THE MIAMI LAND . BOOM
SIX thousand people a day are arriving in Miami, " the magic city." of Florida ; they represent the biggest migration of fortune-sulkers and the greatest influx of speculative capital that have ever been seen in the world. This is not " fresh aut of Magic talk," as exaggeration has come to be called in America, but a simple statement of fact. Such millions of money as are being spent in Miami were never poured into the South Sea Bubble, such armies of adventurers never sought Spanish gold nor travelled over the White Horse Pass to the nuggets of the Yukon. The " days of Forty-nine " and Los Angeles' recent decade of fremied building were local and trifling affairs compared to these vaster activities in the south of the United States.
I recently motored down from New York to Miami. A thousand miles away and more we began to see evi- dences of the " boom." Cars of every make, and from every State in the Union, were moving down the " Dixie Trail " towards the enchanted land. When we come into the region of land developments we are flanked by notices such as these " Here realities are your at prices others pay for visions "; "Buy a homesite to-day beside this romanceful lagoon " ; " In a spacious patio, beneath starry-studded skies, guests will dine and dance where caressing ocean breezes blow "—or more elaborately still—" Here is eventuating the materialization of a mirage that has gripped the vision and artistic hopes of the man who made Palm Beach a Mecca for the elite."
With its sky-scrapers against a velvet blue sky, its miles of motors, whistling traffic policemen, seething crowds and blinking electric signs, Miami is very like a miniature New York. The policemen, in shirt-sleeves and bow ties, with holsters on their hips, appear quite affable, but I was told that order is maintained with a stern hand. There is a regulation that foot passengers may only cross Flagler Street (the main thoroughfare) when the traffic is stopped. The story goes that two men attempted to dodge through the vehicles when they should have remained on the pavement. A policeman saw them and called them back. They refused to stop, so he whipped out his automatic and shot one of them dead as a warning to others not to risk their lives. Needless to say, there are few " jay-walkers " in- Miami now.
The hotel lobby was full of coatless and hatless brokers-, in shirt sleeves, their trouser-pockets bulging, if not with flasks, then with title deeds and contracts. In every manly bosom two or more fountain pens were clamped, ready to travel over dotted lines without any possibility of hitch. Thousands of dollars change hands on the vaguest rumour.
Every day the newspapers display advertisements' asking for " salesmen who can earn £250 a week." I made" enquiries to ascertain whether this were not an exagger- ation, and found that it is a fact that there are hundreds of men making this much and more whose usual earnings in other parts of the United States are about £20 a week. Frequently £250,000 of building sites are sold in a day. Brokerage commission is 10 per cent. in Miami. Lots" are often resold twice in a week. At least three thousand of the six thousand daily arrivals have money to invest.- Sea frontage on Miami Beach is selling at £600 a foot. Plain sea, soon to be dredged and converted into islands, is worth £1,000 for each 100 by 50 foot patch' of water.
The following story, true or ben trovato, was going the rounds on my arrival. A " butter and egg mans" (thus are wealthy investors nick-named) from the West came to a broker's office to know how he was to make a fortune quickly. He was a guileless youth, so the broker sold him one of the first pieces of sea offered to the public. He showed him the place, marked on his blue print. -It was a valuable parcel, he said, but he omitted to mention that it was water, not land. A road would be built through his property, he added, and in a month he would treble his investment. So the youth pulled out his cheque book and signed at once for £5,000. This, of course, is nothing unusual in Florida. Very frequently, investors do not even look at the plans of their land, much less do they inspect the land itself. In fact, its situation and even its very existence is immaterial, provided some- one else will buy. So far, there has usually been someone else, some wilder speculator to rush in where financial angels fear to tread.
This youth, however, after he had paid his money, insisted on seeing his land. After some hesitation, the broker drove him to the beach, made a lordly gesture towards the Gulf of Biscayne, and explained how a re- inforced concrete island would soon arise from the foam to make Venice pale with envy: The youth, somewhat to the broker's surprise, and greatly to his relief, was elated at his purchase. So the broker went on to expatiate on the magnificent causeway that would span the Gulf, passing right through his young friend's property. But now the boy grew gloomy. " I have always wanted to own a piece of the ocean," he said, " and I don't see why you should fill it in at all."
" But hati else could we build our causeway or proceed' with the development ? " cried the broker, in alarm.
" I don't know," said the butter and egg man, " but I do know that you can't mess up my water by dumping concrete into ft. Unless you buy it back, of course." And eventually the broker had to buy it back—for 150,000—in order to fulfil his contract to build a road.
One of the biggest insurance companies in America has invested millions in Florida. The sales manager of one of the nationally known musical instru- ment makers in New York recently left his firm to take a similar position with a Florida land development com- pany at a salary of £20,000 a year for ten years. Million dollar hotels are springing up like mushrooms,' and in the sixty-five mile strip of country between Palm Beach and Coral Gables (which is just south of Miami) two new cities (Hollywood-by-the-sea and Boca Raton) are arising, each with its palaces, swimming pools, honest- to-goodness gondolas, golf courses, polo grounds. Also ten or more smaller enterprises, capitalized at about £100,000 each, are being sold to an eager public through the medium of full-page advertisements in the daily papers.
" There is no boom," a broker insisted to me, mopping his brow, " all America is flocking here to buy the climate. Yes, sir. This favoured sixty miles of shore, washed by the Gulf Stream, blooming with fragrant flowers, spanned by broad avenues with moss-hung oaks and palms, is a paradise and a playground in one. This country can afford to make a heaven on earth, even if it costs three thousand dollars a front foot, and by golly, we'll do it ! "
Is he right ? After paying a modest £2 a day for a week at my hotel, without meals (now at the height of the season I understand rocking chairs are hired at £1 a night), I drove away without having made up my mind. 230,000 for a little building plot, fifteen yards by thirty, seems an insane price to pay, even if it is on a beach where " forty-five automobiles can drive abreast." .
FRANCIS YEATS-BROWN.
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