<< back

The key to turning around local real estate slump may be in the international markets.
October 2008

The British are coming — to buy real estate.

Our neighbors across the pond might be giving the downward real estate market in Destin an international boost.

Recently stated in an article in Florida Realtor Magazine, overseas buyers are accountable for 26 percent of all real estate transactions in Florida. In addition, 65 percent of Realtors in Florida have had international clients.

Northwest Florida is seeing its share.

"I'm very excited in what has been happening in real estate in Northwest Florida," said Teri McCall, international specialist for Compass Realty of Florida. "I know a lot of people have been hurt, and it's good to see some light at the end of the tunnel."

The growing international sales of residential and commercial property around Sandestin, Destin, and 30-A is the light that McCall is talking about.

Internationals are coming to look to acquire investments, vacation homes and explore places to open businesses.

"It's kind of like a whisper campaign," McCall said. "People are starting to discover us."

Because South Florida is highly congested and "we have four seasons that they don't", Florida's annual visitors are beginning to travel north.

"Their typical holiday is 15 to 20 days, and they're kind of burned out on South Florida," she said.

With the construction of a new airport in Panama City McCall believes that internationals, mainly the one million British that fly into Orlando each year, will start to pass up Central Florida.

The exchange rate is also on the side of people looking to purchase from afar. So they are coming to the area and purchasing vacation homes and paying cash for land to develop on. In anticipation that foreign investors turn their attention to Northwest Florida, Moneycorp, a large money exchange company out of London, has recently assigned an account manager for Northwest Florida.

The International Council of Northwest Florida has become a center for global information in business and real estate as they also promote Northwest Florida and all that it has to present. McCall said that people from South Africa, Brazil, Russia, the United Kingdom, Belize, Argentina, Mexico and a little bit from Asia are coming to Destin for higher end homes on 30A and homes in Sandestin.

"They're all over ecotourism, which we have a lot of," McCall said. Internationals are coming here to experience our "more laid back beaches" and attitude. "We've got so much to offer," she said.

The fact that people from abroad get so much more for their money here is another reason for interest in Northwest Florida. McCall used the example of one of her associates from the UK that said she could get a three-bedroom, two-story home here for what a one-bedroom apartment would cost back home.

With Florida's sunshine, favorable currency exchange rates and cheaper homes McCall feels that "Northwest Florida will be very active here soon."

Real estate circles and business in Destin are getting ready to serve the needs of their new international clientele.

"If you're going to go international you have to be way above the game," McCall said.