Destin Florida - How Much Does It Cost to Buy a Home

Do you want to buy a home in Destin, Florida and you're wondering, how much it's actually going to cost you? Well, there is actually a few things that you need to take in consideration when you're getting ready to make a purchase. So today, I'm going to give you some much needed information when it comes to buying a home in Destin. Stay tuned.

Alright. So, Destin, Florida, how much does it cost to buy a home? Well, there are quite a few things to think about when you are preparing to make that big purchase.

First, you also want to think about how you're going to make that purchase. What position you are in, whether you can pay cash or if you need to finance and connect with the mortgage lender. So, if you are financing and obtaining a mortgage to buy the property, of course, get with a lender just to make sure you are qualified. Always get pre approved first and see what you can afford.

Then, you want to consider how much you are going to pay for your down payment. It depends on what type of loan product you're using. It could be, you know, standard conventional is up to 20 around 20%. Or, if a first time home buyers, you can have much less than that. FHA 3.5% or if you're using a VA loan, you would have zero down. So, definitely see what you qualify for and what your options are. So, there's your down payment, the interest rate, which is, you know, still pretty high these days. So, there's a lot of people that are sitting back waiting for them to fall back down because interest rates have increased quite a bit over the last couple of years. However, you definitely want to check-in to see where you're at with that and what you can get locked in for. You want to consider your homeowner's insurance premium. Your closing cost could be 3-5% of the purchase price, the price that you're going to spend for inspections.

There's, you know, you want to get your home inspection. You're probably going to need a four-point inspection, a wind mitigation, WDO, which is the wood destroying organism. We check for termites or wood rot at the property. You are going to, if there's a septic property, you want to have that inspected as well. So, lots of costs that would come along with that. You could spend probably up to a thousand dollars towards inspections, depending on what all the property needs. So, that's something you want to be prepared for as well, because you would have to pay for that before you actually close.

You want to think about the costs that you would have to put towards any post closing repairs or upgrades to the property. Maybe you purchased the property at a lower price because it does need a lot of work. So, think about the money that you're going to spend to get that property back in shape or if you just want to do your own little personal, cosmetic upgrades. Think about how much that's going to come out of pocket for you.

And, if you're purchasing an investment property that you're maybe going to use as a short-term rental, let's just say it's unfurnished. You're going to have to furnish the entire property. You're going to have to get the beds, couch, kitchen tables, chairs, everything. And then, you want to think about decorations too. A lot of, of course, visitors, guest, tourists want to come into a nice welcoming property when they come to stay. So, you want to hang nice things on the wall, have maybe pretty little plants laying around, just the, you know, typical decor. It does have to cost that much, but it would be something that you would consider adding to the property to make it look nice and welcoming to your visitors.

So again, just a lot of that just to even make that step to finding property. Again, you want to connect with the mortgage lender to see which you qualify for and what you can afford and what you're comfortable with as far as your monthly payments.

So, now we want to talk about the type of property that you would look to purchase. If you were wanting to get a single-family home, just based in our local MLS of sales over the past 90 days. So, maybe going back to November of 2022 up until the end of January 2023. So, looking at those sales, the median price the sales price for a single family home in Destin was $529,000. At the low, it's $347,000. So, you can still get a lower price home. It doesn't have to be up there. Again, you might want to find a lower price home and just do your own upgrades to it or repairs. And the high, as far as the sales in the last 90 days, was $2.5 million. So, there's a price range for everyone in the Destin area. So again, to see what works for you, what you can afford, what you're comfortable with.

Now, if you are specifically looking for a waterfront property in the Destin area. That, you know, includes beachfront, harbor, or somewhere on the bay. The median sales price was $2.5 million for a waterfront single family home. At the low, it was 1.7, and at the high, it was $3.5 million.

So, I know there's a lot of people that, you know, they dream of having waterfront home or a home on the beach. But, again, you just have to kind of be realistic and see if that even works with your budget. And what you can afford, especially the monthly payments. You want to think about the taxes that you have to pay every year. You know, some people really have to spend quite some time to work up towards that dream. But, if you're just starting out, you can always just purchase one of the lower price homes. Something a little more comfortable for you and just work your way, and maybe later in the future, you can afford to buy that expensive beachfront or bayfront or harbor front property in Destin. Because, not everybody is ready to make a million dollar purchase, right?

Alright. Now, if you want to purchase a condo, for the median sales price for condos in Destin was $605,000. Not too bad. So, it's typically a 2-bedroom, 2-bath. At the low was $179,000. I do recall seeing some listings that were that low, or maybe they were listed a little bit higher and sold, ended up selling for a little bit less than what was initially listed for. It could be a property that needed a lot of work. Again, that's still not a bad thing, purchasing property that needs some work because you can add your own little touches to it. So, the high was $2.7 million. Of course, that would more so be a 3-bedroom, 3-4 bedroom condo, waterfront. So, big price difference there that you can see as far as condos. And then with condos, of course, you're going to have to consider HOA fees, the homeowners association, and then any special assessments that may be present. You know, special assessments would include these that you have to each owner would have to pay towards any repairs or any type of construction they're doing on the building. Such as maybe replacing the roof, painting, just anything major on the outside of the building that the owners will be responsible having to pay. So, you definitely want to check into that to see if there are any special assessments on any properties or condos that you're interested in purchasing. If you're more so interested in an attached single unit such as a townhome, the median sales price for the last 90 days for a townhome was $355,000. A 2-3 bedroom townhome. So, not too bad. And the low was $290,000 with the high being at $750,000. So of course, it depends on the number of bedrooms that you're looking for, the size, the location plays a big role. That would factor into how much you're paying for the townhome.

Now, if you are looking specifically for an investment property. Again, if you're financing, you have to consider all those you know, all the costs that comes with that as far as your down payment, interest rate, insurance, any closing cost, inspections. Now, if you are planning to use that as a short-term rental or a long term rental, you want to consider hiring a management company to manage it for you just to kind of take that load off of you, and you won't have to worry about it. Especially, if you do not live in the area. It does help out a lot when you have someone else running it for you. So you would have to think about the monthly mortgage payments if you finance. The utilities, HOA fees, if there are any special assessment fees that you have to pay, the management fees for the management company that you hire, and any other expenses. You have to make sure that you would be able at the end of the day or really at the end of the year. You're able to generate enough income to cover those expenses and hopefully make a profit as well just so you're not just kind of balancing out just making sure you're actually making money off that property.

So, if you're entertaining investment property, you can, you know, if you find some property that you're actually interested in, and you can just reach out to a realtor. If you don't have a realtor, reach out to us. We can help you with that as far as figuring out the numbers and what they look like. We could take a property and see what the rental history was for the last year or two. If that's not available, we can get rental projections to see the potential of that property and what it could, the type of income it can generate. And then you want to, you know, think about what all the expenses are and then how much money that property could bring in and see if the number bounces at the end. Are you breaking even or are you actually making a profit. So, that's definitely something you want to look into just lay out all the numbers before you move forward on making the purchase just you're not putting yourself in a bad position and end up losing money. That's not what an investment should be about. It should be about making money.

Now, let's just say you're not ready to make a purchase, and you want to rent for a little while. The average rental for the last 90 days that I found in our MLS for a 3-bedroom 2-bathroom single family home, it's $2,900 a month. For a condo, if you want to just keep it simple, small and simple. The average for maybe a 2-bedroom condo is $2,100 a month, and if you're looking for a townhome, then the average was $2,400 a month for rentals.

Well, I hope this information was useful to you. And, if you know anyone else that is considering purchasing property in Destin area and wants to know some of this information as well, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com

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