For Al and Karen Mair, the payoff after a busy week begins in the eastbound lane at the top of the Dunlawton Bridge.
“As you crest the bridge and see the ocean,” said Karen Mair, 47, “it’s like this collective, `Ahh.'”
But the escape from the pressures of running their own health-care business in Lake County isn’t complete until they reach their Ponce Inlet condominium with its high ceilings, granite countertops and roomy balcony overlooking the ocean.
The Mount Dora residents are among the growing number of Central Floridians flocking to the beaches for weekend retreats at new, high-end condominiums, providing the driving force behind one of the hottest-ever condo booms in Volusia and Brevard counties.
Last year, the two counties recorded more than 6,400 condo sales, totaling nearly $1.4 billion. That’s about twice as much as the sales for the 4,633 units sold in 2002.
The coast of east Central Florida is becoming increasingly popular as a weekend destination for affluent, well-educated baby boomers from metro Orlando buying condos for second homes on the beach, said Daryl Spradley, a housing consultant for Charles Wayne Consulting in Maitland. “They look to this as a place to get away from Friday to Monday,” Spradley said.
Although prices for new and used condos are breaking records, east Central Florida’s condo coast is still a bargain compared with other parts of the state better known for upscale beach condos, including South Florida.
The $600- to $900-per-square-foot prices in Miami and Naples are two or three times higher than what people pay for comparable units in Volusia and Brevard, another factor driving buyers to east Central Florida.
Experts said the quality of condos going up in Volusia and Brevard is similar to what’s found at premier coastal addresses in South Florida, which had a head start on upscale-condo development.
Condo development is on the rise in downtown Orlando, too, with as many as 18 projects — including condos, apartments and offices — completed, planned, proposed or under construction since 2001.
But housing experts said that market is different because it’s geared mainly to buyers looking to avoid long commutes to the suburbs and to be closer to jobs and such downtown amenities as fine dining and cultural events.
Orange County recorded 2,790 residential-condo sales totaling nearly $329 million in 2003, compared with the 3,160 condo sales in Volusia totaling more than $611 million during the same period.
Low interest rates are helping fuel both booms.
The coastal condo market also is getting a boost in part because more people are investing in real estate instead of the stock market. They are getting two things at once: a fun place at the beach and an asset almost guaranteed to rapidly rise in value. Along the coast, people from metro Orlando make up about two-thirds of buyers, replacing what used to be a market dominated by budget-conscious retirees and empty nesters.
“That’s been a big change,” said condominium developer Jim Mack, whose company, Volusia Realty Properties, built the Antigua and Martinique condominiums in Ponce Inlet.
The new wave of buyers includes people a few years from retirement who plan to use their condo for weekend getaways and possibly as a primary residence after retiring.
Others are professionals and business owners in their 40s and 50s who are buying for weekend stays, vacations and special occasions. And they don’t rent them out.
Still others are buying just for investments, locking in at discounted “pre-construction” prices and selling them for more once they are built.
Gene White, director of condominium appraisals in Brevard County, recalled one instance in which a buyer paid $300,000 at the discounted pre-construction price and sold it to someone else for $420,000 just 10 minutes later.
Existing units are selling faster than ever, too. It used to take about 30 days from the time a unit hit the market until it sold, said Lynn Byrne, an Ormond Beach-area Realtor. Now it just takes a few days, she said.
She closed within three days on one unit in March 2002 for $512,000 — a price $102,000 higher than the last time it sold in December 2001. It sold again for $565,000 in October 2003. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Byrne said. “It’s kind of crazy.”
The rising property values, coupled with the new-construction boom, are enlarging tax rolls at record-setting rates, which typically means more property-tax revenue for local governments. But the booming coastal market has a big downside for some unsuspecting condo owners because rising values typically translate into higher property taxes. In Florida, the taxable value of a primary residence is capped at annual increases of 3 percent or the inflation rate, whichever is less. But the cap does not apply to second homes.
The owner of a primary residence in Orlando and a weekend condo in Cocoa Beach, for example, may be surprised to see the taxable value on the coastal property rising at a much faster rate than the value-capped inland property.It’s a frequent source of complaints, as are the condos themselves. Some conservationists are worried about the loss of native coastal habitat and potential harm to turtle populations because of the shadows cast by condos.
High-rises also have sparked concerns about community aesthetics.
Nevertheless, demand has been so strong, developers are buying and tearing down $65- to $85-a-night hotels to make way for luxury condos starting in the upper $300,000s.
