Cape San Blas Real Estate Blog

I know we typically only focus on the Cape San Blas area real estate market but this sale on an interior lot in Mexico Beach in this morning’s MLS hot sheet made me choke on my coffee. The property is located in one of the many new subdivisions that mushroomed almost overnight in 2004/2005 in MB; this one’s called Ocean Plantation and is tucked way back off Hwy. 98 so we’re not talking about gulf views or the sound of the surf to sell the sizzle. It’s a 45′ x 130′, 0.13 acre lot with a community pool and a fairly good walk to the beach.

Anyway, the seller bought it in August 2005 (see a pattern developing here as we track these things?) for $150,000 and put it on the market 10 months later for $210,000 hoping for a nice 30+% return. Only problems was that by June ’06 the game of musical chairs had long been over and this poor guy was definitely left standing. No takers at $210K so he dropped it 6 months later to $199. Still no takers so in September of this year he dropped it to $79,000 with the caveat that at that price the buyer must close by the end of 2007 (bet the accountant insisted on that).

It went under contract on the 21st (merry Christmas) and closed this past Friday for $59,000. Our seller here was willing to take 39 cents on the dollar to just walk away. There are currently 8 other lots and 2 houses for sale in Ocean Plantation, ranging in price from $99,900 to $124,900 for the lots, and roughly $368K each for the houses. What’s with that lot for $99,900 when the others are up to $124,900? Turns out it’s a brand new listing.

The guy just bought in on Friday for $59K.

Another slow holiday week for real estate around Cape San Blas, with no new contracts or closed sales, but a couple of very attractive price changes. The inventory sits at 507, down only 3 from last week, with 178 homes and 329 lots listed for sale in the MLS. There are a lot of Realtors out there with way too much time on their hands right now, so if any of you have gotten bored enough to drive around and actually count the number of FSBOs on the market let me know and I’ll be glad to add that to our weekly mix.

Only two price changes this week but they’re both really attractive from a buyers standpoint. The Stillwater lot has been listed since February for $125,000, which is what the seller paid for it in September of ’04, and he reduced it 20% this week down to $99,000.

The second lot is in a gulf front subdivision called Curve at the Cape and this is truly a sweet deal: gulf 1st tier lot, X zone, reduced a whopping 35% from $399,000 down to $262,000. This lot isn’t in the CBRA zone either so flood insurance won’t even be a major issue when you go to build. It’s been a long time since we’ve had 1st tier lots anywhere near this low. The lowest priced comparable sale was earlier this year when a 1st tier in Gulf Pines was let go for only $320,000. If you’ve been looking for good investment opportunities this is it. Shoot me an e-mail to sherri@sherridodsworth.com or call me at 850-227-5197 is you’d like more info on either of these properties.

To see if all the whispers I’m hearing of people unable to keep up with their mortgages is as bad as it sounds, I decided to check the court records to see if there are any signs of trouble. There are. I checked the number of Lis Pendens filed in the 4th quarter of this year versus last and the number has more than doubled, with nearly as many filings in the final quarter as there were for all of 2006, with 53 filings this year since October 1 compared with only 24 during the same period in 2006. These are for all of Gulf County, not just the Cape market.

The trend held true for the entire year, with 126 filings for 2007 versus 56 for 2006.

With only 1 1/2 business days left in the year, I think we’re close enough to start taking a look at how 2007 stacked up against previous years. I went back through 2003 and built a spreadsheet showing year by year comparisons of residential sales (lot and land sales will come later) of such data as dollar volume, average list price vs. average sales price, days on market and so on. (I apologize in advance for how this table displays, but the blogging software I use really doesn’t like to import data from Excel and this is the best I could get it to look). Here’s what it revealed:

The only category that shows any glimmer of improvement is the average monthly inventory, down 8% off last year’s high, but the average days on market has more than doubled over last year and the sales to list price ratio continues to fall. The average sale price is down 26% off the 2005 peak. The most alarming stat of all, though, is in total dollar volume of sales, which this year was down a staggering 74% off the peak of 2004. Unbelievable.

