August 2013 Market update

109 Panama City Beach condominium units sold in July 2013, making up for the slight drop in June's sale volume. Despite a shrinking inventory, sales are falling in line with those of past years even with higher selling prices. For the past year we have been watching this trend of higher pricing work its way through each building and floor plan.

Click on image below to see the full size graph

Sunrise Beach condominium has seen a nice bump this year. The condominium's floor plan, featuring two bedrooms plus a bunk room, is very common in condominiums with construction completed between 2003 and 2007. Calypso, Splash, Celadon, Aqua and Majestic all have floor plans that are very similar. Between 2009 and 2011, Sunrise Beach's pricing bottomed out in the 200-$252k range. Most of these sales were 220-240k. There were two lower sales of 200 and 209k. The 200k sale was a short sale with 14k paid outside of the sale for furniture. The sale of 209k was for an unfurnished foreclosure. When you adjust for furniture it was comparable to other sales during the same period. The last sale of 262k broke out of the average price range noted above. It was quickly followed by three additional condos going under contract, each with asking prices around 290k. I expect all three of these to sell above the last sale price.

Click on image below to see the full size graph

Lending is also slowly opening up. We have seen the interest rates on first mortgages rise with 3 and 5-year ARMs increasing to the 4.5% range and the 15-year fixed is now above 5%. A strong number of buyers are still purchasing with cash. There are also a large number of buyers taking out credit lines on other properties to purchase condos in Panama City Beach. While it is not popular, buyers can now get a second mortgage on condos with an adjustable rate HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit). The minimum down payment on a condo has been at 25% for the past few years.? This new HELOC reduces the minimum down payment to 11%.