The island real estate market picked up unexpected steam in August. The number of transactions was up only slightly, but prices and buyer activity spiked. Dollar volume was up 53 percent compared to last August and the average sales price for a single-family home in 32963 was higher than it’s been anytime this year except in June.
August and September are usually the slowest months of the year for island property sales, but something was different this year.
Multiple brokers say that pent-up demand and a bigger buyer pool due to all the new direct flights between Vero Beach and Northeastern feeder markets made this summer busier than usual and powered the August surge.
“This summer has been starkly different from last summer,” says Richard Boga, with the O’Dare Boga Dobson Group at ONE Sotheby’s International Realty. “Much steadier.”
With three airlines now operating at Vero Beach Regional Airport, up from none in January 2023, there are at least eight direct flights to Northeastern locations – spanning an area from Boston to New Jersey – with two new flights slated to launch this fall.
“Access is a big deal,” say Premier Estate Properties estate agent George Nagey. “It is much easier to get to Vero now.”
“I have taken a number of Breeze and Jet Blue flights this summer, and they are always full,” says Luke Webb, owner-broker, Luke Webb and Associates.
“We have had more people coming from places like Providence and Long Island, where Breeze Airways offers direct flights,” Webb adds. “We just had a $2.5 million closing with a buyer from Islip, who can now fly in directly,” without having to battle traffic in Queens or New Jersey, where nearby major airports are located.
Islip is halfway down Long Island, close to the pool of wealthy buyers in The Hamptons.
“We’re also seeing a lot more people from Boston, due to JetBlue’s direct flight up there,” Boga says.
The expanding roster of flights fuels real estate sales because many northeastern buyers are snowbirds who want easy transit back and forth between their northern and Florida homes.
Others become full-time Vero residents but have children and grandchildren, networks of friends, or business interests in Northeastern cities. They want to be able to get “home” without a lot of hassle and want it to be easy for their families to visit.
“I’ve never been as busy in August as I was this year,” says Douglas Elliman broker associate Sally Daley. “I am getting multiple inquiries daily and doing back-to-back showings on the weekend, which is very unusual for this time of year.
“We have a much wider pool of buyers now,” Daley says.
Besides new streams of clients from the Northeast, she sees “a wholesale relocation from South Florida taking shape,” as buyers flee high prices and urban intensity in Fort Lauderdale, Delray Beach and Boca Raton, attracted by Vero’s mellow vibe and more affordable waterfront homes.
Vero Beach continues to get good national press. In July, Travel & Leisure ranked it as the second best beach town in the U.S. to invest in real estate, pegging it as a top place to buy a home before prices go up, and beach.com just named South Beach Park one of the 25 best beaches in the world, taking into account climate, accessibility, popularity and amenities along with water quality, calling Vero “one of Florida’s best kept secrets.”
Besides Vero’s small-town lifestyle, scenic beauty and cultural resources, Florida’s tax benefits, which may increase in November, are another high note in the siren song that pulled buyers to the barrier island in August.
Boga says people who look at houses in the summer tend to be serious buyers.
They usually aren’t looky-loos or real estate tourists,” he says. “They’re looking because they know summer is a good time to negotiate with sellers and they want to make a purchase.”
With 32963 single-family home inventory the lowest it’s been this year, down from 246 properties in January to just 140 in August, and serious buyers cruising the island’s oak- and palm-shade lanes, prices are trending up.
Price reductions were down 24 percent in August and data provided by Boga shows that the average price per square foot paid for island homes in August was $728, which is up 16.5 percent from last August. It’s also the highest average price per square foot in the past 14 months, except for June. The average price paid for an island home was $2,179,000, up 28 percent from last August.
That doesn’t mean island prices overall have gone up that much in the past year, but it shows buyers were motivated to spend serious money for a 32963 house this summer.
Boga thinks the uptick in prices could be the start of a longer trend.
He says economic uncertainty created by changing tariff policies last spring and concern caused by the outbreak of war with Iran this spring kept a number of buyers on the sidelines during the past two winter selling seasons, and that some of those people are getting tired of waiting to purchase a Florida dream home.
“You can only put your life on hold for so long,” he says.
Webb agrees. “There are many buyers with means who are ready to buy and want to be in Vero,” he says.
Boga also suspects that the drawn-out price correction that followed the pandemic real estate boom may finally be bouncing along the bottom. It wasn’t a severe correction in Vero Beach, but it has been a brake on prices going higher as sellers and buyers adjust to the reality of a normal market.
Stats back up his theory.
“Pending sales are way up,” says Daley.
Webb says that at the end of August there were 182 active listings on the island, including houses, condos and land. Of those, 24 percent were already spoken for, listed as either pending or backup. As the pending sales close, market momentum is likely to continue.
Island inventory typically starts to tick up in October, steadily increasing into January, as sellers rush to get their homes on the market in time for the winter/spring selling season.
With a wider market, pent-up demand and increasing inventory on the horizon, brokers say the coming season is shaping up to be a good one.
“All signs point to it being a strong season for real estate,” says Webb. “There is such demand waiting in the wings, buyers who are poised to act when the right property comes along.”
“I think this summer’s activity bodes well for us going into season,” says Boga.
“I’m very positive about our market,” says Nagy. “If a home is well priced, it will move.”
