Should You Live in Santa Rosa Beach Florida

So, you're considering moving to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Maybe you've come here to visit a few times or read some articles or some additional videos aside from this and you're curious, should I move to Santa Rosa Beach? Well, in this video, we're going to go over the key things that you'll need to know to make that decision. So, stick around.

Okay. So, let's talk about it. Santa Rosa Beach has moving out this way. This is also known as 30A, this area, specifically Santa Rosa Beach. So, you kind of use that synonymously. So, what are some notable towns that you may have been in? Well, you got Dune Allen, you've got Gulf Place, Blue Mountain, Grayton Beach, Watercolor, Seaside, WaterSound, Alys Beach, Rosemary Beach, and that's just to name a few. Now those are all the beach towns, the big areas where most people love to come down in vacation. It's known for luxury and all sorts of just wonderful. Heck, I'm a local here and I vacation down there, a little staycation, right? But, it's an absolutely gorgeous area and it's just fantastic, you can just go visit.

So, what we're going to determine? Is this a place I want to move to live, right? So, the population of this area is about 17,000 people. And the median age here is 41. Okay? So, what is this area most known for? Well, the 30A luxury beach houses is a big thing. Right? And all the different events that they have. And it's very, very unique all throughout the area because you have the super kind of up scale area and Alys Beach. If you go down to Rosemary Beach and you get off, you know, the scenic 30A and go out somewhere. It looks like a German villages here. You've got all sorts of different things go through Seaside and you've got all the different food trucks and it's just so unique all throughout this area. It's also known for its upscale dining. Great, great dining options out here. The unique artistic experiences. There's tons of that throughout this area. And of course, I can't have a video without saying that is the white sand beaches that are flanked by the lush forest that's behind it. It's really nice that when you come down this area, it's not condo city. You know, it's actually homes all throughout this area.

SCHOOLS

So, most people moving here, if you do have kids, right? And you're worried about the schools here, some facts about the schools here. So, let's start at the Elementary. We have Van R Butler Elementary School, it's actually ranked 277 in the state among the two A+, A, A- rated elementary schools in this district. You also have the Emerald Coast Middle School, and this one's actually ranked 157 in the state. Seaside Neighborhood School's actually ranked number 23, and they're among three B class in higher rated middle schools here in this district as well. And of course, you have South Walton High School, it's 223 in the state. Seaside Neighborhood School is actually ranked 91 in the state. Crazy is that right? And you also have Freeport Senior High School at 162. One interesting thing is when you have a more affluent crowd, especially with their families, they're very, very vested into the schools that are around here. So, even the private and the public schools that go through, you know that there's a lot of effort going into this and there has been over the years to make sure that there's a quality program for the kids. So, just kind of consider that.

HOME PRICES

Let's talk about home prices. Now that we know where we want to go, what are those home prices look like? Well, it's not cheap. Based off of our median rent for the area now, this is all Santa Rosa, this isn't just the beach area. But all of this area is actually $1,605/month, that's the median rate.

Now, let's talk about purchasing that home. Purchasing a home here, well, it's a bit pricey. The median single family home is $1.5 million. That's a median. Okay? The high was all the way up to $24 million and that was in Alys Beach this past year. And the low was around $300,000 which was in the northern area of Santa Rosa Beach. So, there's not a whole lot of those. Most of them are going to be pushing obviously just over that million dollar mark. This past year because this is the end of 2022 as I'm recording this video, we had a big influx over the past year in prices. Now, the market has slowed and is showing all indicators that it will continue to slow. But, just keep that in mind that you're going to pay the play in this community.

POLITICS

Also, let's talk about politics. If you look in this area in Walton County, you may have researched this yourself trying to trying to move to some place that is more conservative, one county is very conservative. Matter of fact, almost everything out here in the Emerald Coast area from Panama City to Pensacola. All it's actually a really conservative environment. Why? Well, you get a good mix of Floridians. You also get a good mix of well, people from Alabama. That southern culture kind of drips down a week considers part of us is Southern Alabama. And this area has, like, five or six military installations. So a lot of people, like myself, that were in the military, they lean a little bit more to the right. So, just expect that you're going to have more conservative values throughout this community.

COST OF LIVING

So, let's talk about the cost of living. Cost of living at the date of this video. We're going to go through some different parts here to just give you an idea. Which you can expect in comparison to the national average. So, let's go through each category. First is groceries. Now groceries on the index is 108.3. What does that mean? That means it's 8.3% above the national average. Healthcare. Well, it's 98.7, which is 1.3% below the national average. Alright. Housing, 342.8, which means that it is 242.8% above the national average. Again, it's a little pricey. The median home cost, as we had mentioned before, was $1.5 million and the national average is actually around $291,700. Now, this number probably hasn't been updated since our housing boom, but I'm pretty sure it's pretty close to 300,000. You can do the math to kind of figure out the difference between those two. Obviously, it's quite a bit. Alright. Utilities in this area is 102.5, which is 2.5% above the national average. Why? Because we get cold here, not really cold in comparison to the rest of the states. But it does get a bit chilly here, and it definitely gets warm, so keeping that AC on or keeping some sort of conditioning in your house, well, it's going to cost you throughout the year. Transportation is 93.7, so 6.3% below national average. And the miscellaneous well, miscellaneous is right on par. Just about 99.9 on the scale, which is 0.1% below the national average. There you have it.

LOT OF THINGS TO DO

So, other things to consider moving to this area, there are a lot of things to do. If you are going to be looking at this area, and maybe you want some nightlife or something like that, this may not be for you. There's not a whole lot of it. This entire area, when you look outside of where people are vacationing, and even still, it's more catered towards families and a bit of a more affluent crowd. What is there to do? Well, you've got tons of hiking, you've got biking, upscale dining. Of course, the beaches and everything associated with that. You have this feeling of just a cozy beach town, so you can go out and check things out. Obviously, boating. This is one of the best boating areas. And there's just tons of events. There's always stuff going on around here. So, there's never a lack of things to do. And the good news is, if you are in this community and there's something that you can't get to readily right there, Panama City is not too far away. It's within a thirty minutes to go out there and get into the city, to go to one of the bigger places that you need to get something outside of your beach town. Right? Not only that, but you could also go to Sandestin and Destin again. It's about the same distance that you're going to be driving to get to those areas. If you need to go to you know, Whole Foods or Sam's Club or something like that. It's definitely within a reasonable driving distance.

So, that's all I have for you for, should you live in Santa Rosa Beach here in Florida. If you have any questions about anything I mentioned here, please feel free to call/text us at 850.320.7757 or email us at Admin@WhittemoreGroupRE.com

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