there and the
hangar can be you know game room doesn't
have to be a hangar um and uh
no sooner did i make that phone call
When I got an offer on the house
from somebody else, absolutely incredible.
So then I called the agent back about
a day later and I said, hey,
I want to follow up.
I don't know if you have any interest.
I actually did get an offer on it.
Crazy.
One hundred and twenty days with no offer.
And then all of a sudden an offer.
Maybe it is marks people kind of going
through the back door.
I don't know.
But
This was actually a fun showing thanks to
a friend of mine that actually lives in
the community.
I was able to show not just the
vacant lot, but across the street,
I was able to show my friend's residence
and show their family hangar what they
built
uh, club room, game room,
all kinds of fun toys and activities, uh,
that they built in the, uh,
in the hangar space.
So, um,
the buyer can get an idea of what
it would look like.
And yes, that strategy worked and, uh,
got an offer and we were under contract
in our interiors aerodrome property.
Yay.
So, uh, back to Marky Mark, uh,
I wanted to share with you, uh,
the story of how I am connected and
how I became.
the top salesman in Stone Creek Ranch.
I will give you a little asterisk.
I haven't sold anything in Stone Creek
Ranch in a while.
I don't have any listings and don't have
any buyer leads.
It's a little unfortunate when you get to
be my age and at this stage in
your career when a lot of your contacts
are
I mean, it's not sexist.
It's just true, right?
A lot of the contacts are the male
of the couple, right?
I know the guy that lives in the
house or the guy that built the house
because he's the one that dealt with the
HOA and dealt with the lawyers and dealt
with the purchase and dealt with all the
fun stuff.
I didn't really deal with the wife so
much when these people bought their
properties or I was president of the Stone
Creek Ranch HOA for several years.
When people had issues and lawyers and
designs and stuff,
I generally made a good relationship with
the...
with the guy with the hymn uh so
um like i had lots of people that
i knew i'd get the listing from when
they were ready to sell uh but when
the hymn passes away and her uh makes
a decision on realtor and she doesn't know
me and i'm like i can't tell you
how many times i was like oh i
would have that listing if the guy didn't
die even one in woodfield mr goodman and
we missed barry goodman but uh i saw
his house uh so recently and i didn't
know i didn't know his wife
because he was a Chabad guy and over
at Chabad,
the men and women don't sit next to
each other.
So I only knew Barry,
I didn't know the wife.
So obviously when he passed away,
I had no shot at the listing.
Them's the breaks in the real estate
business.
Anyway, back to Stone Creek Ranch.
We're gonna take a little,
we're actually gonna do something a little
special today because our social media
team booked me to do videos today,
not just podcasts.
So we're gonna try something new today.
I have the video all set up.
I have the cameras all set up.
So we're going to go,
you're actually going to go behind the
scenes to a videotaping.
We do hours of videotaping,
which become three and four minute clips
on Instagram and TikTok.
And the subject is going to be Stone
Creek Ranch and Marky Mark.
So my podcast audience will actually get
to hear me record my videos and have
a different perspective on the videos that
you see on the Facebook, Instagram,
and TikTok and
and threads whatever threads are in
circles and all and true social and all
the other uh social media so you'll get
behind the scenes on how that's made while
i talk to the video camera uh production
people about stone creek ranch so uh let's
uh let's see how we're gonna do all
right how did i look you said you're
rolling so all right action
All right, so here we are.
It's the end of twenty twenty five and
I have lived in Florida for twenty years.
I moved to Florida twenty years ago,
December of two thousand five.
My kids were one and a half years
old and had to convince Wendy to move
to Florida.
And we've not looked back since.
And I'm actually thinking of doing
something to mark my twentieth anniversary
of living in Florida.
So I moved to Florida in two thousand
and five, December of two thousand five.
And we were in the middle of what
everyone would now recognize as a massive
housing bubble in the United States of
America.
All right.
Everything was on fire.
Prices were only going up.
And, you know,
a lot of people ask me, like,
as a real estate agent, like,
what do I think, like,
the future of the market?
If I knew the future of the market,
right, I'd be investing in stuff.
I wouldn't be selling real estate.
I wouldn't be doing what I do.
I'd do things differently.
I am a mark to market guy.
I think that everything known about
markets is known now and everything is
priced now.
We don't know what tomorrow will bring.
And I always believed that.
So in two thousand five,
we didn't know we were in a bubble.
I actually believed that September
eleventh was going to burst the bubble.
Right.
