At the peak of the pandemic real estate boom, there were at times only two or three ultra-luxury listings on the island, not enough to lure elite out-of-town buyers to fly into Vero Beach and go house hunting.
But today, even though they are selling faster than ever, with time on market cut in half compared to five years ago, there are many more ultra-luxury choices, with 17 houses priced at $10 million or more on the market.
“I think that is a pretty good selection for a small town like Vero Beach,” says Matilde Sorensen, co-owner of Dale Sorensen Real Estate, who has a beautiful 9,702-square-foot oceanfront house at 600 Ocean Road listed for $16 million.
The 17 properties are spread out along the length of the island from south of The Moorings to 32963’s northmost ultraluxe listing on Ambersand Beach, an eight-bedroom, 10.5-bath, 14,190-square foot palace of a house built by a lottery winner.
That house, which sits on a 4-acre, ocean-to-river lot two miles south of the Sebastian Inlet and has two docks and an eight-car garage, is listed for $33 million by Dave Settgast of ONE Sotheby’s International Realty.
Not surprising, oceanfront homes dominate the ultra-luxury list, with riverfront coming in second. Nine of the 17 houses at the top of the island market are oceanfront, five are riverfront, and three are golf course homes.
There are eight ultraluxe listings in Indian River Shores, including six in John’s Island, and three in Vero Beach proper, in Central Beach and Riomar. The rest are in county territory, including two in Windsor and a number that are situated at the ocean end of single-street subdivisions.
These fabulous homes range in size from 3,582 square feet to 14,190 square feet, with five that are more than 10,000 square feet. They sit on lots as small as half an acre and as large as 4.8 acres, and range in price from $10.9 million to $34 million, with a cumulative listing value of nearly $300 million.
The oldest house in the group was built 75 years ago, and there are five classified as new construction, either just finished or about to be finished.
Completed in 1950, the vintage home at 1570 Wyn Cove Dr. is a classic beach house “reminiscent of Hemingway’s Florida . . . that exudes character and charm,” and sits on an irreplaceable 1.69-acre piece of property with 210 linear feet of ocean frontage on an accreting beach two miles south of Riomar. It’s listed by Melissa Talley at Premier Estate Properties for $19,500,000.
The new construction houses are among the most desirable to contemporary buyers, according to island brokers, because they are immune to many of the home insurance problems weighing on the real estate market.
Built like elegant fortresses out of concrete and steel, they are highly storm resistant and much cheaper to insure than most older homes.
“I have a number of very interested buyers circling around 330 North Blue Wave Lane in Ocean Pearl,” says ONE Sotheby’s broker associate Cindy O’Dare of an 11,560-square foot oceanfront house nearing completion that she and her business partner Richard Boga have listed for $25 million. “It will be finished by January and is exactly what many buyers want. It is a great listing.”
The most affordable ultra-luxury home on the island is located on a golf course at 200 Indian Harbor in John’s Island. Built in 2024 with four bedrooms and six-and-a-half bathrooms, the 5,887-square-foot home sits on a half-acre lot and is offered for $10.9 million by Michael Merrill at Douglas Elliman.
The most expensive house listed on the island, which sits on the largest ultra-luxury lot and has the second most square footage, is the nine-bedroom, 10-and-a-half-bath home at 1925 Sears Cove on the oceanfront across from The Moorings.
Built in 2018, the 13,050-square-foot house has “timeless architecture and impeccable finishes,” as well as 188 linear feet of ocean frontage, according to Realtor.com. It is offered for $34 million by Palm Beach Compass agent Elizabeth DeWoody, who says she has seen a steady stream of interest from brokers in Palm Beach and elsewhere since she listed it 60 days ago.
Besides the ultra-luxury properties listed now, island brokers have at least another half-dozen in the works that will be listed during season, according to multiple sources.
“We will have a lot more for our high-end buyers to look at,” says O’Dare.
The dramatic increase in island home prices during the pandemic is the single biggest reason ultraluxe inventory is growing. That boom in oceanfront and other property prices transformed homes that had been valued in the single-digit millions into ultraluxury.
The increase in inventory is occurring despite fewer days on market, on average, for these properties.
Data provided by Sally Daley at Douglas Elliman shows that average days on market for the top quarter of the market, which includes ultra-luxury, has fallen from 400 days pre-pandemic to just 175 days.
Of the ultraluxe houses on the market in 32963, days on market range from 20 to 300, with many in the 40- to 60-day part of the spectrum.
“It is a three- to six-month process to sell one of these houses,” says O’Dare, who with Boga has three ultraluxe listings. “It used to take a year or two.”
The faster pace of sales for $10-million-and-up homes that are accurately priced and in good condition is driven in part by the staggering amount of wealth generated during the pandemic and the post-pandemic bull market on Wall Street.
Forbes 2024 Billionaire’s List reported that there are 500 more billionaires today than at the start of the pandemic, for a record-breaking total 2,781, and that the group has $14.2 trillion dollars to spend on expensive houses and other desirable goods, an increase of $5.5 trillion since 2019. One notch down, there are another 28,000 players with between $100 million and a billion in wealth, people who can afford to buy a $10- or $20-million home on the barrier island if that’s what they want.
That flood of cash affects the Vero market directly and in an important secondary way.
Since the pandemic, some of the world’s wealthiest people have colonized South Florida, scooping up tranches of prime oceanfront property at record prices in Miami and Palm Beach, increasing the value differential between Vero and those glittering markets.
“It is incredible the amount of interest we are gaining from that South Florida market,” says Merrill. “Buyers are coming up to look because of the extreme value here compared to prices in South Florida, but they’re making the ultimate decision to buy once they see what a special place Vero is to live.”
“The value in Vero Beach is huge compared to Palm Beach or anywhere else in South Florida,” says DeWoody, who expects the buyer for her $34-million listing to come from Palm Beach or be someone looking for an oceanfront property. “Vero’s oceanfront value is exceptional.”
