Destin Months Inventory Continues to Decline

The trend continues, months of inventory for March 2013 is 7.23 months. As you can see, inventory has been downward trending since 2009 and the Destin area real estate market months inventory is now back to 2005 levels.

Foreclosures and short sales are also a very low levels as the market is picking up momentum.

Southwest Airlines now offers new non-stop flights to Pensacola

Pensacola and its spectacular beaches have long been a getaway for residents of Houston and Nashville. Southwest Airlines announced Monday it will now offer nonstop flights from to Pensacola International Airport.
Many families in these cities own beach properties or vacation in the Pensacola area and will now benefit from the low cost / express flights to Pensacola.

The current terminal was expanded in 2011 at a cost of $35 million and in November of that year, Pensacola mayor Ashton Hawyard announced that the airport would change its name to Pensacola International Airport from Pensacola Gulf Coast Regional Airport.

In April of this year The Hyatt Place Pensacola International Airport Hotel opened offering travelers great accommodations on the airport campus.

Perdido Key Condo Sales and Available Inventory

If you have been actively watching the Perdido Key condominium sales over the past few years you have probably noticed the real estate market here has substantially changed. How has the condo market changed? To begin with, the available inventory, the number of condos for sale in any given month, has decreased by 72% since it peaked in 2006! If that weren’t enough, the number of average monthly condo sales has been increasing since the 2006-2007 time frame too.

(The blue data is number of monthly sales while the red is the amount of available condo units)

How has this affected buyers and sellers? On the buyer side, there are more buyers with fewer available condos from which to choose. The result is those properties that are correctly priced to the market sell quickly and many times with multiple offers.

Sellers are now starting to be less flexible on price, that is, they are less willing to negotiate much below list price. Some buyers get very frustrated since they still think this is a buyer’s market when is not.

There no new condos built here since 2006 and there are no plans at this time to build more. With the real estate sales improving across the region there every reason to think this trend will continue as the market conditions shift more to the seller side.

 

So, what do you do if you are a buyer? Be prepared to act quickly if you find a condo you like. Those buyers that have a “wait and see” approach will only be disappointed by what the improving market does to pricing and availability. This is a great opportunity for buyers that understand the current market. Most importantly, working with a real estate agent that knows this market is essential so you can see what is available here and what represents a good value.

Tiger Point Golf Course purchased by Gulf Breeze

The City of Gulf Breeze purchased the Tiger Point Golf Course and Country Club in December 2012.

The primary reason for this Gulf Breeze acquisition was address a need to expand their sewerage treatment capacity. While this might sound strange at first one aspect of sewerage treatment is, what do you do with the treated water? Many communities apply this treated water to areas on golf courses through sprinklers. This is a cost effective and ecological solution to the problem.

The benefit to the Tiger Point Golf community is that the City of Gulf Breeze committed to refurbish the back nine holes and perform addition maintenance and improvements. Quickly the City began work on the nine holes, as well as, clearing brush from the fence line, repairing restrooms, improving waterways, re-sanding traps, fixing the irrigation system and restoring a storm shelter.

This new arrangement is a great mutual benefit to both Gulf Breeze and the residents of Tiger point. The Golf Course is at the center of this community and maintaining it is key to maintaining the value of Tiger Point homes surrounding it.

City of Gulf Breeze, No Foreclosures or Short Sales Available

Today I was looking at the available residential listings for sale in Gulf Breeze Proper, the city of Gulf Breeze FL 32561. Residential listings include condos, town houses and single family homes listed for sale in the MLS database.

 

I was impressed to see that there were only 48 properties for sale here; this is down from a high of 149 in May 2007. This is a 68% decrease in active listings.

Most folks would think this was an impressive change in the real estate listing but the most impressive aspect is that not even one of these listings is a foreclosure or short sales, not one! There are NO distressed properties for sale in the city of Gulf Breeze!

Wow, what a long way the real estate market here has come!  So, why do so many people prefer to live in the proper?  Because this small town has so many services provided here -  all three levels of public schools are here, a public library, a well staffed police department, its own fire department, top notch recreation center lots of tennis courts and ball parks, top medical facilities, many churches, stores, boat launches and over half of the city is park land. Oh, did I mention you are only 5 minutes away from a world class beach.

You can find housing options for almost any budget or need range in price from $100,000 to $4 million for condos, family homes, luxury properties and stunning waterfront homes.

Contact me to find out more about living here and which property would be right for you.

 

Kim Gibbons, Broker

Call or Text: 850-912-9826 | 888-820-7248

 

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Pensacola Beach Condo Market, Prices on the Rise

People that have bought or sold real estate or considered buying or selling real estate on Pensacola Beach over the past ten years understand how the market has changed.

The condo market in particular has changed markedly.  Factors in this include the building boom in the early and mid 2000’s, two hurricanes,  the credit boom and bust, the economic down turn and the BP Horizon oil release. Wow, that’s a lot of events in ten years. All of the occurrences worked to drive down prices.

