Living in Santa Rosa Beach Florida

So, you're considering moving out to Santa Rosa Beach, and you're curious, want to know a little bit about the communities. Well, in this video, we're going to go over exactly that and give you the information, education you know so that you could make the informed decision whether move here or invest here or not. So, stick around.

Okay. So, let's get into it. Let's talk about living in Santa Rosa Beach. Where is Santa Rosa Beach? Well, that's that area that everybody popularly calls 30A. Right? But, 30A is that Highway Scenic 30A, goes all the way down the coast down in the Santa Rosa Beach area. But there's also an area north of that as well, which is still considered Santa Rosa Beach area. Now, where does this located? It's actually east of the Destin Miramar Beach area and, of course, west of Panama City Beach here on the Emerald Coast. Right? So, what is this area known for? It's, because of 30A and their luxury beach homes, you have a ton of great upscale dining all throughout this area, very unique artistic experience in different pockets all throughout Europe. And of course, the big thing that people love when they come down here is that, just fine grain white sand beaches that are flanked by a lush forest and it's not a bunch of condos everywhere either. It's not condo city. It is just a very quaint, really nice neighborhood.

So, what I'm going to go through is a couple of notable beach towns and we're going to go little bit through the cost of living in the area as well. But let's kind of start there. We'll just kind of start from the west side and we'll work our way east down that Scenic Highway 30A.

DUNE ALLEN

So, let's go ahead and get into that. First one that we have is Dune Allen. So, as you go into this town, it's kind of a Serene beach town. It's got tons of walking trails, beach accesses, and three coastal dune legs that you're going to have throughout here. It's a pretty relaxed area, really nice for a vacation, second home, anything like that. And, if you like the outdoors, you really want to have just your own kind of relax access to the beach, this is a great place to go.

GULF PLACE

Let's continue down a little bit further. You're going to hit Gulf Place. Now, Gulf Place is a really unique town. Really, really enjoy it because every time we just kind of drive and then boom, there it is. But, it's got this really beautiful, like, European style town center. And, it's got all the different shops and it's all the different sorts of colors. And of course, right across the way, you've got the beach access there where everything's kind of elevated that you're able to get down and, of course, just love the white sand and emerald colored water that's right there the entire time. It's got, like, a really vibrant, like, artist colony throughout there, especially if you go kind of into the back, they've got these all little shops that are back there. There's just an immaculate amphitheater that's out there too. You know what I mean by that if you have ever seen it or come out to see it. This area is kind of becoming more of the complete vacation experience that people are looking for when they come down to this area. Just enough commercialized, but not too commercialized. So, Gulf Place where it's at.

BLUE MOUNTAIN

Okay. So, moving down, we're going to go into Blue Mountain. So, Blue Mountain kind of boasts some of the most highest dunes in the Gulf Coast. And they are blanketed, the reason why it's even called the blue mountain areas because it has these native blue flowers. Blue I think, lupine flowers, hopefully I'm saying that correctly. But, it's a really laid back town. It's kind of like your old beach town as you kind of go through it. It's got a mix of the older homes, the newer homes as well as you go through there. Parking is, yeah, it's not all that great. But, that's the old Florida for you. But it's sitting right on the coastline, of course, if you want to see that happening part of that area, head over to the Redfish village. It's really the hub of Blue Mountain for sure. And you're going to find all the shopping and dining and everything else. So, you want to do, you don't have to travel to any of the other areas to go ahead and get that. One thing I want to note, you know, throughout this entire thing, from Dune Allen all the way down to Rosemary Beach that we're going to talk about today, there is a trail, a bike or a walking trail that goes the entire distance. And, it doesn't get interrupted from what I remember. But you could literally get on a bike if you were training for a, you know, triathlon or something like that. You literally get on there and go the entire way down there through all these different communities. If you want a heck of a bike ride, but you could totally do it. So, there's tons of that here.

GRAYTON BEACH

Once you get past Blue Mountain, you're going to go into Grayton Beach. Grayton Beach also has the Grayton Beach Park, state park that's there. But there's also some other great places for you to visit throughout there. Their motto, I think it's kind of funny, it's "nice dogs and friendly folks". It's a really laid back and organic. And when I talk about organic, you may use words like hippie, I don't know. People have said that. I won't say necessarily that, but it's definitely more laid back and eclectic environment. There we go. It's a great mix of modern and kind of old style beach homes, all while being surrounded by these really mature live oaks that they have in there. You can head down if you go into Grayton Beach to get the experience, you're going to see kind of all the shops and things when you head down that way. And if you continue to go down, you'll see that there's Grayton Beach actually written on the pavement, like, when somebody from the air actually being able to see it. And as you head down to try to go get to the beach, you may head down there too far because then you won't find any parking. You'll have to go all the way to the top and then wait for the ferry to bring you down. But, if you're just driving through, we should be closed. But, they do have that kind of open air ferry that will bring you back and forth because parking kind of stinks down there. There's not a lot of it. However, when you do get down there, you can definitely head to see the red bar that's down there and a bunch of other shops and boutiques and, of course, the beach, which is actually one of the most beautiful ones that we have down here. This is really wide and open. It's just gorgeous definitely worth taking a look. You think that all these beaches look the same? They don't when you go to Grayton Beach. But, if you do take a scroll down there, you just, you won't forget it.

