What’s Going On in the 30A Real Estate Market?
Are statistics exciting or what? To some, me included, it is like watching grass grow, unless it happens to be 
about a subject dear to my heart or perhaps my wallet.
Recently there has been a lot of buzz in the area about how the market is going up and the doom and gloom is over. With that in mind I decided it was time to just take a look at the facts and see where things stand.
The area that I am concentrating on is the roughly 18 miles of the Hwy. 30A corridor. I am comparing the first 2 quarters of 2012 to the same period in 2011 (January 1 to June 30th). These numbers were generated from the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors and do not include properties that were handled outside of that format.
These are simply the facts and I will let you draw your own conclusions, but I do have a couple of observations.
It is apparent that sales activity is up as far as single family homes and residential land is concerned. Prices are also up in those 2 categories with 5.6% in price per square foot for homes and 10% for residential land. Time will tell if these increases are sustainable. Condominiums are a different matter, while sales have gone down the prices have gone up 7.3%. It’s possible sales have been affected by the financial market. Condominium mortgages continue to be problematic.
Well, the grass has grown a little since you’ve been contemplating this information. I hope you find it useful and welcome any suggestions you may have for additional research on this topic that affects all of our wallets.
*Statistics were compiled by Hugh Smith using data provided by the Emerald Coast Association of Realtors.
Beachy Beach Real Estate 850-233-4351
PCBDaily 
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These statistics are, well, nothing of note.
Get rid of percentages and talk real $$. A $700K home in 2004 is worth $350K at the beginning of the year. That’s a 50% loss.
2012 home of $350K is up 4.3% in the last 6 months…call it 5% and you have a 17.5K ‘gain’.
$700K 2007 home is now worth $367K., still down $47.5% from 2004.
Bottom line is that pricing has to increase 100% to break even from 2004.
We have a looong way to go. 4.3% is not a trend.
Loosen up the money supply and you get growth. The property does not matter.
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Don believe me being in the Real Estate profession we are well aware that we are still at a major loss because we have lived through it. The reason it is exciting ( remember this is just for 30A and not PCB) is because we are seeing it first hand as we take our customers around and properties that they want are selling quickly. For the first time in many many years we do not have quite the inventory that they are looking for. WE all KNOW we have a long long way to go but goodness gracious we are grateful for a start and in no way can even hint that is a trend but found it quite encouraging. But as I said before what has been encouraging to me is that we are witnessing the prices of certain areas going up and God forbid we have had a few in Walton County even turn a quick profit. I am not a fan of flipping at all but it has happened in a few cases. That is one of the reasons we go in trouble in the first place.
To end my husband loves to play around with stats so he has fun researching it but I myself have a hard time doing stats but rather dive head first into all the action. Thanks for reading and we hope to see you again.
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Agree with Don. Housing is still in the toilet. Sure there are pockets of “surge activity” in some areas but we are not even close to the end of the line of slumping home values/sales.
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I am sure excited about all in the interest in this article and love that it brings about dialogue!!! I think the thing to remember around our area is that we are a little different than the global perspective and so we try to isolate and look at what is happening for us. All I know is that as a Realtor and Broker in this area since 2003 we are seeing GREAT activity and YES the prices are still down but it is improving and I am getting that first hand and now from news media but rather from being in the battle field.
Again, thanks so much for all the interest in this. I would love to hear some responses from people in the industry. So All my Realtor, Broker and Builder buddies please give a shout out and tell us what you think.
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