5 Important House Hunting Tips When You Visit Destin Florida

So, you're considering moving over here to the Destin area and you've figured out that, hey, I want to purchase. And, now the most fun part and most stressful part of it all, the house hunting. In this video, we're going to go over the five important house hunting tips that you'll need to know about our beautiful area here in Destin. So, stick around.

So, let's go ahead and talk about five important house hunting tips that you'll need to know about our beautiful area here in Destin, and some of the really important things that you need to know about moving here.

1. WHAT TYPE OF HOME?

So, number one, straight off the list is, well, first, let's figure out what type of home that you want to get into. Is it going to be a single family detached home? Are you looking for town homes? Are you looking for condos? Because all those different ones are all going to be vastly different in different expectations as you go ahead and look in our area. Our single-family homes have lots of different neighborhoods you can go into in vastly different price points all throughout it. You can check out our top five best neighborhoods in Destin video here on this channel for some more info on that. However, we do have gated communities, a bunch of random gated communities, we have the beach communities. We have Old Destin, which is kind of in the east area if you're looking for single family homes. We also have townhome complexes, affordable housing in certain areas. You also have ones that look over the bay. And of course, you have ones closer to the gulf. And in those townhome areas, you also have ones that are being used for vacation rentals and short-term rentals. As we look at condos, what sort of environment are you looking for? Is this something that you're going to be staying in full time? Is this going to be a part time and rent out the rest of the time? Or are you just an investor and you're like, I don't really care, I just got these numbers. All these are going to take a big influence on what it takes in order to effectively house hunt.

2. THE TIME OF YEAR

So, know in our specific area here in Destin, we have four military installations all around us. And, what happens is during the spring, the military likes to move personnel around. And during that time, we call it our permanent change station or PCS season here. For single family homes, this is where you feel the biggest push for that is in the spring to early summer timeframe. And, you're going to have the most buyers in the market, so you're going to have most competitive market during that time. Also, on the flip side of that, you'll also see some more listings come up because people are moving from that area as well. So, the spring market is the hottest that we see in the Destin area due to those different things. Now, if you're in the condo market, some of the best times to go ahead and look in the condo market is right before the holidays. Because right before the holidays is when most of those things are vacated. And, the vacation rentals, we usually get snowbirds in there. It's a lot easier to show those condos and to be able to get in. And, because rents are a lot lower during those months that you're more likely to be able to see more of them or possibly get a better deal that meets the criteria that you're looking for. Whether it's a capitalization rate, a cash flow, or whatever that it is that you are looking for.

3. EXPECT TO COMPETE

So, number three is really just expect to compete. And, the condo market's been no different, as well as the town homes and single-family homes. We've all had to compete if any home or property is priced right and is dress right, meaning it looks pretty. Then we've had multiple people on it and it's usually under multiple offers in several days. Now, we're at the beginning of 2022. We are predicting that interest rates are going to go up. Now for you investors, you know that if you're borrowing other people's money, and we're looking for cash flow that we want to get in locked in on these things before those interest rates start going up, especially for investments. So, right now, it's getting little insane as that goes forward. Either way expect to compete. If this is a house for you, our objective we need to know as real estate agents, what that objective is. If this house is specifically for you and it's the one that you need, there are certain things that we need to do to prep that offer to be most successful. What have we been looking at? Well, as of right now, end of last year, and our average across our MLS data, we have seen that sellers in single family homes are getting about 100% on average. On average, a100%. And, I just don't think the statistics go higher than 100% of whatever it's listed at. Right? So, just now if a home’s price right and dress right, that you are going to pay at least list price and probably a little bit over. It could be quite a bit. We've seen 10-$20,000 over, and that really is dependent upon the price point, it could be even more than that. Now, also know that we are filling in appraisal gaps as well. So, that means that if it only appraised for x amount, that you'll pay x amount plus whatever that appraisal is. So, people have been getting pretty creative in here. We have in order to get our buyers what they're looking for. But just expect that you really have to lean forward with this. What I've been telling my buyers is, as buyers, we typically don't have leverage prior to getting under contract. Do we have to get under contract? And then you can leverage your way out from there to go amicably to close and that you get the best deal that you possibly can in a fair market price or as close as we can get. Right? Okay.

4. FLOOD ZONE

So, number four to consider here is flood zones. Now you know that Destin is basically a peninsula. And, in that in that area, it's also surrounded by water. So, you're probably considering well, everything must be in a flood zone. Right, Tim? Actually, no. A good portion of Destin is not in a flood zone. We have different flood zones and they're classified as zone x, which is minimal. We also have VE, we have AE. And well, AE is the next one that's going to require flood insurance. Your X's won't, VE is very, so you're going to definitely need to get that in and maybe even private flood insurance in those specific areas. So, ask your real estate professional or go ahead and look on the FEMA website, and you can see where different properties are in different flood zones. We do have additional other areas called CBRA zones or COBRA zones as we call them coastal barrier resource areas. And that's usually like a surge area or something like that. So, when a storm comes in, that's where the water kind of goes into. It's harder to get insurance in those areas, it definitely goes up more. You could be in the zone x flood zone and still be in the COBRA zone. Now, these are just resource areas, so some portions of Destin were categorized and put in a COBRA Zone. And it wasn't because that it was the barrier area. It was just because they're like, hey, just label it this way so nobody builds on it and then they built on it and never removed it. At least that's what the insurance companies have been telling me over the years. So, that's why I still consider that, but you as a homeowner in those areas still got to pay that premium for it.

5. KNOW YOUR ZONING

Okay. Last but not least number five is, know your zoning. What are you purchasing this home for? Is it just for yourself or are you looking to rent it out or eventually rent it out later? So, know those zoning, especially in east Destin, in certain areas. They don't allow certain short term rentals, Airbnb's. If you're one of them house hackers, say good for you. But the certain areas in here, you can't Airbnb a room out of there. You can't do that for your house or use short term rentals. We have an availability of the map that we can show you where certain parts of Destin. If you're looking to purchase a property, we'll be in an area where you can do short term rentals versus long term rentals or whatever. Right? Now, if you're an established neighborhood as well, your HOA or homeowner's association may have rules if you can do short term rentals or not. Usually, south of 98. Most of those will allow short term rentals in there because it's kind of what they anticipate, especially in the Crystal Beach area. However, once you get into where the homes are a little bit more affordable, the city of Destin has put in certain restrictions whether you can go ahead and get it short term, has to be six months, a year, or whatever longer in those specific zones. Now, it's been kind funny because we've gone through. I was holding an open house somewhere out in East Destin. And where I was standing, you could use short term rentals for that house but literally across the street, you couldn't. So, it's kind of crazy what they were doing. They haven't quite figured it out, but we do have the math that kind of shows that, just in case you're curious.

Well, that's all I have for now for the five important house hunting tips that you must know about here in Destin, Florida. So, if you have any questions about anything I said here, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com