It is a short sale, and you can read about what a short sale is on the Newsletter section of this website, or just call me to explain.

Ready to take a shot at this one? Email me and let's get started...]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=118 01/06/09 Black's Island is a privately owned and developed island out in the bay off Port St. Joe. It is only accessible by boat, and at the invitation of the owner.

We went out with the decidedly non-glamorous goal of taking a closer look at his advanced technology wastewater treatment facility, which took him years to get approved and installed, but is very leading edge - we're exploring doing something like this on St. George.

Anyway, as a bonus, the day turned gorgeous, and we got to visit a beautiful colony of white pelicans (our usual population is brown pelicans, much smaller). We did not get close enough to disturb them, of course, so the pictures are a little distant, but I think you can see the magic in these glorious birds even from this angle. ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=117 01/05/09 1) Sparkling clean two bedroom, two and a half bath townhome with a master suite upstairs looking straight down the boardwalk to the beach, and the main living area walking right out to the beautifully landscaped pool area - it's where living right brings you if you are lucky.

Just reduced to $309,000, $20K below the next lowest offering, and with *the* prime location in the compex.

2) This building lot on Brown Street is high and dry, bargain basement priced at $90,000. It's just a 5 minute walk to the beach *or* bay, or take your golf cart to get there even quicker.

Golf cart living on St. George has become quite the fashion, since we got our ordinance in place last year to make it legal on all streets except Gulf Beach Drive.

3) And, here's a beachfront building lot on Dog Island, one of the last great undeveloped beaches in Florida, and destined to stay that way for some time to come - it's gorgeous just as it is.

Residents of Dog Island like it deserted, quiet, and full of nature's beauty - sand, sea, shelling, and fishing.

Now listed at $295,000, this offering is the best on the beachfront on Dog Island, almost rivaling bayfront prices! It's time to sell it in 2009, the owner says, so they are going to make it happen.

So, for all of you shopping online, waiting for the best prices, the best mortgage rates, and the best offerings for sale, it's getting time to get off the bench!   ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=114 01/01/09 I don't *think* that oncoming car would have hit me, but such are the risks of all that traffic on St. George Island, don't you know...]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=115 01/01/09 The two most recent contracts were on the properties shown in the top and middle pictures, at right. The top one is a short sale, listed at $475,000, well below what the current owners paid for it in 2004, and below the assessed value on the county tax rolls.

The middle photo is of a bayfront home in the Plantation on an acre that also just went under contract. The sellers lowered their asking price to $339,000 and got an offer within a few days of making the price reduction. The home needs a new roof, but has a dock and gorgeous natural vegetation all around.

The bottom photo is of the latest bayfront house to lower its price below $400,000, making it the best-priced home on the bayfront on St. George. The setting for this home is a very pleasant pocket development of 5-6 homes, with a common dock, pool, and well-kept grounds. The asking price is $399,900.

We haven't seen prices like this on the bayfront in several years, and these are definitely the best prices on bayfront this year.

The bayside on St. George is known for its gorgeous sunsets, excellent fishing, and virtually unlimited kayaking and canoeing opportunities. You can get out at low tide and "hog" up your own oysters for supper. On the bayside you can also find yourself in a pod of dolphin, as curious about you as you are about them. And, the fishing can't be beat, no matter where you launch on the bayside.

With market prices like these, bayside is definitely worth serious consideration if you are looking to buy on St. George Island....]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=113 12/17/08 The wildflowers have been gorgeous this year, as you can see from a posting several weeks ago. This week, the trees and groundcover are what caught my attention.

Here's just a sampling of the gorgeous rusty red cypress, some kind of bright pinkish red groundcover (no clue) and a beautiful glossy red oak.

I can't tell you how brilliant the red oaks are, just that I do not have the photographic skills to capture that color. Especially with the low sun coming through them, they are simply stunning.

The cypress are definitely the stars of the show, though, against the quiet backdrop of our ever gorgeous pines. It's like a low sweet hum of colorful song, all the way down US 65, until you hit the water just west of Eastpoint.

As you emerge from the forest, there is that gorgeous blue bay, welcoming you home...]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=112 12/10/08 At these prices, the investment potential for long-term appreciation is there. We haven't seen prices like this for years.

Examples?