I thought prices were so high in the
summer of two thousand one that nine
eleven was going to burst the housing
bubble.
Turns out it was the bottom.
Right.
The US housing bubble from two thousand
from two thousand to two thousand eight
was an incredible run.
So I actually thought it was the top
when it was the bottom.
So I could not predict markets.
So December of five,
we were in a big housing bubble.
Things were great.
I moved to Woodfield Country Club.
I rented a house for a year to
see if I would like it.
And we loved it.
We've been here ever since.
Twenty years.
Like I said, the kids grew up here.
They were babies and now they're in
college.
I decided to stop being a lawyer.
I did not like the practice of law.
And I became a real estate agent in
two thousand five,
really in two thousand six when I moved
to Florida.
And I used that skill to actually buy
the house I currently live in and buy
and sell real estate for my friends and
family.
And I didn't know that I was going
to do it as a career.
I just knew that I was always doing
everything for sale by owner.
So you know what they say,
if you can't fight them, join them.
So I decided,
so I got my real estate licenses when
I moved to Florida, bought my house,
bought some houses for friends and family.
But I wasn't really practicing as a real
estate agent.
But I wasn't really practicing law either.
So I needed something to do, right?
Because...
you know, the kids are gonna see like,
well, what does your dad do?
So,
so I actively would network and tell
people I was a real estate agent,
and not some of the other investments and
entrepreneurial things that I do.
And it served me well, and
I started buying and selling for my
father's friends and then started buying
and selling for people I met from
networking.
And I still remember to this day,
the first time I sold a house for
a stranger, right?
I was not a friend or family.
It was just for my networking.
Someone hired me.
They went to buy a house.
They bought a house for a million dollars.
I made a three percent commission.
I made thirty grand.
It was fantastic and easy.
And I wanted to do it again because,
man, thirty thousand is a lot of money.
Okay,
so fast forward to the housing crash,
two thousand eight,
two thousand nine was a housing crash.
So in that housing crash,
we had decided we being my family had
decided to buy
bad mortgages, non-performing mortgages.
Everybody else was going to the
foreclosure sales,
but we were actually buying the notes from
the banks to take it off their hands
so they didn't have to go to the
sale.
We would take it to the foreclosure sales
for them.
But over the course of time,
we would actually contact our borrowers
and a lot of times we were able
to refinance them and keep them in their
homes.
Or if we couldn't,
we could do cash for keys.
So instead of foreclosing on them,
we could give them money to move moving
expenses and get some rent and make it
a very easy process for them.
And then they would deed the house over
to us.
So I started selling real estate from my
portfolio.
We were doing a lot of it in
New Jersey.
And I told my partners, like,
let's do some in Florida.
So I started buying, not buying,
but I started acquiring these properties
from either foreclosure or cash or keys.
And then I would rehab them, paint them,
stage them, make them nice, market them.
I would be the listing agent.
Whereas in New Jersey,
for the core of our investments,
they were...
We had to hire a realtor to be
the agent,
but I'm going to make the three percent
on the listing side by listing my own
properties.
I can't even believe I'm saying this in
public and on my podcast.
But yeah,
so this this is what I did.
This is how this is actually how I
started in my real estate career in a
bad market and a terrible market after the
oh eight oh nine crash.
was making a reputation because I was
selling.
I was selling properties when nobody could
sell anything.
Why was I selling them?
I was pricing them right.
Housing prices fell in half in Florida.
So I was pricing them right.
I wasn't holding on to some imaginary or
last year's or five years ago's price.
And
Housing is an essential service.
People do need to move by bigger houses,
by smaller houses.
So I was pricing them right.
So they were selling.
So I was getting a reputation as a
real estate agent who could sell because I
was closing one house a month.
I was acquiring a house,
fixing it up and closing, uh,
every month,
but also helping my father's friends in
the country clubs and the mansions.
So I was selling country clubs and
mansions,
making money by cash for keys and
rehabbing
less desirable three twos all through Palm
Beach and Broward County, Equus Community,
Wellington, Loxahatchee, Broward County,
Coconut Creek.
I was all over Palm Beach and Broward
County rehabbing properties.
I remember this beautiful house on the
intercoastal in Pompano Beach that I was
rehabbing these properties and selling
them.
And that's how I
gained my reputation as a great real
estate agent because I was selling in a
bad,
bad market and I was doing transactions
when everything else was sitting.
OK,
so how does that bring us to Stone
Creek Ranch?
The developer of Stone Creek Ranch,
Ken Endelson, Kenko Holmes,
is a great developer here in town.
