Another chilly morning here on the Cape, about the same as yesterday, with 37 on the thermometer when I woke up. The weather may be cold, but real estate was pretty hot this week with four closings. Our inventory remains steady with a total of 366 active MLS listings in the Cape San Blas, Indian Pass, C-30 Corridor market, with 145 homes and 221 lots. No new contracts, but we have 13 new listings and 10 new price tags. Let’s see who went to the closing table.
Our first (and second) closing was a two-fer: a gulf front home and an adjoining lot with a combined list price of $1.248M. The sellers bought the properties as a single 100′ wide roadfront to waterline lot back in 1997 for $125,000 and subsequently did a minor replat chopping it up into two gulf front lots and one first tier. They closed this week for $1.17M which sounds like a lot of profit, but a check of the county clerk’s records revealed there have been some hefty mortgages written using the property as collateral so much of this may have gone to the bank. That $1.17M is also a little shy of the tax assessed value of $1,192,739.
Our third sale was this 3-bedroom, 3-bath, 1186 square foot gulf front home in Treasure Shores which we last saw when it went under contract on Christmas Eve. The sellers purchased it in 1998 for $332,000 and listed it in November 2007 for $929,000. They have tweaked the price lower and lower since then, finally down to $749,000 which was low enough to generate an offer, and they closed on Tuesday for an even $625,000 cash. Nice way to start the year off. Note to Kes: your assessed value on this home is a bit high at $733,137. It’s looking as if the new sale prices are getting to be consistently below what the county tax man says they should be.
Our fourth and final sale of the week was a bank-owned bay view lot in Treasure Bay along the C-30 Corridor which had previously been listed at $84,900 but expired in November. The previous owners had been trying to sell it since February 2007 when they listed it for $159,000. The bank took possession this past July, and sold it on Tuesday for $75,000 cash. This sale, too, is only 77% of the county’s assessed value of $97,500, which, in fairness to Kes, is what the adjacent lot sold for in February 2007. A very similar lot just five lots north from our sale sold in April 2007 for $145,000. Ouch!
We have a good variety among our thirteen new listings, but my pick of the week from the lot is this gulf front duplex on Indian Pass which enters the fray with the realisitic list price of $695,000, well below the county’s assessed value of $803,593, so we know these people are seriously interested in selling. Here are the MLS notes:
Gulf Front Duplex, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths each side on 50 foot lot with FEMA flood insurance. This is a turn key property with excellent rental potential. Fully furnished, new floors, paint and in excellent condition. Call today to preview this incredible gulf front opportunity. Total of over 4300 square feet of beach fun waiting to be loved.
This is a wonderfully secluded stretch of beach. That’s St. Vincent Island wildlife preserve there in the distance. Wouldn’t you love to have this as your front yard?
Most weeks when I do this review it’s the sellers changing their prices who finally get it right and typically the new listings offer little to warrant my “pick of the week” for terrific value, but this week it’s the other way around. I looked and looked through the ten price changes and really couldn’t find anything worth writing home about, so no pick this week.
If you are thinking of selling, call me now so we can get everything set to be ready for early spring when our market typically starts to pick up. You can reach me at my office, 850-227-7891, on my cell at 850-227-5197, or by email to [email protected] .