You can buy a beachfront lot on St. George Island, in the gated Plantation community, for $475,000. That's 0.56 acres, on the beachfront, 50'X475', in a little pocket development neighborhood with brick pavers, very nice homes, and very few vacant building lots. These lots are assessed by the county for over $1M. This is not a typo. There is one other beachfront lot for sale in this neighborhood for $595,000. Six homes in this neighborhood have sold in 2007 and 2008 for $1,013,000 to $2,350,000, according to our local MLS.

Or, if you are aiming for a much lower price point, the best value on a one-third acre lot in the middle of the island is on Brown Street, for $100,000. This is a lot I have listed for one of my clients, and she is open to offers - has owned the lot for 20+ years, and is ready to sell it. It's a great pocket investment - just tuck it away and watch it appreciate. It's high and dry, with large pines and great native vegetation - it's not going anywhere during a storm.

Bayfront lots are a little trickier to characterize - the bayfront on St. George varies greatly, from salt marsh type frontage to deep water. The views are spectacular from any of them - it just depends on how boat-centric you are. Bayfront lots are listed from $209,000 to $1,399,000 right now.

So, if you are looking for an investment in a place on St. George Island that you can hold to sell later or build on when you are ready, it's a good time to take a hard look at the market for vacant lots. Call me...]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=110 12/05/08 And look at those smiles!

The name of this house is "Gulf Stream Dream" and he will be keeping it on the rental market for now with Collins Vacation Rentals, www.collinsvacationrentals.com. He and his family and friends will be using the house a lot themselves, but he'll also be enjoying some investment income from this property.

Wish a "Dream" like this could come true for you? Email me - I can help make it happen!]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=111 12/02/08 I had a buyer lucky enough to land a contract on this beauty in the St. George Plantation this weekend, listed for $365,000 as MLS #203321. It was a very good match between buyer and seller, and both sides are happy.   

Now is definitely a great time to be looking for real estate on St. George Island. Email or call me if *you* would like to shop with me - I'm here! ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=109 11/04/08 One of my favorite drives in the northwest Florida panhandle is what some folks might call the most boring drive ever - US 65 south from I-10 down to the coast. It goes through miles and miles of national forest, mostly stands of pine trees, with the occasional cypress thicket and swampy creeks and estuaries of the bay that lead eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. You lose cell phone coverage for about 40 minutes going through there, and the towns are small, far between, and unincorporated. There is one gas station along the way, but not open at night or on Sundays, for sure.

What makes it my favorite is the never-ending magic of wild flowers and grasses that grace the understory of the pine forests and the swampy open lands. They change from season to season, almost weekly, but there is ALWAYS something to see.   

This past week it was the purple flowers that got me to pull over to the side of the road, slap mosquitoes and crouch down in the ditch to take a look and try to capture an image or two. The pictures at right are just 3 that got me. It was just after dawn, and the low-slanting dawn light was just mesmerizing.

We're talking side of the road, literally, nothing planned, planted, cultivated, or even noticed I would guess, but those fields of flowers were as gorgeous as anything in an art museum. They seemed to be singing that morning.

Hope you enjoy them too. And my advice is... don't ever pass up a chance to drive that long lonely stretch through the national forest as you are leaving St. George, headed back north to wherever home is for you - no matter what time of the day, or what season - just look, listen, and enjoy that drive. ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=108 10/31/08 Here are the basics:

As a group, we found and marked 168 nests this year, all loggerhead sea turtles, from the entrance to the State Park down to Sikes Cut. This is the highest number of recorded nests since we began keeping daily records in 1998. Numbers were high all over Florida, as well as in Georgia and the Carolinas.

St. George Island had the most nests in the Florida panhandle of any other beach, and our nests were concentrated inside the Plantation, on the western end of the island. Little St. George, the next island to our west, had about 40 nests, which is high for them, too.

We also had 155 false crawls, turtle crawls that were noted on the dawn patrols and did *not* have nests associated with them. No one really knows why turtles sometimes crawl up and back out without leaving a nest, but they do. Sometimes you will find a nest a little further down the beach on the same morning, which could mean that same turtle decided to come in at a little different place to lay her nest - she didn't choose to make a nest at the other crawl for some reason. But, we really don't know. We just record the data, and report it.

Of the 168 marked nests, 82 were washed away in high surf, typically the ones that were laid very low on the beach, near the water. But, we did have a couple of storms pass close enough by us in the bay to get some really high surf, which got even mid-beach nests.

The other 86 nests hatched, with varying degrees of success. Overall, during nest evaluations, we counted 9491 eggs, of which 8010 were hatched eggs, meaning we had a huge number of babies on the beach this year!