And he developed the Oaks.
And when I moved to Florida,
a lot of people were moving out of
Woodfield and St.
Andrews country clubs into the Oaks to
have that country club lifestyle without
the golf or the expense.
And the Oaks is an incredible community.
But the developer found himself with
certain buyers that wanted bigger houses
and wanted more land.
So the next development he had scheduled
for when he finished the Oaks was the
land where Stone Creek Ranch is now.
And what he ended up doing was instead
of making an Oaks-type development there,
he ended up making large home sites,
big homes.
sprawling estates because he knew he had
buyers.
So in the Oaks, where you want singles,
doubles, triples, you know,
the people that were going for the triples
in the home runs, you know,
he saw that there was room and he
saw there was a next level.
And that could only be in that two
thousand up, up,
up bubble market where you would see that
next level,
these grand slam real estate deals.
So he developed Stone Creek Ranch into
thirty seven parcels
two and a half acres per parcel.
It should have had three hundred homes or
four hundred homes like a Bridges or a
Lotus.
But he developed this into thirty seven
home sites,
each a minimum of two and a half
acres.
And all was going well.
And the houses that they built were
incredible.
And Wayne Huizenga Jr.
bought a double lot and built the largest
single family residence on one level,
one story in the state of Florida.
And Samari Roll from the Baltimore Ravens
bought an incredible house.
But instead of a tennis court,
he put in a basketball court with FSU
colors on it.
And it was really, really magnificent.
Oh, I'm blanking on the gentleman's name.
An older gentleman who owned Roma Foods.
If you're ever driving,
my friends in New Jersey driving on the
New Jersey Turnpike.
Lou Piancone.
Roma Foods, very, very nice man.
He built himself a beautiful mansion.
So just a lot of very,
very wealthy people living in Stone Creek
Ranch in their two and a half acres
homes.
It was not fully developed.
And then the market crashed.
right those bubbles those big market those
big runs they can't last forever so and
if anybody has seen like the big short
right this is exactly what this is about
the book or the movie so the market
crashed people homes weren't selling none
of those big homes were selling nothing in
the oaks was even selling how would a
big home sell
And, uh, my father, um,
did a deal with, uh,
Ken Anderson to kind of like refinance his
position.
And we took the.
Undeveloped lots that he had at, uh,
Stone Creek branches collateral and, um,
Basically, I said to myself,
I'm going to go get my broker's license.
We can have a whole other conversation.
Hey, guys, write down one day.
We should talk about the difference
between a real estate agent and real
estate broker.
Okay.
Got that.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I got my broker's license,
went back to the school and then shout
out, by the way, to Bambi Ross.
Haven't seen her in a while.
We were in the broker's class together.
And my father says,
why are you getting your real estate
broker's license?
I'm like, well,
we're going to end up with all of
these lots in Stone Creek Ranch that we're
going to have to sell.
So I figured I'd get my license so
I can run the sales center over there.
My dad goes, no,
it's just a financing deal.
And I'm like,
Yeah, okay, yeah,
it's just a financing deal,
but we know how financing deals end.
We were in a foreclosure crisis in this
country.
All you heard on the news was
foreclosures.
So the odds, and I'm looking,
in my mind, the odds.
And, you know,
I'm not here to bash Ken, right?
Ken's a businessman,
and this was an arms-on transaction,
right?
But he was in the bird's-eye seat.
If he got a buyer for one of
these lots, he would...
sell the buyer a lot and pay us
off on our loan.
But at the end of the loan term,
is he going to buy the lots back
from us or is he going to pay
off the loan or is he going to
walk away?
I figured he'd walk away and I would
have to sell these nineteen months.
And that's exactly what happened.
So I took over the sales center at
Stone Creek Ranch.
I met Maureen Murtaugh,
who was the top salesman for Kenco
handling Stone Creek Ranch.
And we partnered up and we worked together
to sell the nineteen lots that me and
my family owned.
at Stone Creek Ranch and I became the
president of the homeowners association
because there were people that were living
in the community and oh my goodness I
remember the first HOA meeting that I went
to and they were mad at me they
were all like they were yelling at me
screaming at me I'm like what are you
mad at me for what did I do
but I didn't do anything I bought these
lots right I purchased these lots and my
goal is to make Stone Creek Ranch amazing
right because
You only own one house.
I got nineteen of them.
Right.
So I'm here to finish the community.
Right.
That's what we have to do.
We have to find buyers.
We have to finish out this community.
