How to choose the right place to live on the Emerald Coast

So, you're thinking about moving out here to the beautiful Emerald Coast in Northwest Florida right here up on the Destin - Pensacola area. And you're curious, what place should I actually pick is going to be best for me and my family? Well, in this video, we're going to go over exactly how to choose which place that's going to fit you, so stick around.

Okay. So, there are a few steps that you need to know prior to getting into this.

1. LIVING BUDGET

So, first things first is if you're moving here to Florida and moving here to the Emerald Coast, figure out what your living budget's going to be. That's number one. Like, what's it going to cost to purchase something? What's it going to cost to rent something? And, obviously, this is real estate channel, so we're going to go over with some of those things are. But, we need to narrow down specifically, what can I afford? That's a big one. Okay.

2. THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU

What's going to be important to you? What are these things that are important to you, your family, to your lifestyle? What is it? Right?

SCHOOLS

So, first one is schools. Or, is it schools that you're going to be attending? Is it a school that for your kids? If so, which one should I go to? Or which one should they go to? So, what I would do when it looks for high schools and elementary schools and middle schools and all that, private schools that we do have around the area, my biggest suggestion is to go online to check. So, the state and heck, the entire United States has a ranking system for the specific schools. But, it's not all encompassing on how good the programs are. Not really. The best way to really find out, to hear what everybody else is saying, besides actually being here and having friends of talking to them, is to well, look online and look for comments on specific places. So where should I look? Where we get a lot of our information, especially here on this channel, is niche.com. And when I was brand new to this area, I got a lot of that information as well. And even when I hosted another YouTube channel out in Dayton, Ohio, we used to use the same information as well and it's really good and it seems to be correct. So, if you are looking for that, look up that, look for the reviews before you necessarily look for the ranking at schools. One of those specifically that I kind of got a little surprised on was, Navarre High School when somebody had told me about that. Did some research, I was like oh, people love this place, despite whatever the ranking was.  Anyway.

CHILD CARE

Okay. So, other things that you want to look for is child care, if that's something that you need. Maybe you commute to work, commute to school, you know, wherever you want to go. This is really important because some of these areas you're going to find are really, really cheap. And I mean, respectively, that you're like, yeah, that sounds really awesome. But, what's the commute look like to where I got to go work? So, we have a lot of those people. We're in a big military area where we're at in the Destin Fort Walton Beach area. So, if you are military support, pay attention. Right? Then we look and say, hey, Navarre looks like it's bigger homes, it's got nicer, more modern homes, bigger lots, all these other different things. And then you look and you're like, oh yeah, that's probably a 15, 20-minute drive. No, not necessarily. What I would suggest is go on to Google and check out the little, like, time a day and check anytime between 4-6 PM coming back from, say, Hurlburt Field all the way into Navarre. And you'll see that the time start really ranking up. Why? Because there's not a whole lot of alternative routes going around there. So, commute to work, make sure you check it for this specific time that you will plan on going. And if you were in the military like I was, you had no idea, make your best guess.

PROXIMITY TO THINGS TO DO

Other thing you want to check out is proximity of things to do. The further north that you get, the further away from you get from the tourist attractions. So, just know if proximity to things to do is which you're after, you may want to get a little bit closer to the Gulf of Mexico or closer to a body of water, because that's usually where a lot of the stuff is for you to do. Now, of course, proximity to the beach, if that's an important thing to you, you may want to check that out. And, if you are trying to get to the beach, where are the beach accesses? Where am I going to go to the one that I want to go hang out? You know, with that white sand, that's probably something to look into. Obviously, stores, grocery stores, could be shopping, could be whatever. Where is that in proximity to do where you want to live? It could be restaurants, you like to eat out quite a bit, and you want to be close to that. 

TRAFFIC

Traffic. It's really great that you want to be and say like a place like Destin because that's where it's really happening, all sorts of things. But then we get into tourist season, which is pretty much spring until fall and you realize that it takes 30 minutes to get anywhere and that's just frustrating.

COMMUNITY

And then, of course, the community. What sort of community do you want to be in? Do you want to be in a specific type of cookie cutter neighborhood. A lot of places around here, the housing is pretty eclectic. The people are pretty eclectic. And I mean that the best way possible. It is actually pretty diverse around here. Thanks to the military bases and people are moving and vacationing and whatever. And we're like, yeah, let's stay here. It's a happy mix of everybody.

3. PICKING A SPOT

Where are most people moving when they move down here? Now, there's going to be a bunch of smaller towns I'm skipping over or maybe a little further north towards Alabama. But here's the most common ones that people are going to go. And what I want to do is I want to rank them based upon affordability. And affordability is also depicted as your average single family home price is what we're going to use plus the cost of living. Although most of the cost of living throughout here is pretty much the same, but let's go ahead go there.

10 DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES

10. PENSACOLA

There's ten different communities, starting with the cheapest. And number ten, is Pensacola, where we have a median sales price currently at the time of this video here in 2022,  $183,000. Which is really, really affordable. The only difference is, it's going to depend upon the community and where exactly in that city that you want to go. Pensacola has a ton of stuff going on, but it's a little bit old, a little bit more eclectic. Again, visit the area, try to get a feel for what it is and what's going to be best for you.