The sad fact is that 20 of those nests disoriented to lights, both of beachfront homes and businesses in the center of the island, whose lights collectively are a real problem. 1626 hatchlings were disoriented to lights, and most of them likely did not not make it to the water. We have to all work harder to bring this number to ZERO - disorientation to lights is a totally human-caused phenomenon, and incredibly easy to eliminate, just takes the flick of a switch, changing out light fixtures for turtle-friendly ones, and a determination to keep our beaches dark at night. Lighting needs to be focused on where we humans need it, and away from where it hurts our sea turtles.

Bruce also gave weekly talks about sea turtles to locals and visitors alike, and almost 500 people attended those talks. The more information we can get out to our visitors and residents about protecting sea turtles, turning off lights on the beach, taking their things in off the beach at night, and reducing or eliminating the use of plastics that end up in the water, the better. Hats off to Bruce for a great series of talks.

Thanks to fellow volunteer Steve Harris for the baby turtle picture above - a great shot of a rare daytime emergence of babies from the nest.

The 2009 turtle season on St. George Island cranks back up in May, when the mother turtles begin to crawl up to lay their nests again - I can't wait!]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=107 10/22/08 It turned out that the nest had hatched, but we must have missed seeing the tracks. It was so windy during that period that they must have gotten swept clean during the night, and by the time I checked at dawn, the evidence was gone. It also happens that we miss the tracks sometimes when we have heavy rains - that will obscure the baby sea turtle tracks, too.

Anyway, it is sad to see the last sea turtle nest hatch on St. George Island for the season, but there's always next year! Starting May 1st, we will start walking the beaches at dawn again, looking for the large tracks of mama sea turtles who have crawled up during the night before and layed their nests. May will be here before you know it!

At right is a photographic recap of a crawl, the nest, and the baby tracks that show it has hatched!    ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=106 10/07/08 Ike was like a great big old man in a bathtub, displacing so much water in our shallow gulf that it had no choice but to slop up over the rim and fill in all the low places on the bayside of the island. It stayed up for a couple of days, through several high tides and not very low tides, before finally moving on out.

On St. George Island's beach side, we lost most of the late season sea turtle nests we had left. I had 3 left on my mile of beach that were up on the high dunes, and one has since hatched. Two still to go.

Dog Island lost all of their remaining late season nests.

All in all, we still are having a great year for nesting on St. George Island, and we expect to lose sea turtle nests every year to storm surges and high tides, it's just a matter of when. Late in the season like this is actually not so bad.

Anyway here are the beginnings of odd things I've found on the beach at St. George Island after the high surf of the past few weeks:

Top: Our mid-beach dunes were scoured down to nothing, taking all the sea turtle nests that were located there, but sand actually piled up against our higher dunes - I thought the line of this new sand dune against the fencing was just mesmerizing.

Middle: This irridescent shell was catching the dawn light just right. Wish I were a better photographer.

Bottom: This is a bit of spongy coral (might be just a type of sponge?). It loses its color pretty quickly - no need to take this one home, I've found...]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=101 09/22/08 Top: I call this a "petticoat" sky - it lasts about 5-7 minutes, and then the sun is either out or too high up behind the cloud cover to give this effect.

Middle: This is just one of those crackle skies.

Bottom: Several mornings lately in the last couple of weeks there have been groups of pelicans flying in formation overhead northwest to southeast. Maybe migrating? I don't know. They are in groups like this, one after another.]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=102 09/22/08 Top: A nice plasticized map of our bay. I was hoping it might be from some place really exotic. But, no, it was bought locally, and probably used not far offshore. Well, I guess this place *is* exotic to some folks...

Middle: Finally got this little bird to stand still... not. Anyway, I caught him in some nice light, I thought...

Bottom: This little orangey freckly hamburger bean was sitting there waiting for me Friday when I went down to check one of my remaining turtle nests. After they are washed up by a high surf, the wind tends to blow away the lighter stuff and leave these seed pods sitting right out on top of the sand. A good time to go looking for them is right after a storm, and 2 days later, once the rack lines have dried out a little and the wind has done its cleanup work.

He really does look like he's smiling, doesn't he??? He's about the size of a half-inch thick quarter. ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=103 09/22/08 Top: This is called (what else?) a starfish plant, given to me by my good friend Mary Agnes. I have never seen such a bloom.

Middle: This is the "bud" or whatever you call such a monster, just before the bloom opens on the starfish plant.