So we could have made the decision to
build houses and find buyers.
But that's not what I do.
I'm not a builder.
And the market was shit.
Can I say shit on my social media?
Yeah.
So the market was shit.
So we, we took over the marketing.
I became president of the,
of the homeowners association that have
the monthly HOA meetings.
And, um, and we worked with buyers.
There were some other, uh,
lots of other developers had owned.
So we worked with buyers,
whether they were my buyers or.
or not, and got their plans approved,
and we started building houses.
I mentioned something earlier.
I was mentioning that some of the famous
people that lived there.
Did I say Wayne Heisenkamp Jr.?
Yeah, I did.
I messed up a lot.
Okay.
Largest single story.
Yeah, largest single story.
So one of the houses was actually when
I first came in, in two thousand nine,
when I came in and took over the
HOA, I saw one of the houses.
They weren't paying their HOA quarterly
assessments.
So they were actually in foreclosure with
the bank.
It was a twenty plus million dollar
foreclosure.
It was crazy.
So I go over to the house.
It's all haunted looking.
It looked like a European castle in
Delray.
It looked like a European castle,
but because it was abandoned and there
were cobwebs and everything was overgrown,
it really felt like you were an adventure
in Northern England or something on this
estate.
I used to go over and give people
tours of it.
So I went to a foreclosure sale.
i didn't go to the foreclosure sell to
bid on it because in my experience what
happens is the banks will bid their
mortgage and then end up owning the
property right so if they have a twenty
plus million dollar mortgage who's gonna
outbid them at the sale right they're
probably just gonna bid their what they're
owed that's what i thought but um the
person that bought it they bought it for
like two and a half million dollars right
the bank
just let the bidding happen.
They didn't want to be involved in this
property.
They didn't want to come over and take
this property back.
Now that you have to maintain it,
have the liability.
If anybody tripped and fall,
that was such a mess.
So the people that bought it for two
and a half million dollars sold it five
days later for three and a half million
dollars.
I was,
I was so bad because I should have
been there.
I should have went to the auction.
So in the next property went to auction,
um,
I made sure not to make that mistake
again.
And I'm very, very old.
So I used to,
when I used to go to foreclosure auctions,
it was in person.
You'd go and you'd bid,
but now it's all done on the computer.
So I was on the computer and I
was bidding on this house for sale.
And it's like a hundred dollar increments.
You bid and go, it gets fine.
It gets to your highest number,
but you still bid a little bit more.
And I was going back and forth with
this other bidder.
hundred dollar increments.
It felt like twenty minutes.
And I finally go, I last bid.
All right, one more.
Okay.
Okay.
If he outbids me, I'm done.
And then he didn't outbid me.
And then I was a high bidder.
And then I bought the property.
And then we fixed up the property.
But I get a call a couple of
days later.
hi i'd like to speak to you about
the property yes he goes i was the
person you bid against so now i'm scared
because i don't know if you know but
some of these foreclosure sales they're
like they're people that are like unsavory
people that do this kind of work so
this person wanted to meet me so i
was a i was a little nervous so
i bought you know you guys know my
friend chris right big chris i brought big
chris and actually i had about a half
like brass knuckles in my pocket
chris had a taser in the car and
uh so we go meet this guy for
lunch and he comes in and he's a
nice young jewish guy and uh and he
comes in with it with his partner he
looks like a little jewish accountant or
something and i'm like i don't know i'm
not i'm not i'm not uh i'm not
gonna have the fight that i'm geared up
for and we got to talking and uh
and i gotta yeah i gotta look and
see see what what when this was this
is probably like i don't know to them
and uh anyway we got to talking and
uh
we became really really good friends and
and colleagues in the real estate business
he's one of i put in one of
the three there's about three people that
if that i can learn from that i
can have real estate conversations with
that i go to to ask a question
and he's one of those and uh whenever
we hang out i love um when people
ask us how we met uh because it's
the greatest story ever right you know i
made a friend and a million dollars
So it's the greatest story ever.
I love when people ask me how we
met.
And yeah, so we sold the property.
We basically made a million dollars
selling that property.
Not me.
I have partners and office and everything
like that.
But it was a really good deal.
It was probably one of the best deals.
Definitely in my top ten deals.
I go to the Boca Raton Investment Club.
Shout out to the Boca Raton Investment
Club, David Dweck.
And I won a deal of the...
deal of the day,
that month's meeting for that buy, flip,
buy, rehab, sell deal.
So won my deal of the day and
a million dollars and a friend.