WATERCOLOR

Okay. So, let continue down going into Watercolor. Now, one interesting thing about Watercolor as you're coming from Grayton Beach. You'll notice that, as soon as you kind of get up to it, you're going to see a lot of the coastal lakes that are right next to it. And, it is just an amazing look just to kind of see and look at all this undeveloped area that's right there and has all the white sand dunes with some of the brush and stuff on top of it. It's just gorgeous. And, of course, if you want to get kayaks or paddle boards, you can get on that water too. But, just going into Watercolor is just amazing. As you get into that town, it's actually a really cute shopping and dining area that you go into. To include what I was just mentioning before, five hundred acres of, like, dedicated nature preserve, all throughout that area. It's actually the perfect mix I think indoor and outdoor, and sure if you're looking to go there. It's actually where my wife and I go for our staycation, is one of these areas.

SEASIDE

To include the next one, which is Seaside. Now, seaside's probably one of the most active areas in 30a all year round, if we want to look at that. They have a Seaside half marathon that they do at the beginning of the year. I've run that a couple of times. It's just absolutely gorgeous out there. There's plenty of shops, dining, actually have, like, air spring trailers that they made as restaurants, whether they're actually in the main city center there. Which are next to that amphitheater. Everything kind of surrounds and centers where the amphitheater are and it is and continues to go out now. This area is also held as one of the best beaches on Earth. K? And, that's for families. And, that was by Travel and Leisure magazine.

WATERSOUND

Okay. So, continue past Seaside, you're going to go through Seagrove for a bit, and then you're going to hit WaterSound. Now, this is one of those newly developed areas as well. It's kind of a hidden in an undeveloped stretch of 30A. Like, you'd be driving like, oh, there it was, I missed it. It's kind of a, like a local gathering spot that features a lot of live music venues, of course, great dining, delicious dining options and various upscale boutiques all through kind of throughout that area. And it's growing, it's one of the newer areas.

ALYS BEACH

Of course, Alys Beach, since we're driving from the area, just be driving through what seems like nothing, and then you'll see these kind of towers, which are called butt trees on that side and go into an entirely different world. It is a world apart, especially from traveling where you just did. It's an elegant white stucco Mediterranean mixed with like, some Bermuda style, and somehow it comes together just beautifully. There's lots of green areas and spaces throughout there. You've got tons of places that you can walk through. There's so much in this area. There's not enough time to really talk about it in this video, so, I'll create another one for you. But, there's just great things. It mixes this casual Florida with the upscale kind of Mediterranean look through out there. You'll notice because it's all white concrete side of the building as well as roofs all throughout here. It's a really solid town and just absolutely gorgeous. They say it's a mix of simplicity and luxury. And I'm going to have to agree with that, it's truly an experience just to walk through that community if you get a chance to.

ROSEMARY BEACH

Next of course is Rosemary Beach. Now, Rosemary Beach has this sort of French quarter feel. It offers a kind of relaxing beach side experience. You'll enjoy some great patio dining throughout there, boutique shopping, which is really popular down there. You have farm to table restaurants, some high end spas and lush greenery throughout the community. I think they were trying to keep up with Alys Beach, but it's kind of tough to do so. But, Rosemary Beach is just really, really nice. And as a very unique community that you just wouldn't expect to be there, but it's definitely a great place to go.

COST OF LIVING

So, let's kind of talk about cost of living. When we do look at cost of living, we look at it, and when we do our research, it's always based on an index. Now, on this index, if you hit 100, 100 is the average across the continental United States. So, let's get into that. So, a couple of categories that we're going to cover, we have groceries. Now, groceries are 108.3, which is 8.3% above the national average. So, not so bad. Health is 98.7, which is only 1.3% below. Housing, it's a lot. That's one way to imagine. It's 342.8. Yeah. Which is 242.8% above the national average. So, yes, those beach houses, villas, and custom homes, yeah. They definitely affected that price.

Now, the median home cost. The median home cost, across this area is a million dollars. Now, compare that to the national average, that's only $291,700. Yeah. Only two hundred. So, if you want to look at the entire area what that span is, that's high all the way up to 24 million, and a low of $154,000. Now, that's a big spread and that's for the entire Santa Rosa Beach area. So, we're talking about the area above Highway 98 that isn't necessarily beach town, so I think that's where it pulls. But you're not going to find too much more. There's just going to be under maybe $650,000 just from my observations.

Now, utilities, utilities is 102.5. 2.5% above the national average. You have transportation at 93.7, 6.3% below national average. And, your miscellaneous, which sits around 99.9, which means it's pretty average. Right? It's point one percent below. Now, a lot of other times too, we do have options to live above. The Highway 98 isn't in the beach towns that I talked about. And we'd like to think it's a little bit different throughout there, but it is still pretty expensive at least for housing in that area. Most people that do work in there, they don't want to spend that price. Obviously, if that price isn't an issue, it shouldn't be an issue for you guys. But if so, then other places that people do live in commute are usually like in Freeport or somewhere in the Panama City, Panama area to kind of commute in. So, there you go.

That's talking about Santa Rosa Beach and what you need to know about them. Have any questions about anything I mentioned, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com