An article published recently in The Walton Sun states that sales on homes along the Emerald Coast has jumped since the start of 2009. More specifically, sales went up 51 units in June 2009, with Destin seeing 13 more units than in May. According to the article, most of the homes sold in Destin in June were single family homes. While Destin saw an increase in the amount of units sold, other towns along the Emerald Coast, such as South Walton, saw fewer units sold overall during the month, according to the article.

The article mentions some key factors as to why June saw more homes along the Emerald Coast than in previous months. One such factor is that, as a result of foreclosures over the past few years, more homes and condos are affordable and significantly less than from 2005 to 2007. This is the result of foreclosures and short sales being averaged in with the average prices of standard homes. In addition, Destin has been touted as a vacation destination over the past few years, as well as neighboring towns in the 30A area, and more people are interested in moving to the area to live by the beach or to own a vacation home at an affordable price.

Another factor has been the $8,000 tax incentive for first-time home buyers. In Florida, the tax credit on homes of at least $80,000 has been applied immediately in many cases. Florida, unlike other states, has set aside $3.1 million for first time home buyers to give them an immediate application of the $8,000 home buyers. To receive the tax credit, the first time home buyer needs to make no more than $95,000 per year, or $170,000 for a family, and the property being purchased needs to be $80,000 or more, as the tax cut is ten percent, at most, of the home’s cost.

The last time this blog posted and analyzed statistics for homes sold results were displayed for May of 2009. The latest results can be read on the blog for Josh McLean Homes, which has the statistics for the homes sold in July 2009.

In looking at these graphs, the average price for a home sold on the Emerald Coast (the 30A area and surrounding Emerald Coast towns in this case), has stayed relatively the same from January until July. Although, according to the graphs, the average home price has dipped slightly, the gap between home prices is significantly smaller than a few years ago, with results from 2005 through 2007 showing a large disparity in the prices offered on homes on the Emerald Coast.

But what about the amount of homes sold? Recent statistics overall for the Emerald Coast area actually indicate that homes sold have gone up 51 units since the start of 2009. Although properties like foreclosures and short sales are factored into this (and this is also why the overall prices are lower than from three years ago), recent months show an increase in the amount of properties being sold through Josh McLean homes. In fact, by looking at the lowest graph, 2009 has experienced the largest amount of homes sold in comparison to the past two years when the foreclosure crisis became evident.

In the same direction as the previous post, is the real estate market in Destin preparing for an upswing? With the amount of properties sold and the prices, a steady increase through the rest of the year should be inevitable. In addition, another recent article published about Destin real estate indicates that many are moving to the area as Destin and other Emerald Coast towns are desirable and the prices are now more affordable for a single-family home.

In a column published recently by writer Jack Simpson in the Destin Log, Simpson goes through real estate trends from the past twenty-five years for Destin for a prediction of the current market. In the column, Simpson starts with talking about a Destin property that he purchased in 1974 and the ups and downs of Destin real estate since then and how the market has changed – building condos and being hit by hurricanes, for example. At the time when Simpson purchased his property, Destin was “depressed,” as he describes it, as a result of over building in the area. Destin, at the time, was not a city – it’s only been a city for the past 30 years – and the area was thought more of as a fishing town than a vacationing and resort town.

Instead of reading the entire article, some of the highlights Simpson mentions are the Economy Recovery Tax Act, passed between 1981 and ’86, which stimulated the economy – much like the current stimulus package in our current economy – and people started buying Destin condos for tax benefits, leading to the construction of more condos in the city. 1986 brought the Tax Reform Act which, to counter act all of the properties nationwide being bought reduced to eliminated the tax breaks from owning a property, caused a mild recession, which didn’t affect Destin significantly through the ‘90s. 1995, however, brought Hurricane Opal, which destroyed many of the older properties in Destin. Destin rebuilt itself and, as with real estate across the nation, saw steady increases in property purchases up until 2003, when more properties were being purchased and prices rose. 2006 to the present, like the rest of the nation’s real estate markets, also saw foreclosures and decreases in property values.

Simpson predicts that, by comparing the real estate trends from over the past 35 years, that we’ll soon be seeing an upswing. 2009 has seen some recovery in the market, although, as seen in previous weeks, other real estate writers see this as just the bottom. And, if this is indeed the bottom, as the saying goes, once you’ve reached the bottom, you don’t have any place to go but up.