So what could be wrong with that?
And then over the years,
I became not friends with Wayne Jr.,
but I could talk to him and then
It's a really amazing guy.
I read his father's autobiography when I
was in college.
And it's really amazing to meet all the
different people and friends I've met in
Stone Creek Ranch and then going through
and selling all the different lots.
And that's what we have to go back
to.
But I will tell you,
whenever I show a property,
I picture myself living in the property,
not for me,
but like what it would be like, right.
And this doesn't have to be a mansion.
It could be a two bedroom,
but what it would be like where you'd
have your breakfast,
where you'd have your dinner.
If friends came over where they would go
to the bathroom, right.
What's it like to live in that property?
And certainly I'd considered, right.
When we took over the property,
do I want to live there?
Right.
I love my wife.
I got two kids.
I don't need something that big.
And let me tell you,
I do have a nice house, right?
So I didn't need something that big.
And when we were closed on that one
mansion, I was like, oh,
do I want to live there?
But it was too big.
But anyway,
so when we were coming out of the
bad market and builders were coming in and
building spec homes i went to this one
home that was magnificent with a golf
simulator and a racquetball might have
been squash i didn't know squash at the
time the racquetball court and arcades and
bowling alleys and movie theaters and i'm
like what would it be like to live
here and if my kids were eleven years
old i'm like well they're going to college
in a few years and it's just gonna
be me and my wife i want to
be lonely in this house i felt a
sense of loneliness so i
You know,
as a salesman for Stone Creek Ranch,
I don't like to say the things I
don't like about Stone Creek Ranch,
but the sense of loneliness that I feel
when I'm in these big mansions is one
of the reasons I could never live over
there.
There's great things to like about it as
a salesman, right?
Sidewalks, both sides of the street.
I think that's very important.
You walk your dog and there's communities
in Boca Raton that don't have sidewalks.
So how do you go for a morning
walk?
Certainly during COVID,
we all had to go for those walks.
um public water and public sewer so you
don't have a septic system you don't use
well water that's very important natural
gas some of the bigger communities in
bocratone uh the locker will not don't
have natural gas so that's really nice so
all of those features make stone creek
ranch an amazing place to live besides
being in two and a half acres guard
gated and that's what brings us to marky
mark everybody's surprised why would he
live west if i had this kind of
money he'd live by the water
if you live by the water you can't
have two and a half acres gated i
mean you can but it would be a
hundred million and let me tell you the
property he bought it's not just the house
it's a resort it's a private resort it
is absolutely amazing um really really
special um and uh i've been through that
house when it was when it was uh
when it was originally built by the
builder this builder
most houses in stone creek branch are not
like this um um if we go through
this if we go through this one um
and i'm gonna give you some real numbers
because they're public is public
information um
When we bought the lots,
one of the first things I did to
market them was to break them down into
a lots, B lots and C lots,
which ones was the best,
which ones are the middle,
which ones are the worst,
not the worst being bad.
I just wanted to know when I'm pricing
and what I'm selling, right.
Which was one of the better lots.
Um,
this particular lot w we put in the
a level and between you and me,
That was probably a mistake,
and I could explain why.
It's not a bad lot,
but because I know these nineteen lots as
if they are my children,
I know what's good about them and what's
bad about them.
And if someone came to me to choose
one of the nineteen lots,
I could say all of them.
As we sold them off and there were
less lots left, you could be less picky.
They're all amazing in their own way.
So this lot.
And when we did the deal with Kenny,
this was the island.
There were three lots in the center of
Stone Creek Ranch,
all surrounded by water, the island.
So those were the premier lots.
And one of the things that the seller
told us was, don't give those away.
Make sure you get good money for those.
So I bought the lots.
Let's say we bought them for five hundred
K each,
and I was selling them for seven hundred,
seven fifty, eight hundred.
that the lot that Marky Mark bought,
we sold not to him,
but to the original person that we sold
it to for nine hundred thousand.
And then over the course of that person,
this happened in a lot of lots over
the course of their their ownership,
they've changed their mind.
So one of the reasons I say that
no one sold more lots and grants than
I did was I sold the nineteen lots
for me and my family owned.
And I sold some other lots for some
of the other owners.
And I listed some houses that were there.
But some of the lots that I sold,
I actually listed them again when the
buyer decided they didn't want to own it
anymore.
So that particular lot, about twenty.
And I know the lots all by number.
Everybody else knows them by address.
So Marky Mark's Lot.
Can I call you Marky Mark?
