A bit quieter week compared to last, but we still had two closings and four new contracts so that’s a strong week in my book. Another healthy trend is that our inventory continued its downward trend, closing down two from last week, with 384 active MLS listings in the Cape San Blas, Indian Pass and C-30 Corridor market, with 137 homes and 249 lots for sale. In other activity we had eight new listings and fourteen price changes. Let’s take a look at what caught buyers’ attention.
Both of this week’s sales are on the Cape, the first of which is this 3-bedroom, 3 1/2 bath, 1716 square foot gulf front townhouse at Barrier Dunes with a list price of $415,000; closed on Friday for the deep discounted price of $320,000. This is one of the original units built in 1985 and this seller had owned it since 2000 when he paid $310,000 for it, so that’s pretty cool to have a gulf front get away for over ten years and then get paid $10,000 for doing so. It’s been a vacation rental property so I’m pretty confident that income more than offset the carrying costs. We’ve seen a couple of sales recently in the 2000, 2001 price range.
We’ll head about a mile south for our second sale, this one a $50,000 road-front lot in Ovation that sold for full list, which also happens to be exactly the county’s assessed value. The adjacent lot sold in September 2005 for $235,000 and the one next to it that same month for $375,000 for reasons I sure can’t figure out.
On to our four new contracts, the first of which is a short sale on this 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 1706 square foot first tier home on Rachel Beach Lane just a little north of Scallop Cove. This is a very nice home with terrific views and a pleasing layout. The sellers bought it back in July 2004 for $769,000 and put it back on the market the following summer with an asking price of $1.2M. That would be the “It doesn’t hurt to ask” theory of establishing a list price which rarely ever results in a sale, and that is certainly the case here as it has been on the market ever since with that price tag whithering down to $375,000, finally low enough to attract a buyer.
Our second contract is on this bank-owned 50′ wide gulf front lot on the south side of the Cape listed for just $159,000. It was my Pick of the Week two weeks ago when I predicted it would not remain available very long at that price and I encouraged anyone who was interested to act quickly. On Wednesday somebody decided to do exactly that and it is under contract with no contingencies. The property lies entirely seaward of the CCCL so they’ll have to go through DEP for permitting, but there is a recently built home on the same street so apparently its doable.
We’ll head off the Cape and out onto the C-30 Corridor for our third new contract, this one a bank-owned 3-bedroom, 4-bath, 1,702 square foot gulf front home at Brighton by the Sea with a list price of a mere $325,000. That’s pretty attractive when you can get a 12-year old single family detached home on the gulf for the same price as a 25-year old townhouse. This home last sold in August 2004 for $689,000 so the bank is apparently going to take quite a hit. I’m going to be watching to see what they take for it as the sale prior to that was another 2000 comp at $288,700, so once again, that seems to be pretty clearly where the market has fallen back to at this point. A full decade of appreciation vanished.
This poor little house is just having the hardest time getting someone to see her all the way down the aisle. She has been on the market ever since she was built in 2006 when she debuted sporting a seemingly attractive price tag of $850,000 , but she has languished ever since with several contracts along the way but in each case the buyers got cold feet and walked away. It’s a pretty home in a lovely wooded setting in the Mystic Palms subdivision out near the tip of the Indian Pass peninsula. It’s 2,298 square feet with 3-bedrooms and 3 baths, and finally attracted yet another suitor as a short sale with the current list price ot $299,000. The sellers paid $250,000 for the lot alone in early 2006. That’s above what the county now has it assessed for even with this lovely home on it – they have it pegged at just $219,417.
An easy winner among our eight new listings for Pick of the Week – I’m going with yet another $159,000 gulf front lot, this one over at Indian Pass. This one is 50′ by 370′, for a full half acre on the gulf. It’s definitely a short sale at that price having last sold in May 2006 for $1.3M. Whoa. Twelve cents on the dollar. Unbelievable. Even the county thinks it’s worth $200,000.You definitely want to act quickly if you’re intrested in snapping this one up. Call me at 850-227-5197 or shoot me an email to [email protected] and yes, I work weekends.
Nothing in our fourteen price changes can compete with that so we’ll call it a wrap for this week. Let me know if you’re interested in either buying or selling – there are lots of great opportunties right now. I appreciate your checking in today and hope to hear from you soon. Have a great weekend.