Night In Venice Will Pay Tribute to Jimmy Buffett

🎡 Ocean City, NJ's only weekly newsletter

Author

Kyle Scott
April 21, 2024

Boat drinks

Waitress, I need two more boat drinks

Then I'm headin' south 'fore my dream shrinks

I gotta go where it's warm (I gotta go where it's warm)

I gotta go where it's warm (I gotta go where it's warm)

I gotta go where it's warm!

Astute readers will recognize those lyrics from Jimmy Buffett’s Boat Drinks. And I couldn’t think of a better way to start the email this week given the news that the 2024 Night In Venice theme will pay tribute to the son of a son of a sailor.

Official details:

Theme: Summertime Vibes: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett

Date: July 20, 2024

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Location: The bay, baby!

If any of you 13,000+(!) readers have a large vessel and want to host the Walking The Boards crew, we pay with beers, bribes, and publicity. Respond to this email and let me know.

In the email today:

📆 Upcoming Events in (and around) Ocean City

Saturday and Sunday, April 27-April 28

  • đź‘š Merchant Table Sales | Boardwalk and Asbury Shopping Area | 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

You can see the full list of events in all nearby Shore towns with the following links: Ocean City | Sea Isle | Margate | Avalon | Stone Harbor | Somers Point | Wildwood | Cape May | Ventnor

Also note the Ocean City Library has many events for adults and kids alike on their calendar, which can be viewed here.

🏢 Seaspray Condos Shut Down (Again)

The Seaspray was (again) red-tagged by Ocean City officials over structural concerns, (again) displacing residents.

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it happened last April as well. A subsequent structural engineering report in May declared the building safe and allowed residents to return.

At the time, there was some local conjecture about unhappy owners trying to use an independent investigation to compel a few remaining holdouts to sell their units to a developer so the building could be demolished and rebuilt.

Here is what we wrote last May:

In short, there are lawsuits going in various directions over the property, led by at least one owner who is upset because steps have not been taken to make repairs to the property. Now owners are left without a place to live and holding the bag on a mortgage.

There are supposedly offers on the property. Word on the street is that the owner mentioned in the article may have hired the structural engineer and wants to sell the property to a developer. Getting the building condemned may compel the remaining holdouts to sell their units. We’re hearing that a developer may be able to get four condos on the property.

This year, it was Ocean City’s construction official who issued the red tag notice. We’ll keep you updated.

🍕Another Change at Express Pizza

Interesting, if not unsurprising, development here from Express Pizza in the Gardens.

Noted pizza entrepreneur Mike Fitzick, who goes by the handle “Pizza Jew”, announced on his Instagram that he’s leaving the restaurant to return to the “pile of ashes” at his old Bakeria 1010 in Linwood.

We’re not sure what, exactly, happened here, but Fitzick was brought on last year to run the kitchen after Express was sold to new owners.

After months of teasing online, Fitzick brought his famed square pie (in this case, the Island Square) to OC.

I’m not sure it ever really caught on. One problem may have been that it was initially available in limited supply and cost $48, a sum that nearly knocked me over after I ran my card.

Anyway, we covered the changes at Express a lot last year, so found this to be a salient, mildly disappointing, update.

🚴‍♂️ Bike Incident

A 13-year-old girl was hit by a car on her e-bike at the corner of 18th and Bay on Friday night. The driver of the car was reportedly also a teen.

The girl spent the night in the hospital with “non life-threatening injuries.” Ocean City police chief Bill Campbell told OCNJDaily that he believes the girl was wearing a helmet and that it may have played a role in saving her life.

No charges or citations have been issued to the driver as of this writing.

Let this be a not-so-friendly reminder to stay safe whether driving or riding on, near, or around e-bikes. And WEAR A HELMET!

🏠 Real Estate Update: March Market Report

Our March market report is here and WE HAVE A PULLBACK.

As a reminder, subscribe to our real estate specific newsletter, Shore Cribs, for all the latest in Ocean City real estate.

We’ve been doing these monthly reports for about a year now, and this is the first time where we’ve seen clear, consistent evidence of a median sale price pullback without some sort of qualifier (like fewer single-family home sales).

The median sale price in March was $947,700, down 5% since last March. The single-family median sale price was $1,785,000, with the condo median sale price coming in at $843,750. Those numbers are down 14% and 11% since last March, respectively.

Things would probably be worse for the overall price number if it weren’t for the higher proportion of more expensive single-family homes sold this year compared to last, pulling up the overall number a bit.

Volume, of course, remains comically low given still-high interest rates. Sellers, despite being up big on their investments, are in no hurry to abandon a sub-4% mortgage. And higher prices and rates are keeping many buyers off the field. Anyway, owners can feel good about huge equity gains over the last few years, even if they aren’t realizing them right now.

Did you know Walking The Boards has a newsletter dedicated to Ocean City Real Estate?

If you’d like to opt-in, just click the subscribe button right here:

Shore CribsEverything you need to know about real estate in Ocean City, NJ. Join over 1,500 second-home owners, agents, residents, investors, and renters who subscribe to our newsletter for free.

🍩 PSA: Browns Reopened For The Season

That is all.

Thanks! Have a good week.