Yeah, we're friends.
We're neighbors.
I can call you Mark.
You can call me Maddie, Matt,
if you want.
So, so, uh, that was a lot, and,
um,
the reason why it's a little bit of
a negative is I told you there were
three lots on the island surrounded by
water.
Well, were on the end.
So they're surrounded by water like this,
but is not surrounded by water.
Mark Benthien, SCEC-T,
Twenty is surrounded by lots.
Mark Benthien, SCEC-T,
So it only has water in the back
and we price all three of them the
same as if they were equal and the
only way they'd be equal is if someone
bought a double or even if someone bought
all three.
Mark Benthien, SCEC-T,
And that's what actually happened with
someone bought a double.
But then they built on one,
but they didn't build on the other.
And then we sold that one off.
So I was a listing agent.
I don't know if I was the buyer
in that transaction.
And then the person that bought it,
I think, passed away.
I'd have to check.
And then eventually, AK Builders, Aldo,
bought about five or six lots.
And he made these mega mansions that put
the rest of Stonehenge to shame.
One was called Palazzo del Lago.
One was called Villa Spectre.
And if you Google these things,
Palazzo del Lago,
that's the one that Mark Wahlberg bought.
It's like a Venetian Palace.
Casino Spectre is like a James Bond-themed
thing.
And these are not houses.
These are resorts.
They're absolutely amazing.
I've never seen anything like them.
When the last group of builders bought,
built and they were amazing amazing
mansions that really blew me away they
were still not at this level so when
people say forty seven and a half million
most lots and stuff most houses and soca
grants are not as good as that but
but the google palazzo del lago you'll or
mark walberg uh del rey house and and
you'll see this is a very very special
house so why would mark walberg going back
to why would mark walberg want to live
there if i had that much money to
live in the water
If he lived there,
he could have everything.
He could have his restaurants.
Not restaurants,
but he could do all of his entertaining,
bar, food, everything at the house.
You don't have to go to the Caribbean
to have the most amazing pool.
It's nicer than any hotel in the
Caribbean,
the pool and the landscaping and
everything.
So having everything there is just
amazing.
an absolute wonderful thing,
and he'd be able to really live very
well in privacy.
One of the things that I also liked
about Stone Creek Ranch is right off the
turnpike,
you have the Atlantic Avenue exit for the
turnpike.
It doesn't take you long to get there.
So I was talking to someone who had
a boat, liked to go to the Keys,
Well, if he lives in East Boca,
it would take him forever to get out
of East Boca,
maybe go over the drawbridge by the time
he got to ninety five dealing with
traffic.
Whereas at Stone Creek Ranch,
pop on the turnpike in forty minutes that
it might take that first person just to
get started on ninety five.
This person would already be in Broward
County.
Not halfway to the Keys,
but well on the way to Miami or
the Keys.
So that's another great thing about this.
Theoretically, I don't know.
I'm not a celebrity.
I don't know how celebrities live.
But if he needs to go to Miami,
I don't know if he's going to fly
out of Antiquers or Boca Raton Airport.
When I controlled Stone Creek Ranch,
you could not land a helicopter.
Do people land helicopters?
I don't know.
I've heard there are two people with
helicopters.
I don't know the current HOA rules.
I could probably find out.
Actually, I should make a note about that.
Call the HOA.
But anyway.
Easy access to the world,
to Miami airport, jump on the turnpike,
get down to Miami.
And it's pretty easy.
And then get back to the most amazing
guard gate.
It is so beautiful.
When you pull up to Sunco Grants,
the waterfalls, the guard gate.
as they let you in these beautiful bridges
and landscaping and you really really
transformed your blood pressure goes down
as you enter the community and it's just
an absolute absolute wonderful place for
somebody like that for someone looking for
the absolute the privacy and the absolute
top-notch um build out community nowhere
better in the world and there's a lot
a lot of good reasons why he would
have moved there and i'm very happy for
him and i'm hoping to meet him one
day
Sounds great, man.
We're going to cut.
All right.
So thank you for joining us on the
Matthew Mania podcast.
That's my story.
And think about this story, right?
It's really how I became a real estate
agent,
all about Stone Creek Ranch and Mark
Wahlberg.
Matthew Maschler, real estate broker,
signature real estate finder.
And we'll see you soon.
Feel free to ask me any questions in
the comments or reach out to sales at
realestatefinder.com.
The future looks bright and the storms
pass by.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
You know what time it is.
I'm not afraid of the big bad wolf.