PVB Housing Inventory and Price Trends (Palm Valley, St. Augustine: days on market, for sale, real estate)

[tackup3]

Hello all, I've been planning move to PVB for 2 years now, patiently waiting for my daughter to graduate from High School here in the Chicago area. She is going to go to Flagler College in St. Augustine, and we are going to move to PVB. We've been to PVB twice now for mini vacations, checking things out.

I look at listings in PVB weekly, sometimes daily. It seems like prices are going up and up, and listings are getting fewer and fewer. We are primarily interested in Marsh Landing, but we are open to anything in PVB.

I realize nobody has a crystal ball, and that nobody can accurately predict the future.

But does anyone here have an opinion on the next 3 years, will prices continue to trend up at this pace, and will inventory increase?

Thanks!

[ShakenStirred]

Originally Posted by tackup3

Hello all, I've been planning move to PVB for 2 years now, patiently waiting for my daughter to graduate from High School here in the Chicago area. She is going to go to Flagler College in St. Augustine, and we are going to move to PVB. We've been to PVB twice now for mini vacations, checking things out.

I look at listings in PVB weekly, sometimes daily. It seems like prices are going up and up, and listings are getting fewer and fewer. We are primarily interested in Marsh Landing, but we are open to anything in PVB.

I realize nobody has a crystal ball, and that nobody can accurately predict the future.

But does anyone here have an opinion on the next 3 years, will prices continue to trend up at this pace, and will inventory increase?

Thanks!

As for the pricing trend no one can accurately predict that. The general trend is always up, but as we saw in 2008, crashes happen. Right now, people buying houses are fully qualified buyers, not the subprime buyers who caused that massive crash, but I've read where subprime mortgages are starting to enter the market again under other names. So who knows, maybe another crash in 5-8 years, one cannot really say.

As for the inventory, it's going to continue to struggle. The reason for this is the massive labor shortage that has occurred. It's really a crisis situation. The builders simply cannot build any faster for lack of trade people to handle the work. One customer of mine that I have dealt with for over 15 years now used to take 70 days to build a home. The same home today takes them over 120 days, and these are pretty much cookie cutter, simple houses. When you get into the bigger homes like Marsh Landing, you're looking at about a 1 year build time these days. I have a friend who is building a semi-custom home right now that was started in September of last year. They are just now installing the tile in the house.

I was at a meeting this past week with a very large national builder, whose pipeline of new projects is being stifled by the lack of labor, and said they are willing to pay more to get good quality subs to help them grow. That is a far cry from their typical "give us your best price" mentality, but the point is, yes, house prices will continue to go up because of this shortage. The subcontractors are desperately trying to fill their staff with qualified people, and one of the main ways of doing that is to offer more money. Which means the Sub has to raise his price to the builder, who in turn has to raise the price to the homebuyer.

I don't see this trend ending anytime soon. They took shop out of our schools, and the young people simply aren't cut out for the labor trades like they used to be, and the older workers are retiring in large numbers without enough up and comers to replace them.

This is going to keep a lid on growth and inventory for years to come I believe.

THWT

[Thundarr457]

What is your price range?

[Ivan Putski]

We have friends who are trying to leave Marsh Landing and buy somewhere else in PVB but haven't had much luck in selling. They'll likely stay put at this point. Having said that, prices have gone up across the board in PVB. I know for our development here in Palm Valley area of PVB, the sold comps have gone up by about 4% annually. Our former neighbor bought their house in 5/2017, got married a month later, divorced within 6 months and sold it few months ago for 10%+ more than what they paid 10 months earlier (bidding war)... Most of their gains were eaten up by realtor/closing fees and new roof they put up few months before but they still walked away with a gain.

We're thinking about an investment property at the beaches (PVB or AB) but it's way too hot right now. There's likely a recession looming in the next few years but you just don't know to what extent it'll affect real estate in this area. If it does and I'm sure it will, how long will it take to bottom out? The real estate bubble of 2007/2008 didn't hit bottom until 2012/2013.