Bottom: This is on the island, one of our many gulf frittilaries that are visiting right now. And, YES, I took that picture!! OK, well, the camera did most of the work.]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=104 09/22/08 Here are two that my customers have snagged in the last couple of weeks:

Top: A short sale on St. George Island listed at $199,000. This is a one-third acre lot, nice house, view of the gulf from both decks. Three bedroom, 2 bath, fireplace, tile floors, and a nice high dry lot on West Pine Street.

My buyer was competing with 3 other contracts, and he had excellent instincts on what to bid and how. Cash is king on this island, for sure. Patience is the second virtue that will be needed to get a purchase through a short sale situation with a bank - their processes are not exactly what you might want to call "streamlined." But, it is worth the extra effort, and buyer, seller, buyer's agent and seller's agent all have their roles in making it successfully to the closing table.

Bottom: Another short sale, moving through the system. This customer of mine had been shopping on St. George Island for just the right deal for a couple of years, and finally went for this one, and made a very smart move. On Gulf Beach Drive, nice view of the water, with a pool, perfect to generate a nice rental income stream. According to the contractor who took a look at it, it can definitely be brought back into showcase shape with some strategically applied TLC.

Again, if you are willing to take on a bit of a project, and keep a sharp eye out for costs, you can land that perfect property right now on St. George Island.

So, who's next?? Email me at sbassett@stgeorgewired.com.

]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=105 09/22/08 Why?

Well, for one thing, the list prices are at a 4-5 year low, and asking prices are still soft in many cases. Cash is king, because financing lots right now is a little more difficult than financing homes - banks are asking for larger downpayments on lots, which cuts lots of people out who would normally gravitate to them as investments.

Lots can be tucked away in a portfolio of investments - you owe taxes on them each year, and that's it - and at our current 7 mils, that is not bad at all.

Inventory? Yes, we have inventory. Currently there are 119 lots for sale to choose from on St. George Island, priced from $115,000 to $1,600,000. They are located all over the island, from beach front to bay front, and everywhere in between.

I just put one on the market for one of my customers that I believe is one of the best values on the island. It's a nice high and dry piece of St. George Island, measuring 110'x150' which is 1/3rd acre. It has gorgeous mature pines on it, as well as fragrant rosemary, native grasses, scrub oaks, and palmettos. You can see the bay from the front of the lot, standing at street level. The beach is just a 5 minute walk away, and even zippier by golf cart.

Email me or call me if you are interested in exploring this target-rich environment for investing.

And you can always have in the back of your mind that *you* might build a house there one day, and be able to have your very own place on St. George Island.... ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=100 09/05/08 A ton of sea cucumbers, I think they are young ones, about 2-3 inches in length, about the size of your thumb. There were tons of them.

I've seen them before after a storm with high surf like this - they show up on the beach for a couple of days after, tangled up in seaweed, and there never seems to be any predators dining on them - birds or crabs - I have to assume either they are not that tasty, or there are so many of them that the predators have already satiated themselves by the time I see the aftermath.

Next, a starfish that a crab did decide was tasty enough to set up shop next to.

It looks like someone artfully arranged this little tableau, but I assure you, this was how I found it. And how I left it - I can't begrudge the ghost crab his or her meal, after they obviously spent this much time getting their dining table all set up.

And finally, the ultimate scuba or snorkeling mask - this one has definitely belonged to the gulf for quite some time, but I guess she decided to go ahead give it up with the latest tall waves.

No, I did not try to take it home and clean it up...!
]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=99 09/04/08 One nest was high enough not to be washed over at all, one had gotten some water but looked OK, and the third had several inches of sand deposited on top of it, so may or may not hatch.

The waves were still very high this morning, but the bay side water had subsided.

I had a neighbor call last night around 4AM to let me know they had water under their house, and they were moving their cars - they live right across the street from the bay, and high tide came in as expected right on top of the high water mark from Gustav moving through, so there was some localized flooding near the bayfront last night.

I did not have any bayside water under my house - the high water seemed to be concurrent with the high tide, and moved on out as the tide changed.

Back on the beach, I noticed this morning that the sand fencing is definitely doing its job in helping rebuild the dunes. The picture I took this morning shows the increased build-up of sand on the sand fencing.

All is well today. We never lost power, and we have blue skies and white cloud today. We still have a pretty stiff wind blowing - but just a gorgeous day. ]]> http://www.stgeorgewired.com/blog.cfm?id=98 09/01/08