Old Man Winter finally remembered where the Cape is and rolled in this week with his calling card cold weather. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t cool off our red hot real estate market as we managed one more sale and four new contracts, seven new listings and a dozen price changes. Our inventory remains stubbornly sluggish, removing only two from its numbers, with 91 houses and 286 lots listed in the MLS in the Cape San Blas, Indian Pass and C-30 Corridor market.
Our one sale is on an interior house on the bay side of the road on Blue Heron drive which is the road running next to Coneheads Restaurant. This inviting 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,872 square foot home built in 2005 is situated on a half-acre lot which shares a boundary with the state park, for a peaceful, private setting. The sellers bought the lot in late 2003 for $82,500, then built the home which they first listed for sale in March 2009 for $389,000. It went under contract in mid-January with a list price of $279,000, a good bit above the county’s assessed value of $210,208, and on Friday it sold for $273,000, very close to that list price.
The first of our four new contracts is on a unique listing: two mobile homes located on a single third-acre lot. They’re on Jamaica Lane, the road next to The Tradin’ Post. It’s listed for $119,900, and valued by the county at $94,796, and last sold in April 2003 for $134,100. One thing impacting the value of this property is that it may be deemed a non-conforming parcel due to the two homes on one parcel.
Looks as if folks are shopping waterfront, as three of our four new contracts are on gulf front properties, beginning with this gulf front home on Rachel Beach Lane on the Cape. It’s a 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 1,395 square foot home built in 2000 with a sales history illustrative of the local housing boom. In October 2003 it sold for $660,000, and exactly one year later in October 2004 resold for $1.1M. Those buyers put it back on the market just eighteen months later for $1.549M but by then the market had ground to a halt and they have been trying to sell it ever since. It goes under contract this week as a short sale with a list price of $399,900, a bit above the county’s assessed value of $360,337.
Next up is a bank-owned gulf front bona fide fixer upper located on the Cape in the vicinity of Scallop Cove. One family had owned this 4-bedroom, 4- bath, 2,400 square foot beach house for about twenty years but sadly lost it to the bank this past fall. She has definitely seen better days; the decks and rails are rotting, the roof needs a lot of work, etc. and the bank has it priced at an “As Is” price of just $289,298, which means they’re putting most of the value in the 50′ waterfront lot. The county’s more generous than that, having it valued at $349,298.
Our fourth and final new contract is on the south side of the Cape in Jubilation and it’s on a 1.27 acre gulf front lot measuring a generous 50′ by 1,068′. This is another short sale with its list price of $225,000 having last sold in October 2004 for $900,000. The owners started trying to sell it in August 2010 when they listed it for $449,900. The county currently has it valued at $315,000.
That does it for this week. We may have an abundance of lots still in the inventory, but the number of homes from which to choose is steadily shrinking, so if you’ve been thinking of buying a home at the beach now is a good time to start your search. I’ll be glad to help you with that, so call or text me at 850-227-5197, or shoot me an email to [email protected] . I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by today.