Howard Stern

Shock jock Howard Stern has purchased an oceanfront home appraised at $40.8 million on “Raiders Row” in Palm Beach, according to Gossip Extra.

North County Road, nicknamed for the high number of corporate tycoons living there, is home to talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh and Nelson Peltz, the billionaire founder of Trian Fund Management. [more]

From the May issue: For more than a century, ever since Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler put up a 55-room Beaux-Arts mansion to spend his winters, Palm Beach has had a reputation for luxury real estate.

Today, a nine-bedroom, newly constructed home on the market for $74 million shows the city is as popular as ever with the richest of the rich. [more]

Mary Lou Berger

Palm Beach County commissioners voted 5-2 on Tuesday night to approve a deal for a developer to opt out of a requirement that it set aside land for civic purposes in exchange for paying the county $2.8 million, the Palm Beach Post reported. Four developments in Palm Beach County’s agricultural reserve built by GL Homes were at issue.

The money will be used to open a sheriff’s office substation in Delray Beach, the Post said.  [more]

Reichel Realty recently closed 53,000 square feet of lease transactions in Palm Beach County valued at $4.3 million, Reichel President Bill Reichel announced today. The firm said it was responsible for leasing 300,000 square feet of deals valued at more than $300,000 in 2012. The largest of the recent deals were a pair of 10,000-square-foot leases by Epic Gym and Furever Friends at Tuscany Office Center in Palm Beach Gardens and 7100 North Military Trail in Riviera Beach, respectively. —Alexander Britell

(source: ZipRealty)

Palm Beach County has shown some of the strongest year-over-year median home price gains in the nation, according to data from ZipRealty, a national real estate brokerage. Median prices increased 22 percent to nearly $153,400 in Palm Beach, from 2011 to the end of 2012, right behind San Francisco Bay Area markets in terms of growth. [more]

The median sales price of homes in Palm Beach County rose 19.6 percent in November compared to the same period in 2011, according to data from the Greater Fort Lauderdale Realtors. In the same time frame, townhomes and condos saw their median sales price rise by 11.2 percent. [more]

Although Hurricane Sandy did not directly hit Palm Beach County, the storm was still able to cause $24 million in damage, the Palm Beach Post reported. Last Thursday, Gov. Rick Scott asked President Barack Obama to declare that a “major disaster” exists in South and Coastal Florida as a result of the storm – allowing local governments to recoup at least 75 percent repair costs. Statewide, the storm caused an estimated $67.2 million in damage.

“What we have seen is significant erosion throughout most of the county,” Rob Robbins, the director of the county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management, said. [more]

The median sales price of condominiums in Palm Beach County rose 16 percent in August, compared to the same month in 2011, according to a report released by the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches. Inventory fell drastically in the same period, with a 43.6 percent year-over-year drop in August. Closed sales rose 8.4 percent. “Buyers who were sitting on the sidelines became very active after the first of the year,” said Bonnie Lazar, 2012 president of the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches. “As a result, inventory moved quickly and changed the dynamics of the market, sparking an increase in the median price of single-family homes.” — Alexander Britell

The Max Planck Florida Institute

Scientists have begun occupying the Max Planck Florida Institute’s $64 million facility, the Palm Beach Post reported. The 100,000-square-foot project, which first broke ground in June 2010, is part of a growing biotech center in Palm Beach County. Of that total, 57,600 square feet are dedicated to research and laboratory space. It is the first Max Planck to be located in a city outside of Germany. The institute was drawn to the region thanks to $188 million in taxpayer incentives. [Palm Beach Post] — Alexander Britell

Mecca Farms

Nearly 1,900 acres of Palm Beach’s Mecca Farms could become a water reservoir, if the county agrees to trade 1,500 acres and $30 million for the land, the South Florida Business Journal reported.  On Thursday the South Florida Water Management District governing board directed its staff to begin negotiations with the county – whose recent $100 million attempt to develop a biotech park on the land has largely failed. The reservoir would be used to redirect water to the Loxahatchee River during droughts, according to Randy Smith, a spokesperson for the district. [SFBJ] – Christopher Cameron