We just got back from a trip to Okeechobee this past Saturday. Talked to a builder or two to build a home on our 10 acres.
385-400K is our budget ... and it seems that you can only get a 1400+ size home for that price and at least 1 yr to build ... man is it EXPENSIVE to build down there.
Were tired of the endless winters here in NH, just hope the housing market up here holds on for another year or so, so our home can sell for close to that amount.
I think it’s still a sellers market. Homes around us selling for crazy high prices.
You can thank your fellow northerners for those prices. People that were born and raised in the state can now not afford to live there. When you flee the failed states of New York, California, New England, Illinois and Michigan and move to Florida, in your haste, you get into bidding wars over Florida property and have driven rental and home prices to gold rush boom town levels. In small towns where apartments were less than 1000 a month, the prices are now 2500 to 3500 a month. I had to change apartments because my apartment went from 1800 to 3400 a month in my second year at the apartments. the company changed their business model from long term tenants with 1 yr leases with high credit score requirements for luxury apartments to short term 3 month leases for people who were moving from out of state and where looking for homes in Florida. The local realtors get a piece of the action for referring clients to them while they search for a home. If you like New York, you’ll love the new Sarasota County. The apartments were bought by a California based apartment holding company, so Florida is going the way of California now, economically speaking. At some point the sudden influx of outside cash will die down, but the people with the values that built the state will be driven out by then, Welcome to the new Florida DeSantis is building. One that the average working Floridian can’t afford a home for his family. BTW in 2018 the average 1600 sq ft home in a working class neighborhood was selling for around 150,000. building costs wee under 100 per sq foot ( that was in Clearwater. And Okeechobee was considered cattle country in the sticks. You went to Okeechobee to fish and fight mosquitoes.
You can go owner-builder. One way is to live on the property in a mobile home while the house is being built. And yes contractors are way backed up now and it can take that long for the house to be completed. The other solution may be to see about a modular home.
I have a good friend who lives there. Just north of the lake and a few miles west of town. It’s really beautiful and we can see the Milky Way from his place. Look up the hurricane of 1928
You still won’t be able to converse with your builders in English. The “legal” floodgates have been opened for decades.
“We’re tired of the endless winters here in NH”.
Next, you’ll be complaining about this Spring’s weather!
;)