Beaches of the world can't beat ours
There are a lot of islands in the world and a lot of waterfront land, but for some reason little Anna Maria Island keeps popping up as one of the best.
Most recently, Coastal Living Magazine’s November issue featured a story about buying a second home, and again Anna Maria was one of the locations chosen as a great spot to live. Basically, the short piece pointed out all the great things about Anna Maria, beaches, trolley, sunsets, restaurants and most important of all, in their words a “plethora of water-accessed homes.”
Also contained in their report was a CNN Money website to check out, giving economists’ predictions about the housing forecast in specific areas of the country. Naturally, I went right to it and was fascinated with what I found. First of all the general prediction for the national housing market is that the median home price is expected to rise by about 4 percent by 2012.
In Florida, however, the majority of regions are expected to experience a decline in prices during the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011. In spite of this, in many of the Florida regions either the decline is predicted to be sharply reduced during the first quarter of 2011 through 2012 or completely reversed, putting prices in positive territory.
For example – Anna Maria, which is lumped in with North Port, Bradenton and Sarasota is down 9.3 percent for 2010 to 2011, but is expected to be only down by 0.9 percent for the following year. The Naples/Marco Island region containing some of the most expensive waterfront properties in the country is down 16.5 percent for this year, but drops to minus 9.7 percent for next.
Miami continues to be in trouble with minus 10.9 percent for this year, but increasing to minus 11.6 percent for next. We’re also ahead of Tampa/St.Petersburg/Clearwater’s anticipated drop for 2011-2012 of minus 1.2 percent. Palm Coast, Lakeland, Ocala, Titusville are all areas that are predicted to have positive appreciation starting in 2011.
It sure sounds like not only have we hit bottom, but we have turned the corner, and it’s time for serious buyers to get busy before prices start heading up along with interest rates. Based on the activity on Anna Maria Island and what we hear from local real estate brokers, that’s already happening, and our traditional buying season is still to come. If CNN Money did an independent study for Anna Maria I’m pretty sure its growth prediction would be in the positive area.
I’ve seen a lot of beaches in the world, and the ones I visited most recently in the South Pacific were certainly spectacular, but not as overwhelming as I expected. Most likely, because I see spectacular every day.Dravuni Island, Fiji; Tauranga, New Zealand; and Manley Beach, Australia were all wonderful places to visit, but they didn’t take my breath away. What still does takes my breath away is sunset at the Sandbar and dolphins playing in the afterglow.
When our cruise arrived at Ile Des Pins, New Caledonia, I heard someone say “this is a great place to jump ship.” Well many of us have already jumped ship and washed up on an Anna Maria beach where you don’t have to travel to the other side of the world to feel like you’ve escaped.