Destin & South Walton Real Estate Blog

Niche aging was one of Time magazine’s 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years: A thinker’s guide to the most important trends of the new decade . Aimed at the 78 million baby boomers that are beginning to reach retirement age, niche aging refers to the new building trend of creating retirement communities that appeal to people who share a specific passion. Time mentions a country music community being built in Tennessee that will include recording studios and a feng shui-designed Asian culture community in California that will offer daily tai chi classes. The growing number of such specialized communities may be diverse in their focus, but they share the common goal of bringing together people that share similar interests to create active lifestyle communities –…

One of the many delights of living in Destin, Florida is the opportunity to visit the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge  on a regular basis. Located on Okaloosa Island in neighboring Ft. Walton Beach refuge staff and volunteers have nursed stranded dolphins, injured pelicans and orphaned opossums back to health, returning them to the wild whenever possible. Animals that are not able to return to their native habitats become refuge ambassadors and part of the wildlife center’s extensive education program. Most recently, an exhausted masked booby blown off course by Tropical Storm Lee was rehabilitated and, with the help of local pilots, returned to its home turf in the Florida Keys.

A visit to the wildlife refuge is a favorite spring break outing for many…

All home sellers dream of being caught in a bidding war. Two or more determined buyers that keep raising their purchase offers in an effort to outbid other interested parties and become the proud new owner of your home place Destin home sellers  in an enviable position. What South Walton home seller wouldn’t love to find a buyer willing to pay top dollar for their home?

While not as common today as it was before the housing bubble burst and the recession descended, some Destin, South Walton and Panama City Beach home sellers do find themselves in the enviable position of entertaining multiple offers from prospective home buyers. Negotiating a home sale with multiple bidders is more than a matter of simply accepting the highest offer. There are a number…

First impressions are critical when selling your Destin home. Your home usually has only one chance to capture a buyer’s interest. To earn a spot on a Destin home buyer’s short list, your home must captivate the buyer the first time he sees it. Professional home stagers are in the business of creating dynamite first impressions designed to sell your home quickly. 

According to StagedHomes.com, 94% of homes staged by an Accredited Staging Professional (ASP) sell in 29 days or less compared to 145 days for non-staged homes. Expert Destin Realtors [http://www.gulfcoastrealestatesales.com/selling.php] frequently recommend professional home staging to ensure both a faster sale and a higher selling price. Destin home sellers…

Destin’s beaches are known the world over for their beautiful soft white sand. Extremely fine-grained, the sand found on the 24-mile string of beautiful, pristine beaches that line Florida’s Emerald Coast pampers your feet and soothes the senses. Even on the hottest summer days, Emerald Coast beach sand is cool enough to the touch that you can walk across Destin’s beaches without resorting to the comical running hop that most people adopt when trying to dash across sand that has reached sizzling hot temperatures. But why is the sand on the Florida Panhandle’s Gulf Coast so different than the sand on other Florida beaches? What makes our sand so special that Destin’s beaches are consistently recognized as among the world’s best?

As Destin Realtors say,…

In the middle of the Florida Panhandle, nestled between the South Walton communities of Grayton Beach [http://www.destinrealestatesales.com/grayton-beach.php ] and Seaside [http://www.gulfcoastrealestatesales.com/seaside-real-estate.php], lies Grayton Beach State Park [http://www.floridastateparks.org/graytonbeach/], one of the Emerald Coast’s most beautiful and pristine beach environments. Tall, rolling dunes of brilliant white sugar-soft sand gradually flatten into a wide beautiful beach that stretches down to some of the greenest, clearest water on the Gulf. Nothing less than idyllic, the beach at Grayton Beach State Park is renowned as one of the most beautiful natural beaches in the United States and attracts flocks of sun worshippers year…

One of the smartest things a Destin home seller can do when he puts his Gulf Coast home on the market is spend a little time – and perhaps a little money -- properly staging his home for sale. Home staging is the art of arranging and decorating your home to make it more appealing to potential home buyers. Expert Destin Realtors [http://www.gulfcoastrealestatesales.com/buying.php] have found that a well-staged home will attract more buyers and sell faster than an unstaged home. The proven success of staging a home for sale has created an industry of home stagers, professional decorators that are expert at playing up a home’s best features and creating an ambience that entices house hunters to BUY!

You can hire a professional Florida home…

Sunny days, white-sand beaches and warm Gulf waters are powerful attractants that draw 4.5 million tourists to Florida’s scenic Emerald Coast every year. Eighty percent of those vacationers visit Destin and many ultimately purchase a Destin vacation home [http://www.destinrealestatesales.com/idx/search_subdivision.html ] or relocate to Destin and become full-time residents. Frequently, vacationers who are considering a Destin home purchase will slip a little house hunting into their vacation schedule and cruise through a few open houses.

If you know you want to buy a home in Destin but aren’t sure exactly where you want to live; open houses are a great way to explore different Destin neighborhoods and get a feel for the local ambience. Open…

Open houses are a great tool for Destin home buyers [http://www.destinrealestatesales.com/buying.php]. Attending open houses allows South Walton home buyers to get a general feel for the ambience of a neighborhood, find out which features are considered standard in that particular neighborhood, and make direct comparisons between homes that are on the market. To make the best use of an open house and avoid jeopardizing sale negotiations should they decide to make an offer on the home, there are a few things that Destin home buyers [http://www.gulfcoastrealestatesales.com/buying.php] should know about open houses.

Open houses are usually conducted by the home seller’s real estate agent, know as the listing agent because it is her duty to…

Destin home buyers [http://www.destinrealestatesales.com/idx/search.html?search_submit=true&search_city%5B%5D=DESTIN&idx=detached-single-family&minimum_bedrooms=&minimum_bathrooms=&minimum_price=&maximum_price=] may be drawn to a particular neighborhood by its proximity to their workplace, the nearness of favorite leisure activities, excellent school systems, convenient shopping, exemplary community services, an extensive bike path and park system, or any number of features. But a community’s “vibe” and the “look” of a particular neighborhood also play a significant role in home-buying decisions. When they start house hunting, experienced Destin Realtors will tell you that most people have a mental image of the type of neighborhood they want to…