In my opinion, the prices should continue to go up for the foreseeable future (at least for the next 2 years). We have friends that are developers/builders in PVB and they tell me about how fast investors snatch up homes (cash offers) in old PVB (non-HOA area north of Corona Rd., east of A1A: Le Master Dr., Rutile Dr., San Juan Dr., Pablo Rd etc.) to tear down or renovate to flip.

I'm not a realtor and won't pretend to be one but the inventory was highest around here between February and April. I know for our development of 350+ homes, 20+ homes sold between those 3 months and things have slowed down considerably since.

[Thundarr457]

Ivan, is there a problem in Marsh Landing? We go there frequently and many houses have been for sale for a long time. We drove through there recently after a heavy rain and many yards were flooded.

[tackup3]

Originally Posted by Ivan Putski

Our former neighbor bought their house in 5/2017, got married a month later, divorced within 6 months and sold it few months ago for 10%+ more than what they paid 10 months earlier (bidding war)... Most of their gains were eaten up by realtor/closing fees and new roof they put up few months before but they still walked away with a gain.

That's interesting, a market strong enough where a forced divorce sale still yields a net profit. Normally one of the 3 "D"s bring a good value for the buyer.

[tackup3]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

Ivan, is there a problem in Marsh Landing? We go there frequently and many houses have been for sale for a long time. We drove through there recently after a heavy rain and many yards were flooded.

My wife loved Marsh Landing, and I like it also. But I can see being further south, closer to the schools. I can also visualize Marsh Landing houses having 3-4 feet of water during a Category 4 Hurricane.

[Ivan Putski]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

Ivan, is there a problem in Marsh Landing? We go there frequently and many houses have been for sale for a long time. We drove through there recently after a heavy rain and many yards were flooded.

I don't think there's a problem. I've heard about minor flooding in some areas of ML where creeks/tributaries run in their backyards but I believe it's isolated and other parts of ML are ok. As for "days on market", I just think the price points are high in ML and buyers with kids would want to be in their new homes by now since school starts in early August.

Our friends just wanted to be closer to the beach (ie. east of A1A) but couldn't get the price they wanted on their house and weren't going to take a low ball offer.

[Ivan Putski]

Originally Posted by tackup3

That's interesting, a market strong enough where a forced divorce sale still yields a net profit. Normally one of the 3 "D"s bring a good value for the buyer.

We bought in 2015 from sellers that were in the process of getting divorced. We got them down to about 10% below list. They wanted out asap and we knew that.

Originally Posted by tackup3

My wife loved Marsh Landing, and I like it also. But I can see being further south, closer to the schools. I can also visualize Marsh Landing houses having 3-4 feet of water during a Category 4 Hurricane.

Here's a post from Robyn55 who lived in ML (she passed away last year). This is after Hurricane Matthew (you may want to search her name and look through her old posts regarding ML):

"We did ok - considering how high the storm surge was. Much much worse than during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Best I can tell (from the water/debris lines) - the water came up from the Cabbage Creek marsh area and flooded most/all of our block (including the road and the houses across the street from us). I think most/all the garages were flooded - at least a little (including ours). And some houses were flooded too (not ours). We had a couple of small trees down (not on our house). A minor roof leak (which I thought we had fixed for good after a previous storm). Debris everywhere. On the bright side - we have power and water. Will take us a while to clean up - but we will be ok. Other people aren't as lucky...

Robyn"

[Ivan Putski]

Originally Posted by Thundarr457

Ivan, is there a problem in Marsh Landing? We go there frequently and many houses have been for sale for a long time. We drove through there recently after a heavy rain and many yards were flooded.

FWIW, I just spoke to my friend in ML again and he said the flooding from past 2 hurricanes have in fact brought the comps down for all of ML to the tune of $100k on average. Doesn’t matter if the house in question flooded or not.