Things a bit looser in the Niceville/Bluewater areas? The schools sure get my vote. Beachmouse - I know in the past you have highly recommended the area. Is the market adjusting here or still same as last summer? Maybe I should be looking at lots here...
Acting as your own contractor
- Thread starter patticakes
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East Niceville/Bluewater is one of those odd tech clusters. Lots of officers, GS-13s, and civilian engineers that work in missle development. (aka. the neighborhood rocket scientists) The land that's in play right now is mostly built out, though there are a couple new developments around Rocky Bayou CC in the works, and scattered vacant lots in other areas. The Ruckel family allegedly has some plans in the works for a huge development in the SR 285 area by the wee airstrip, but no one knows the timeframe on it right now other than it's after they build out Swift Creek.
Market is softening a little right now, but single family is probably going to be pretty sticky downwards because a lot of people would rather pull the property off the market and wait to see if BRAC drives prices up again (Eglin AFB was a big gainer in base realignment) when the new people start showing up in 2008-2009 instead of selling at what they see as too much of a discount. The same goes for Ft. Walton/Mary Esther/Shalimar in terms of sticky downward- pretty much built out, and waiting to see where the new people head.
It's a little less than a half hour from my front door to Grayton Beach if we take SR 20 to the 331 bridge, so easy to spend the weekends mucking around the 30-A area, and you get easy access to the Destin Commons shopping area without having to get onto US 98 with the Mid Bay Bridge. Every Saturday and Sunday afternoon is a vacation for us.
Plus, a good chunk of the area is 20-30' above mean sea level, which is comforting when the storms come in.
Market is softening a little right now, but single family is probably going to be pretty sticky downwards because a lot of people would rather pull the property off the market and wait to see if BRAC drives prices up again (Eglin AFB was a big gainer in base realignment) when the new people start showing up in 2008-2009 instead of selling at what they see as too much of a discount. The same goes for Ft. Walton/Mary Esther/Shalimar in terms of sticky downward- pretty much built out, and waiting to see where the new people head.
It's a little less than a half hour from my front door to Grayton Beach if we take SR 20 to the 331 bridge, so easy to spend the weekends mucking around the 30-A area, and you get easy access to the Destin Commons shopping area without having to get onto US 98 with the Mid Bay Bridge. Every Saturday and Sunday afternoon is a vacation for us.
Plus, a good chunk of the area is 20-30' above mean sea level, which is comforting when the storms come in.
We drove around Bluewater last summer. Some great homes on larger lots. Really liked the area. We'll spend more time looking in July. Would it be hard to find a year-long rental (large home) that we could live in if we were to build? Would want to start the kids in the same schools they would attend.
There's actually a fair number of long term rental properties in that area. It's relatively common for military families to buy a single family home, then rent it out for 10 years or so when they get orders elsewhere because they intend to come back to metro FWB when they retire. Though I'm not sure how quickly homes are renting these days, or how hard it would be something to find that was acceptable.