Top 3 Most Expensive Neighborhoods to Live in Destin Florida

So, you’re moving here to the Destin-Fort Walton Beach area and you're considering moving to Destin, but you're wondering what are the three most expensive neighborhoods out here in the Destin area? Well, in this video, we're going to give you exactly that based on the median price for a single-family home and you want to stick around to the end because I couldn't just give you three, I had to give you one extra so stick around.

So, let's get into it. Let's talk about Destin and the top three most expensive neighborhoods. That's right. So, as you go into Destin, you're probably familiar with the area. If you're not, as soon as you get in here, you're going to see just an array of just cool places to be around. Depending on if you're coming from the East Coast or you're coming from the West Coast. Most of the time people are flying in from Valparaiso airport. VPS are just Destin-Fort Walton Beach, which is the title of this channel as well. Anyway, when you do come through here, you're going to head on down, you're going to hit over what we call Okaloosa Island which is still technically Fort Walton Beach. As you start coming through there, you start to see this big old condo complex. A couple of them kind of appear in the distance, and there we start into Destin. Depending on what time of year that you're coming in, as soon as you get over the Destin Bridge, you look over, there are tons of boats. You got Crab Island right there, come right into it, you get the harbor walk coming into the right and just tons of stuff to include, traffic. Yeah, there's plenty of traffic too, so you have plenty of time to take it in most of the time.

Alright, well that's not just the different area. So if you're considering coming here to live and just join a bunch of us, I'm a transplant myself. I've only been here since 2012, when the Air Force Station being out here. And I just left once and then came right back. So, yes, Destin the Fort Walton Beach area is awesome. Any case when you get here, there are other places to live besides what you're seeing there. If you go a little bit further north in these communities, a little bit south of 98, which is the main drag that goes through there. You're going to see a lot of different things. And when I moved here, there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. The reason I'm telling you this, is that strip was what I thought Destin was like. Oh, we're going to go live there and go to live a couple blocks from the red door. You know, I was really just kind of putting them into where the bars were because that's really what I was into back in my young military days. But as you go further out and you get past where the Destin Commons is just a big outdoor mall, which is super cool to check out. There starts to become these other neighborhoods that are gated. They're a little bit more separate, a little bit more affluent, maybe a feel. If you love this area but you don't want to be all part of, you know, the just the norm and the vacation rentals and all that other stuff. Well, you're in luck because we're about to go through all the neighborhoods now.

Okay. So, I told you top three, I couldn't just do three so I had to give you four.

4. Kelly Plantation

Now, Kelly Plantation is located just east of Florida 293, which is that actual, what we call the toll bridge, the twelve dollar bridge. Whatever you want to call that is just to the east of that in a gated community there. And of course, it is just north of Highway 98 as I mentioned before. Now your median home price in this area is around $900,000. Alright, we're just getting warmed up by the way. $900,000, that's a high all the way up to 4 million and a low of $615,000. Talk about a nice community, it is gorgeous. My team and I, we love showing those properties out there. Just to go check out some of those communities and see all the different things in there. What can you expect to see in this community? You see mostly single-family homes. There are some condos, there's actually a big condo complex over there by the twelve-dollar bridge. You've got nine different neighborhoods throughout Kelly Plantation. You got the owner's clubhouse, the grill. You've got a pool. You've got your own private golf course there. The fitness center. You got tennis and five different parks all the way through there. It's like two acres worth of parks and it's gorgeous. Now, if you don't like roundabouts, this may not be a great place for you. There are lots of different roundabouts in different ways to get around different places. But, it is so nice because some of these areas are just tucked into like, little looks like wooded areas and trees. It's very, very well done. So, you get what you pay for with those HOAs

3. Regatta Bay

Now, Regatta Bay is still north of 98. But now we're looking to be just east of the Destin Commons, which is the Regatta Bay Area. Again, it is east of 293 which is where the Destin Commons are, but it is just west of Miramar Beach. Now, your median home price in this area is around $995,000. So, we're getting up there, right? That's a high all the way up to 2.7 million and a low of $445,000. Now, this was just in the last year of 2020. However, those may have moved up or down as far as the extremes either way. But just want to give you an idea of what to anticipate. When you go into this community, it's much bigger than Kelly Plantation. It's got a lot of amenities too, it's really really great to go out and see these places as well. You're going to find mostly single-family homes in this area. It is a gated community as well. You do have another golf course, that's there. It actually, if you go check this place out actually has the only golf simulation studio in Destin. So if it's raining outside and you want to still go play a 19, whatever, how many holes. I don't know how many they allow you in there. And you just want to do a simulated game without a whole lot of walking around. Well, go check out Regatta Bay. That be a good place to go, check out. If you are like me and love to golf but are not really that good at it. You don't have to go out and get the balls in the woods all the time. Should bring camping gear when I go golfing, but I have a good time, right? You also have the grill and club. Now, Thursday night to have specials out there. Now, you also have the boating. Now, Legendary Marine and Yacht Club. This was actually featured in the boating magazines rated number one in the country for boating. How cool is that? So, it's definitely worth it just to go check out that area. If you're part of it, you got access to it as well. You also have your own private pool. You've got shopping which you're right next to the Destin Commons, so that makes total sense, right? 