9. CRESTVIEW

The next one number nine is going to be Crestview. Crestview is just located north of Niceville, Destin area. Their average median price for single family home is $228,00.

8. FORT WALTON BEACH, MARY ESTHER, SHALIMAR AREA

Now, going on to number eight is in the Fort Worth Beach, Mary Esther, Shalimar area. Their single-family home median price is $279,000. Now, this one's kind of our happy medium in this area, mainly because you have different avenues to get around different things. There's plenty of stuff there. There's all the things that I've mentioned earlier. This is where most people end up going. It's kind of like the center of it. Unless you're looking for a medium sized city where you've got a little bit more things going on, which will go out to like Panama City Beach or Pensacola.

7. NAVARRE

Alright, moving on to number seven, number seven is Navarre. Navarre, it has a median sales price of $329,000. And, this one's a little bit more cookie cutter I guess. There are still some florida-isms around there throughout this community, but it is growing. There's still shopping centers, there's still restaurants. Heck, they got a couple breweries out there. It's actually kind of nice. There's all sorts of different things and they have access to the beach and nice houses there and bigger lots.

6. PANAMA CITY 

The number six is Panama City. So, Panama City has an average or rather median sales price for single family home at $336,000. And again, a median size city, is a little bit different. We did have that hurricane that came through in 2018 that kind of did quite a bit of damage, but they bounced back pretty good since then.

5. NICEVILLE & VALPARAISO

Moving on to number five, we have Niceville and Valparaiso. This one has a median home sales price of about three hundred and seventy two thousand. The reason people want to move to this area is because of the schools. The high school is actually ranked pretty high when it comes to all the different schools in the state of Florida. It's probably one of the best ones that they have over here in the Emerald Coast, so we get a lot of families and things like that. And it feels like a more affluent community as well.

4. GULF BREEZE

Alright, moving on to number four, you have Gulf Breeze. Gulf Breeze has a median sales price of around $403,000. So here, you have kind of more suburbia versus what you have more in Pensacola and you have quick access to it. So, a lot of the money that's in Pensacola kind of moves out to the Gulf Breeze area. And of course, Gulf Breeze has direct access over there to Pensacola Beach.

3. DESTIN

As we get down, number three is Destin. Destin has a median home sales price with $490,000. Now, this is where it's all happening. This is where it's at when people come to vacation. They come to Destin. Right? And that's where you've got the Crab Island, you've got the HarborWalk, you've got the Destin Commons. Everything and anything and even us locals tend to go there when we want to do things. Unless you're closer to Pensacola or Panama City Beach. But, this is kind of like the central hub and just tons of great stuff and really fun area to be in.

2. MIRAMAR BEACH

Moving on, number two is Miramar Beach, which has median home price of $542,000. Now, this is at the beginning of what they call the 30A area too, whereas it becomes a little bit more affluent, a little bit more upscale of the community, a lot more gated communities, and an undeniable be like, beautiful beach front.

1. 30A

And last but not least, the most expensive place that you can go is that 30A area. So, 30A encompasses where they have Highway 30A that goes all the way down through Walton County. And a lot of those beach towns throughout that area have a pretty penny for a lot of the ones that they're going in. Some of those, if you want to look them up are like Alys Beach or Rosemary Beach or Seacrest or any of those towns down there. You can see that these homes go for in the millions. But if we needed to kind average out of that entire area, it's around $718,000 for your single family home.

Alright. So, that should hopefully give you an idea where people are moving to and why. Obviously, the higher you get there a little bit more luxury feel that you're going to get. However, affordability be what it may.

4. Determine How Long it's Going to Take to Find a Home

Here's a big thing here, especially being in real state. Are you going to buy or are you going to purchase? Most of us are coming in and a lot of us are some assemblance of military, could be medical depending upon where you're going. What I would suggest is rentals have always been in such a high demand. Some of these you're going to end up signing a lease site unseen or getting a video to or through. That's what we've been seeing ever since COVID anyway. But, expect that you're going to find something really quick. You're going to have to move quickly on it and lock that in. The rental rates are actually really, really high around here. So, that's been a consistency because of the military bases, especially in the Fort Walton Destin area. So, make sure that you're looking at those and getting in the right spot. If you aren't looking to purchase, purchases has been if you can afford it cheaper than it is to rent around here because rents are only going up. However, the market seems to have stabilized at least a little bit as the time of this video here in 2022, and interest rates seemed to be stabilizing as well. And we're hoping that, I go back to this video and go, yeah, you were right. Okay. But, yes, if you're going to purchase, know that this whole process can take anywhere between 2-3 months. I would start looking a little bit further or contacting a real estate professional in the area. You can contact us or whomever that you'd like. And start talking about the area in what the current market is doing. Most of the time, this entire process from start to finish could take about three months. Just know that it typically takes somewhere between 30-45 days to close on a loan for a single family home or actually any property that is in commercial, residential property here in our area. So, just keep that in mind when you're looking to make that move.

MOVE AND BECOME A LOCAL

And of course, last but not least is, move here, become a local. Hopefully, you've got that right spot and of course start just enjoying Florida.

Alright. But that's all I do have for you for how to choose the right place to live on the Emerald Coast. 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