I’m concerned about the number of sales in 2005 which may have 3-year ARMs maturing in 2008. I think the earliest we might reach the market bottom will be late in ’08 or early 2009, but we’ll just have to keep a close eye on the data to spot the early signs of leveling off or reversing trends.

At this rate I think the only safe bet is that by 2009 south Gulf County Realtors will qualify for placement on the Endangered Species List.

Just about what you would expect in real estate activity for the week before Christmas – very slow. Our inventory continues its slow downward trend, a very good thing, with the total at 510, down 8 from last week, with 179 homes and 331 lots listed for sale in the MLS.

With no new sales or contracts, the only activity at all was with price changes, a total of 17 with an average reduction of 11%. It’ll be interesting to see if any of these price changes induce buyers to add some real estate to their investment portfolios in time for year-end tax purposes.

This week I’ll be taking a look back at the year as a whole and in next Saturday’s post we’ll see how 2007 stacked up against 2006, and if we can forecast any trends for the new year.

It’s a Christmas miracle – we finally have all our permitting in hand for beach renourishment. Received the following update from the Beach Renourishment committee this evening:

Yesterday we received our final approved permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As a result, County Administrator Don Butler was able to execute the contract with Manson Construction Company, which has been mailed out to them today. Without the hard work, dedication and support of all of you, the Board of County Commissioners, the members of the SJPBAC, the TDC and County Staff, MRD Associates, FDEP, USACE, USFW, Manson Construction and many others, we could not have gotten to this point!

We will have more information on the actual start date for dredging, etc., following a meeting with the contractor which will take place after the first of the year. Once the project actually gets underway, we will have weekly updates and do everything we can to get as much information out to you as possible as construction proceeds up the Cape.

Since it has been so slow I decided to take a few days off this week for R&R and headed to my hometown of Tampa to hang out with friends and do a little late Christmas shopping. Even in Tampa real estate seems to be a topic of conversation and things are quiet there as well. Let’s take a look and see what happened around the Cape while I was gone.

Another drop in inventory, coming in at 518, down 14 from last week, with 185 homes and 333 lots. With no closings this week that drop all comes from expireds not renewing.

Good news is we have three new contracts, two lots and a house. Let’s take a look at the house first, which is a 5 bedroom, 3 bath, single family home in Treasure Shores. Originally listed in January 2006 for $1,695,000 the current list price is down to $899,000 which will make it interesting to see if they got full list, especially since they paid $1,150,000 for it in October 2005. Ouch. It’s scheduled to close by January 30.

Our two lots are both located on Cape San Blas; one residential and one commercial. The residential lot is a gulf view roadfront lot in Cape Breezes listed with a give-away price of $199,000 (originally listed in June at $245,000) and which the sellers purchased in January ’01 for $70,000 so they should come out okay.

The other lot is a mixed commercial / residential 1 1/2 acre lot adjacent to the state park. It was originally listed for a while in ’04 for $1,375,000, then off for a short while, and re-listed this past May for $625,000, and currently at $575,000. It is scheduled to close mid-January. The seller has owned it since ’91 so he’ll be fine.

With list prices coming back down out of the stratosphere maybe we’ll start seeing a pick up in sales activity in 2008. The next three weeks will probably be pretty quiet with the holidays so we’ll take some time to take a look back at the year in review.

Hard to believe it’s Saturday already, but it is so let’s take a look at what’s been going on with Cape San Blas real estate. In a word? Nothing.

Once again it seems as if the only buyers are at the malls because there was no new activity this week at all; no closings, no new pendings. December, January and February have traditionally been slow sales months here so that really isn’t a surprise.

The total inventory’s down roughly 4% this week, coming in at 532, down from last week’s 549, with 193 homes and 339 lots. I’ve had some sellers take their properties off the market until next Spring just to keep them from getting over the next few quiet months.

I’m hearing more and more whispers around about looming foreclosures and I’m getting the sense that 2008 is going to be a tough year for a lot of people who got a little too aggressive during the peak years. We’ll be keeping an eye out for good investment opportunities. We’re already starting to get calls from banks who want broker price opinions on properties they’ve taken back.

