How Much House can I Afford  [Cost of Living in 30A]

So, you're considering moving to 30A and you're wondering, how much can I really afford? Moving from here, going to there, is this really going to work out? Well, in this video, we're going to go through all the popular different neighborhoods and give you the cost of living, cost of housing, and everything else that you need to know. So, stick around.

How much can I Afford?

Alright. So let's get into it. How much can I afford moving here to the 30A area? So, first of all, where is 30A if you want to know what it all encompasses. Depending about where you read it, it starts somewhere around Destin, Miramar Beach and goes all the way to Panama City. Honestly, I kind of have a traditional look at it to where the actual Scenic Highway 30A starts and where it kind of tags off into Panama City. So, that's where I'm going to talk about today, alright. And that actually starts at Dune Allen. But, what is this 30A area known for? You may have heard some good stories, and just seeing some great pictures, but mostly they're probably true. They have the beautiful white beaches, absolutely gorgeous white beaches throughout the area. You also have that kind of flanked with the coastal forests and there's other dune likes that are through 30A, just makes it this specific sort of feel. Of course, it has great festivals throughout these different towns throughout the year. And of course, this unique kind of southern charm mixed with the Florida culture. It's kind of hard to beat coming into this area, and it's kind of hard to explain unless you actually been here before.

COST OF LIVING

But, okay, let's get into this. Let's start talking about the cost of living, specifically. So, I'm going to go down the top twelve different places. So, just to name them off at the beginning, you've got Dune Allen, you've got Gulf Place, Blue Mountain Beach, you've got Grayton Beach, you've got Watercolor, Seaside, Seagrove, you have Watersound, Alys Beach, Seacrest, Rosemary Beach, and Inlet Beach. Okay?

Now, the first one, there's going to be something when we talk about our overall cost of living. There's going to be two different ones. So, you have to pay attention to that because wherever the housing average or median prices, that's where one is going to be the other. Alright. But, I'll repeat it here at the end.

So, Let's talk about Dune Allen. Dune Allen's, it's housing currently here in 2022 about midyear, we're seeing a median home price around $932,000. Right? That's a high all the way up to $8.9 mil and a low of $302,000. Alright?

So, let's look at the cost of living as far as an index, because the population of these different areas didn't have enough data. We have to kind of spread across. So, for housing, like I just mentioned before, for housing that has a median, under $1.7 mil ish is going to be the numbers I'm going to tell you just now. So overall, when we measure cost of living, it's usually on a scale. That scale is right at the center at a 100% or I'm sorry, 100. That hundred is the average across the continental United States, so this will make sense.

The overall index in Walton County that's going to be part of that entire Santa Rosa Beach area is 137.7. Which means that it is 37.7 above the national average, 37.7% above. So, it's more expensive. Right? So, let's kind of look that down for certain specific places. So, for groceries, it's 108.3. For healthcare is 98.7. Your utilities are 102.5, your transportation 93.7, and your miscellaneous 99.9. You should've just said 100 but, you know. Alright. So, that's for kind of the more affordable places we'll call it here on 30A. Now, if it's above 1.7 ish, this is what your index looks like. Your overall is going to be 195.2. So, that's 95.2% above the national average. Let's look at certain other aspects. Your groceries are now 113.8. On that scale, your health is 92.2. Utilities is 103.8. Your transportation is 104.8. And miscellaneous, it's the same 99.9. It is what it is. Right?

Okay. So, now let's go through the Housing. This is a real estate channel. So, this is where we specialize. Alright. So moving down to Gulf Place. Their housing median was $919,000. That was a high all the way up to 10.5 million and a low of $370,000.

Moving on to Blue Mountain Beach. It's housing median was 1.07 million, the high all the way up to 13.2 million and the low of $400,000.

Going on to Grayton Beach, we start to see that price increase because, again, there's more stuff going on in here. And this one's actually in a national park. So, yeah, of course, it's going to go up. Your housing median was 1.99 million. Your high was all the way up to 5.5 million within the past year. And the low was $650,000.

Going on into Watercolor. Watercolor housing, the median was 2 million, so not too far off. The high was up to 6.5 million and the low was 1.3 million.

Going into Seaside, one of my favorite places to go visit, but Seaside housing, its median was 3 million. It's had a high up to 13 million and a low of $975,000. $13 million man that house must be gorgeous, alright.

Going on to Seagrove. Seagrove area has a median of $990,000. That was a high all the way up to 11.3 million and a low of 220,000. Must have been a shack somewhere. Alright.

Going into Watersound, our median home price was 1.1 mil. It was a high all the way up to 11 million and a low of $650,000.

Going into Alys Beach, a beautiful, just white architecture throughout that area, absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous area. Housing there for median was 3.7 million. The high for that was 19.9 million and the low was 415,000. Kind of impressive.

Alright. Moving into Seacrest, we have a median home price of 1.39 million, a high up to 13 million and a low 670,000.

Now, here's where things get interesting. We have Rosemary Beach, and if you haven't seen Rosemary Beach, absolutely gorgeous area out there. Just the way that whole city is set up is just wonderful. Anyway, your housing median was 1.8 million. That was a high up to 24 million. 24 million, what? I'm going to have to look this up. And then the low was 279,000. That's a pretty big gap right there. Again, I think they're selling cardboard boxes on the side of the street for that in Rosemary Beach. Just kidding. Just kidding.

Alright. But, last but not least, we also have Inlet Beach, which had a median home price of 1.7 million. And a high of 14 million with a low of 460,000. Now, Inlet Beach is kind of unique and the fact that it kind of has the old kind of Florida beach town mixed with kind of the modern amenities and things like that, the modern luxury you may call it throughout that area. So, it's very interesting to see something that goes for 14 million even though they've got kind of these older revamped homes. But things, especially now, over the past two years, we've seen prices just skyrocket. So, realistically, whatever that was probably went up 20% over the past two years. So, it kind of makes sense, but when we kind of look at these numbers, like, okay, what realistically are you going to see? So, if you're still hanging around, thank you. I know that's a lot of numbers, but I wanted to explain as well that since we're talking about different numbers and we're at a higher price point. We understand that things can go up at pretty rapid rate with basic percentages. But as we are looking in the mid part of 2022, we are seeing the rate of which appreciation is going through our market slowdown. It's not bottoming it out. It is slowing down. We started to see especially in this area somewhere between 9 to upwards of 20% appreciation in 2 years. We've seen that significantly slow down. The average appreciation for real estate in our markets somewhere around 3-4%. So, we are seeing that slowdown. We saw that as the Fed raise the rates. And, of course, real estate followed right neck and neck with that. And we're starting to kind of see those things go up. A lot of the investors kind of slowed down. Which is good if you're looking to move here. But even still, a lot of these assets will still continue to appreciate over time. And of course, if you want more information on about that specifically, you can reach out to me, and I'll be happy to give you the details on that.

But in any case, there's all the stats that you do have and the costs are living for each area. If you need to rewind back so you get the, you get the overall indexes. But in either case, if you have any questions about anything that I mentioned here, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com