We had a fairly brisk week with three sales and one new contract but after such a smoking hot first quarter we’ve earned the right to cool off a little bit. We had a total of 36 sales this past quarter, with 21 houses and 15 lots sold in the Cape San Blas, Indian Pass and C-30 markets. That’s a very healthy 28 1/2% increase over Q1 2010 and a whopping 200% increase over Q1 2009. So it hasn’t just been my imagination – we really have been smokin’! Our inventory took a nice little dip, closing the week at 342, down eight from last Saturday, with 124 houses and 218 lots listed for sale in our MLS for our area. In other activity, we added four new listings and fourteen price changes.
The first two of our three sales are both bank-owned lots in Ovtation, beginning with this bay-view lot located on the crescent South Echo Drive. These are my favorite lots in this subdivision as they offer unobstructed views of the bay for a fraction of the cost of an actual bay front lot. Very nice. This one last sold in late 2005 for $375,000. When Superior Bank inherited it recently, they put it on the market for $99,000 which was pounced on immediately, and on Friday it sold for $89,000. Ashwood Development has a number of these still at $125,000 so I’ll be curious to see if they move on those with this new comp.
I don’t typically delve into the Bay County MLS for researching each week’s review, but this second sale is an exception as it came to my attention unexpectedly this past week and it’s a clear example of the banks acting wrecklessly and destroying property values because they have the false comfort of the government absorbing a certain portion of the losses. Since our tax dollars are being used to absorb those losses, we’re essentially being forced to fund the destruction of our own property values. This is an amazing rabbit hole we’ve crawled down into. Anyway, this is a second tier, gulf view lot in Ovaton which sold in late 2005 for $455,000. Those owners had been trying to resell it since late 2006 when they listed it for $575,000. Never happened. They kept lowering and lowering the price finally getting all the way down to $109,900 last fall, but Wells Fargo ended up with it and listed it for $103,900 in December, dropping it quickly to $97,450 around the first of the year. Why they listed a prime Gulf County lot in the Bay County MLS is puzzling to me as very few agents track several MLS’s on a daily basis so most of the agents selling in this area weren’t even aware this was out there. They inexplicably dropped the price to a ridiculous low price of $44,950 and the listing agent had a buyer at that time interested in it who immediately put a contract on it. It sold on the 25th for that list price of $44,950, but didn’t appear in the MLS as being sold until Thursday. This sale doesn’t make sense to me at all as the bank had already received offers higher than that. I just don’t get it. Even the county has it asessed for a far more reasonable $115,000.
Our third and final sale takes us down by the rocks at Stumphole where this 5-bedroom, 5-bath, 2,296 square foot gulf front home complete with in-ground pool overlooking the beach sold on Tuesday for $525,000. It wasn’t listed as a short sale at its list price of $599,000 even though the sellers paid $940,000 for it in early 2008. The county has this one at $390,903 which I think is way too low as I don’t believe you could build this house for that let alone build it and pay for a 55′ wide gulf front lot to put it on.
Our one new contract is a repeat, having been under contract once before back on February 3rd, and then put back on the market again. It’s a bank-owned gulf-front, 4-bedroom, 3 1/2 bath, 2,690 square foot home located about a half-mile north of Scallop Cove. This is a lovely home, a bit formal for the beach for my liking, but very spacious with quality attention to detail in construction throughout. The owners who bought it in late 2004 for $1.178M tried to turn it seven months later when they put it on the market in June ’05 with a $1.985M asking price. We’ve seen how that movie ends. Anyway, the bank ended up with it, put it on the market for $549,900 (a fair bit above the county’s assessed value of $451,223) and we have a new contract.
I have a clear Pick of the Week from our four new listings – what’s not to like about a gulf front townhouse complete with FEMA flood insurance and a community pool for just $229,000? This 2-bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 1,140 square foot end unit at Cape Villas is located out on C-30 right near the little bridge at Money Bayou.
There are nice porches overlooking the gulf, and the downstairs one off the living area is screened.
Here’s the view from the downstairs porch – only steps away from the surf.
When the surf’s a bit rough, you can always cool off in the community pool.
The home was built in 1986, but the kitchen has been recently updated with this bright and cheery area for serving up all our fresh local seafood for your family and friends.
At $229,000 it’s a short sale, having last sold in 2003 for $230,014 so you’ll need to be patient if you decide to have a go at making this one your own, which I’d be happy to help you do. The county currently has it pegged at $153,609. Call me if you’re interested – I suspect this one will go pretty quickly.
Although there are some decent price changes among our fourteen price changes I don’t see anything on a par with a $229K gulf front townhouse, so we’ll just go with the one pick this week. Besides, it’s absoutely gorgeous outside today and I’m working a terminal case of Spring fever and that beach is calling me, so I’m gonna ditch this computer screen for some sun screen and call it a wrap. I’ll have my cell phone with me if you’re interest in finding out more about buying or selling opportunities, so feel free to give me a call, 850-227-5197, or shoot me an eamil to [email protected] . Since I switched over to the iPhone 4, I actually have phone service on most of the Cape now. What a concept! Have a terrific weekend, and thanks so much for taking time to stop by today.