Can I still Afford to Buy a Home in Mary Esther Florida

So, you're moving to the Emerald Coast and looking at a place like Mary Esther and wondering, can I still afford to move there? Well, in this video, we will go through all the information that you're going to need to know here in 2023. Whether you can afford to live in Mary Esther this year and purchase a home or not. So, stick around.

So, where is Mary Esther? If you were looking at a map in Mary Esther, maybe you know Destin or maybe you're moving to this area because you are part of the military of Hurlburt Field or Eglin or Seventh Group or something like that, and you want to be close to those items. You'll find this little town called Mary Esther, which is close to Fort Walton Beach and Navarre. Alright? Population of this is only around 6,000 people for residents that are in there. And this area is really known for just being centrally located. If you want a quick access to Hurlburt Field, this is the town to live in. It's right down the street, you know, it's a couple minutes to the gate and boom, you're right there. If you're working on Hurlburt field or any of the surrounding supporting areas, is his good part. Now, it's not just right there, it also goes kind of up north and in or around Hurlburt Field as well. So, that whole kind of area, there's a shopping like area with a street called Mary Esther cutoff, where you see a lot of restaurants and things like that. And that's kind of the division between Mary Esther and Fort Walton Beach.

Now, this does give you quick access too if you want to get to a beach if you live in Mary Esther as well. You have Navarre Beach, which was voted as one of the most relaxing beaches in the entire state of Florida. It also has one of the longest fishing piers ever. Not ever, but as long as fishing pier is here in the state as well. If that's not enough for you and you don't want the relaxed atmosphere you can head the other way through Fort Walton and go to Okaloosa Island. And that's where all the condos and there's bars and restaurants and everything else out that way as well. And, you're just a short drive across the island to Destin if you want to get into the action there as well. All the amenities surrounding this area, it's not necessarily in Mary Esther, but the surrounding that area, it's just really good to be centrally located and to be able to have access to those.

So, can I afford a home in Mary Esther? Well, we'll have to kind of look at the statistics. I love numbers, so we're going to talk about that. Okay? We'll talk about 2021, how it compared to last year since this is the beginning of 2023, and some things that have made Mary Esther a little bit more expensive that wouldn't meet the eye. Okay?

So, in 2021, we had a big explosion of real estate, alright, same thing at the beginning of 2022. Interest rates were super, super low. It was pretty much free money, and the inventory, we just they couldn't keep up. Right? So, no matter what you decided to purchase, I mean, the prices were just that it would you would try to get into a property and then five other people would try to offer at the same time, right? So, we saw this really start to jump. So, the median home price in that time frame for single family homes was $285,000. But that was a low all the way down to $90,000 and a high up to 2.2 million. Now, clearly that was waterfront property on the Intercoastal Waterway. But absolutely gorgeous home, we actually got to see that one before it sold.

In 2022, we can see instead of 429 units, only 331 units sold. Okay? The medium price went up from 285 to 325, that's $325,000 as a median home price. So big jump, right? It was a low of $85,000 and I think that one was a modular home, but a high up to $1.9 million. That was the waterfront that sold in 2022.

So, what changed? What happened in our market? Well, for those of us working with buyers and sellers, last year, from January, all the way down till about June, maybe July, it was still the market was on fire, it was as a fire sale. Things are just going left and things were going right. It was just, it was so hard, and the buyers just didn't have any leverage because there was just too many of them. Right? They qualified. And then once the Fed started hiring interest rates or hiring their rates, of course, the real estate market, of course their rates followed, they always seemed to. And then the buying power started to diminish. Then people started getting worried about the market, so they really stopped buying because the interest rates were going up, which means buying power went down. So, the pool of buyers started to shrink. The inventory then began to rise, which is actually pretty advantageous for you as a buyer, right? So, the home prices instead of just shooting up in appreciation started to slow. So, if you start to see some of these numbers, you can have fun with all sorts of numbers. Right? And the news media and the blogs or whatever else that you are looking at can lie to you and still maybe not lie to you but give you misinformation. What I'm here to tell you is that, they're going to say that there's been a depreciation. But there may be a depreciation and appreciation. What does that mean? So, imagine that we had our real estate market, and it hit 2020, 2021, and it just started to skyrocket as prices, like, went fast up. Right? And as soon as we started to see a slowdown, it didn't go down, it's just the rate of which it was going up has slowed, right? And normally, what we see is appreciation somewhere around three, maybe four percent year over year. And now or and at that time, it was in some places up to 12% year over year. Yeah. Well, we're going to see a decrease. That makes sense, right? So, home values are still going up. They're just not going up at the same rate. So, you can't overprice a property. And if you do and you don't get it where consumers are trying to purchase or be willing to purchase, you sit on the market for a long time until it finally, you know, hits that mark. So, pricings really important. Not that you have to worry about that as a buyer because now, you actually have some pull. Because there's not as many of you out there that don't have the same amount of buying power. So that's really good. So, the prices in Mary Esther are going to look favorable. Then we'll say maybe Fort Walton Beach or Navarre or something like that. Okay?

Now that's the part that has changed. What else has changed? Well, we talked about interest rates. That has changed. We'll just use VA since that's been a big player in our market because of all the military bases that surround us. So, VA a couple years ago, we saw lowest rates as like 2.3 to 3%, 4%, you know, those were the lower rates that we saw over the past, you know, 3-5 years. Right? And now we're looking at VA somewhere around six, six and a half. We even saw pushing seven at some point, so it's nearly doubled since that time. So that being said, you're buying power how much you can get at that interest rate. No, not as great. This is also one of those things too were you're going to look at that interest rate, and now investors, it's not going to be as good of a deal as if it was you know, at a lower interest rate so that they could collect rent, you know, be a landlord, that sort of investment for long term. Sort of, yeah, or long term or short-term investments in real estate.

Now the big thing, the one thing that you've been waiting nine minutes for that you should be paying attention to is the insurance. I don't know why, but insurance companies just, they just don't like Mary Esther, and they don't like homes that weren't brand new. They definitely don't like any that are sitting in a flood zone. So, insurance rates are the big change that you don't see. So, make sure when you're looking at these and you're looking at a home that you ask your real estate professional, hey, what's the insurance going to be like on this? Because if it's an older home and it has a bunch of issues, these are something that you're going to have to know upfront. So, when you're through the negotiations for repairs that, hey, this roof isn't going to pass, right? The insurance is not going to ensure that roof. Or they're not going to ensure a home that has a hot water heater that's over fifteen years old. Or that HVAC, you know, or all these other things that they may throw at you. For some reason, one or the other, they just don't want to ensure houses in Mary Esther. And now that could change, I think we've started to see them relax just a little bit and we are seeing a lot of homeowners reaching out to the governor to try to put some sort of regulation for these just skyrocketing insurance costs. Now, as of right now, it's not terribly, terribly bad. But it is very difficult to get those things in Mary Esther at this time in our market. So, getting to ask those questions, if you want to move to Mary Esther, it might even still be worth it with the favorable prices even with the interest rates being what they are. But again, have somebody go through it, talk to a local lender, talk to a real estate professional, and we'll be able to get you going. And then make sure that you can afford living in Mary Esther, Florida.

But that's all I have for you, for now. If you do have any questions about this, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com

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