2. Crystal Beach

We're going to venture south of 98. Now, actually, if you were in Regatta Bay, you would just go across Highway 98 and you're going to find yourself in Crystal Beach. That's right, number two is Crystal Beach and it's median home price in this area is about $1,037,500. Again as a date of this video. That's a high all the way up to 3.3 million and a low of $431,000. Now this area is a little bit different. It's less gated, it's less private in this area. But the median home price is a little bit higher. Why? Because most of these areas are all single-family homes, and they're closer to the gulf which is what most people are trying to get. The closer to the gulf the better, right? These homes are beautiful. A lot of them have been remodeled. They've got some newer look to them. They've got some of the Spanish style in some of these homes. Good news is you don't need to get code so you can go drive around this area and check out all the nice houses. Most of them that I've been seeing are two to three stories and they're typically on the other side of the highway or Scenic Highway 98, which is the one that goes further south. And when you see that, you're still going to have plenty of beautiful views. You're going to be a bike ride, a golf cart ride away from the Gulf and there's plenty of public places to go to. Some of which are going to be the Crab Trap down in Destin. You also have the public beach at James Lee Beach. There are plenty of places just to go out and pack your golf cart, grab your cooler and then go out there. There's actually four pavilions out at the Crab Shack. If you want to go, secure one early in the day, and then it will be all up to you whether you want them. You can't reserve them at least not at the time of this video, but you can definitely get out there early and get your own private spot just away from heat, sometimes. The views that are totally worth it to just be out there. Now, a lot of these places as I mentioned before do have vacation rentals. So, you're still going to be part of like, being part of the vacation and beach community while you're out in this area. This is where everybody kind of comes out during the weekend. It's a little bit busier in spring break, but so is the entire area. If that's what you're after, what a great place to actually go and invest. If you are looking to invest and go to get a good ROI for this area, contact us or your local real estate professional and we'll be happy to run those numbers and kind of show you what you can anticipate when coming out to this area. We also have a whole bunch of other videos about purchasing a short-term rental, whether it's a condo or a single-family home to help you guide you through that process.

1. Holiday Isle

So, number one on our list. The most expensive place is going to be Holiday Isle. Holiday Isle is right there on the most southwest part of Destin. You actually have to take gulf shore drive to actually access all of this area. Unless of course, you've got a boat and you can just beach it and then walk through there. Now, the median home price in this area is $1.5 million. That's the median, that was a high all the way up to 3.5 million and the low $330,000. Why is it such a big disparity? Well, although most of the most expensive homes in Destin are in this area as far as a single-family home. But you're also going to see a good amount of condos. They're right on the gulf and you're going to see them on the harbor as well. Other plenty of homes and condos with docks with access to Destin Harbor. So if you're a big boater, it's a great place to go because you're going to have access to that and just to go onto Crab Island or get out to the gulf. It's a great place to go without having to deal with, you know, the waves and everything else that goes with the gulf. This isn't the most affluent feel but it is one of the most expensive. It's absolutely beautiful out there if you get the opportunity to go up and just be on one of those condos or just take a drive down, gulf shore drive and just take a look to your left and just see that. It is absolutely gorgeous which you can see why it brings that price point up. Being in such close proximity to everything, which is right downtown to get to crab island, to get to the harbor walk, it is right there. So that's why typically drives these prices up. Now, expect if you are going to live out there that there's a good amount of vacationers there and really good mix of older homes and newer homes. As I've mentioned before a lot of the different places out here have some of the newest and most expensive homes. And I'm actually visualizing right now back in 2019. The most expensive home is right there on Holiday Isle. Now, the city of Destin actually just filled in Noriega point. Now before that, we had a big old hurricane came through, hurricane opal in the beginning of the 2000s, and when they did that, it wiped out a good portion of that Peninsula. Well, they ended up dredging it a few years ago and gave up lots and lots of extra land that is out there. And now they built it into a park and it is really, really nice. It's got different coves to go into and just public access to the beautiful beaches in Destin. Now, one thing about Noriega point is that the parking, well it sucks. It's really bad. So if you live out in Holiday Isle, at least you can take a golf cart, or you can take a bike and get close there without having to walk all that way to get to this awesome beach. So, one of the great things about living in Holiday Isle is of course getting to Noriega point.

Well, that's all I have for you for the top three most expensive neighborhoods to live in Destin. If you have any questions about anything we have mentioned here, feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com