It’s going to be interesting in just 3 short weeks to take a look at the year in review and see how it compares with last year.

Halleleujah – the last hurdle to acquiring DEP’s signature on our beach renourishment permitting was cleared yesterday afternoon, Monday, December 3rd, when a Notice of Dismissal of Petition for Formal Administrative Hearing was signed by the petitioners, Michael and Kate O’Brian-Nicholson and White Sand of Navarre, LLC.

DEP said our permitting would be signed today and we’ll be on our way. The company who was awarded the dredging contract, The Manson Company, has purchased an additional set of equipment so that they can put two systems to work come January which should make the project move along so much faster as we hurry to beat the arrival of turtle season next spring.

Thanks again more than words can say to the many volunteers who have spent literally thousands of hours of their time to get us to this point, especially Laurel Eiler, Susan Wright and Paula Pickett. For more detailed info on the Beach Renourishment Project status, check out their website at http://www.savethecape.com/ .

Here is an excerpt from an e-blast issued by the committee this evening:

As discussed and unanimously supported at the October 25, 2007, SJPBAC meeting, the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) successfully negotiated the purchase of the Nicholson parcel for additional beach access. As a result, the final petition which was preventing the issuance of the FDEP permit was voluntarily dismissed on December 3rd. FDEP issued our Final Construction Permit at 4:00 p.m. today, December 4th.

The one remaining permit still outstanding will come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We anticipate the Corps’ permit will be received in a very short period of time, and our engineer, Michael Dombrowski, is working closely with the Corps to accomplish the issusance of that permit as soon as possible.

The contract to be entered into with our dredging company, Manson Construction, was approved by the BOCC on Monday, December the 3rd. As soon as the Corps’ permit is issued, the contract will be formally entered into with Manson and mobilization of their equipment will begin. Mobilization of equipment can take anywhere from six to eight weeks. it is anticipated that barring any unforeseen delay, we can expect to begin pumping approximately the first week of February 2008.

Not being content with having crashed this site once, when I finally got it back up and running on the 18th I tried the upgrade once again only to crash it so irretrievably that some of the best tech minds at GoDaddy couldn’t figure out what I’d done. I finally got it straightened out late yesterday and I PROMISE I will quit tweaking it so that we can get back to doing what we love best – dishing the latest in Cape San Blas real estate news.Â

So what’s been going on since we last met? As of this morning there are 199 homes and 350 lots listed for sale in the MLS for the Cape, C-30 and Indian Pass, down 3 from Nov. 17, one less home and two fewer lots.

So has anything been selling? No activity at all during Thanksgiving week, but this past week two contiguous gulf-front lots on Canoe Lane went under contract and yet another townhome at Barrier Dunes sold.

And how did this week’s solo seller make out? Let’s take a look. They bought this townhome brand new from the developer in April of ’02 for $149,500 and have had it on a rental program for several years, so they’ve had some rental income and tax deductions to factor into their overall return on investment. The home was listed at $285,000 and was on the market for 300 days before finally closing yesterday (Friday, Nov. 30) for $220,000, 77% of list. Interestingly, Kesley (Gulf County Property Appraiser) had it assessed at $243,885, so it sold for only 90% of its assessed value. It wasn’t so very long ago that a sure laugh-getter was to offer to buy someone’s property for the assessed value. Wouldn’t happen. The times they are a changing . . . Even so, no crying towels being handed out this week. Even though our seller didn’t get anywhere near his asking price, he still managed to sell it for 47% more than he paid for it after only 5 1/2 years, or an annualized straight average of 8.57% per year increase. I don’t know of any bank instruments offering returns even close to that.

Twelve sellers have tried tweaking their prices in the past two weeks to try to get some action going. Three of them are highly motivated as they each dropped their prices by more than 26%. I tell you, there are getting to be some attractive lures out there.

That’s it for this week. It’s good to be back. If you’re interested in seeing what sort of attractive bargains may be out there, or if you’re wondering what your property might sell for in this changing market, give me a call at 850-227-5197 or shoot me an e-mail to sherri@sherridodsworth.com .