Well thing on Pensacola Beach have been pretty calm and quiet for the past couple years, a welcome respite after all that. The condo market here bottomed out in 2011 and prices appear to be on the rise.

So, why are prices now on the rise? Inventory, or better stated, there are significantly fewer number of condos for sale. Realtors refer to inventory as the number of active condo listings available and on Pensacola Beach the inventory has decreased dramatically.  This is classic case of supply and demand, the supple is low and the demand is rising, so prices begin to rise.

According to the Pensacola Association of Realtors MLS statistics, the number of condos for sale here peaked in September 2007 at 349 units, the number in November 2012 was 111 units, 68% fewer units! Inventory is back to 2005 levels and still falling.

Average Monthly Sold Prices seem to have hit a low in 2010-2011 near $325,000 and in November 2012 the average price was almost $478,000.

The economy is slowly improving and more people that have put off buying are looking to buy at bargain prices. The only problem is, most of the best bargains are gone and improving real estate conditions are make this more of a “sellers market”.

Availability of capital has improved for those beach buyers.  There are still many cash buyers but purchases using credit have been on the rise.

In conclusion the market here is at the early stages of a seller’s market.  If you are interested in purchasing a condominium on Pensacola Beach now is the time.  The availability and reasonable prices you see right now will not last forever.

Pensacola Beach slightly inconvenienced by Hurricane Isaac

Hurricane Isaac was at worst a slight inconvenience in our area but other Gulf Coast States were not a lucky; Louisiana being most notable.

Here on Pensacola Beach the road to Fort Pickens is temporarily closed for sand cleanup. During the storm sand and water covered the road leaving the National Park Service a job to clean things up for park visitors. The road is expected to reopen September 7th.

Many people that buy homes and condos on Pensacola Beach have primary residence in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We have had many of these real estate customers reschedule or cancel planned trips to come in town to look at properties because of damage done to their homes and/or businesses or those of their friends and relatives.

While Isaac was only a category 1 hurricane, it was a big storm that moved very slowly as it approached the coast.  This created more problems that what you would normally expect.

We wish everyone well that was affected by this storm and hope recovery happens quickly.

 

 

The number of Pensacola home for sale continues to shrink

The inventory of unsold Pensacola homes is continuing to shrink as seen in the months of inventory chart below:

 

The number of months inventory is at 11.68 months, this is the lowest September months of inventory of homes since September 2005. This further illustrates the improving real estate market in Pensacola, Florida.

Other Pensacola September real estate sales data; number of residential home sales, average price sold and total inventory (homes, condos and townhouses), continue to provide evidence of this improving market trend.

Some housing markets across the country begin to and continue to improve sooner than others, giving credence to the old expression “all real estate is local”.

Okaloosa Island Beach Photo

A nice morning at the beach on Okaloosa Island, near Destin Florida. Looking over a sand dune toward the Gulf.

Cheaper to buy than rent in 80 percent of major cities

 Today Q2 2011 Rent vs. Buy Index was released, which compares the cost of buying and renting a two-bedroom apartment, condominium or townhouse in the 50 largest U.S. cities.

Since last quarter, buying a home has become more affordable than renting in nearly four out of five (80 percent) major cities; only in New York, Fort Worth and Kansas City was renting a less costly option than buying.  It is cheaper to buy a home than to rent in 39 of the nation’s 50 biggest cities, according to a Trulia quarterly report released today by this national real estate search and marketing company.

Locally in Pensacola, Florida the rental market has been tightening up for months while the cost to buy real estate is as low as it was in 2003. This coupled with mortgage rates near historic lows, make the proposition for buying verses renting better than it has been in many years.

Update – Apartment rents are rising

WASHINGTON – May 6, 2011 – Apartment rents are rising at their fastest pace in years as the U.S. economy creates jobs and spurs demand for rental housing.

Nationwide, rents started edging up last year after several years of little growth or even declines, market researcher Reis says. It predicts apartment rents will jump 4.3 percent this year, marking the biggest annual increase in four years. MPF Research, which also monitors apartment rents, expects them to rise more than 5 percent this year, says Greg Willett, MPF Research vice president.

Job growth is driving much of the increase. As more people get jobs, people who doubled up in homes during the recession, especially younger workers, move out on their own, says Ryan Severino, Reis senior economist. Many of those workers are choosing to rent rather than to buy, because of dropping U.S. home values and tight lending standards that make it harder to buy homes, Severino says.

Lack of construction is also helping rents. This year, Reis expects just 40,000 new apartment units added to the U.S. supply. That’s down from about 130,000 new units each year for much of the past decade.

Apartments make up about half the nation’s rental supply, Willett says. Single-family homes and condominiums account for the rest.

Increasing demand and lack of new rental supply will boost rents for the next couple of years, predicts Paul Dales, economist at Capital Economics. Eventually, though, as rents rise and home prices drop, “homeownership becomes more valuable again,” says Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global.