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Destin vs Panama City Beach Investing, Where the Best Deals Are Now · Short Term Shopping

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Welcome to Short Term Shopping, where we explore homes for sale in the best vacation markets in America. Some homes we do like, some homes we don't like. Brought to you by the Short Term Shop. It's Short Term Shopping. Welcome to the Emerald Coast Real Estate Podcast. We're here to talk about what is happening on the beach. The beautiful beach all the way down to wherever you want to go, really. Any, any part of the Emerald Coast. PCB 38, Santa Rosa Beach, Miramar beach, etc. And I got my boy Pete. What's up, dude?
• 0:47
  Speaker B: What's up, buddy?
• 0:48
  Speaker A: How are you rocking? Rocking holiday season as the at the recording of this podcast anyway. And yes, it is the best time
• 0:55
  Speaker B: of the year and I'm happy to
• 0:56
  Speaker A: be here with you. Oh, well, thank you. It is the best time. I love, I'm a huge Christmas junkie. Love every second of it. Taking the kids to Disney World in a couple days and yeah, it's just awesome.
• 1:09
  Speaker B: Do you dress up as Santa?
• 1:12
  Speaker A: No, have not done that. I mean, I've got about 400 hats and I put the hat on regularly, but as you know, it's a little warm here for that.
• 1:25
  Speaker B: I agree, I agree. San shorts.
• 1:29
  Speaker A: Yes, I'm wearing shorts right now. There you go. Me too.
• 1:33
  Speaker B: I won't stand up.
• 1:37
  Speaker A: Okay. Anyway, we're here. Pete's an agent, obviously sells his real estate on the beach here. And we're here to talk about the state of the market, what's going on in the world and I guess just give us a little overview of yourself and what you're doing on a daily basis and what's happening in the beach market.
• 1:55
  Speaker B: Yeah. So my name is Pete Apposado. I'm an agent here on the short term shop. Very happy to be on this team. Been on this team since about 2021 when I moved down from Jersey to beautiful Destin. I've lived in Destin for three years and now I bought another place at pcb which would be a short term rental early next year. So know this market very well. Sold a lot of real estate here and happy to help any of my past clients and new clients.
• 2:26
  Speaker A: Wonderful. Let's talk listings. What? Do you have any listings right now? Are they moving? What's. Are they getting phone calls?
• 2:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, I have a bunch of listings actually. Some have sold the ones, some are definitely taking a bit longer to sell. We know about a year ago rates were higher and also cost seg came back into the picture around July. So since that happened, I've actually been getting more calls on all my listings. Just like I feel like a lot of agents in this market have. I've seen a lot of things go under contract in the last especially month. So it's definitely changing the tide with rates coming back down and also 100% bonus depreciation put back into place.
• 3:21
  Speaker A: Yes, that's definitely a factor. And it's a big perk for folks that are not buying primary homes, you know. And then for those of you that don't know what that is, we have tons of resources on that here. We have actually a tax playlist on our YouTube channel. So if that's where you're viewing this video right now, you can click the playlist button. And then there's a tax playlist where we've had many tax professionals on in the past and recently. And we definitely try to defer the tax stuff to the professionals because let's face it, Pete, I mean, this is. Yes, I do know a lot about it and I've done all of these strategies many times. Yep. It's not my job. You know what I mean? Like, it's a little, you know, we,
• 4:03
  Speaker B: we stay in our lane. I'll definitely refer you to some of the best in the business. I know enough to be dangerous, but I'm certainly not going to be pretend to be the expert on the tech.
• 4:14
  Speaker A: Yes. And it works perfect perfectly for beach houses. It works perfectly for a middle, upper middle class, you know, wealthy, ish person, if that's as wealthy ish a word, I don't know, that lives in, you know, Atlanta or Birmingham or Mobile or wherever. And you know, maybe a doctor professional type person and then maybe they have a spouse that doesn't work. That's even more perfect because if you have the spouse that doesn't work, then it's easier to qualify. You don't really have to even bother with a lot of cases. With the material participation, you can become a real estate professional if you hit a certain number of hours versus this, that and the other. Again, we're going to leave that to the experts. But it's a great way to offset taxes and also get yourself a beach house. Yep. You know, get yourself a beach house, which is, you know, I mean, that's, that's one of the goals in life. I know that's been my wife, one of my wife's goals in life since the day I met her. And it's a, it's a wonderful thing. And the good news is, is we're perfectly designed here at the short term shop to help you with, with that process. So getting phone calls on listings, the top of your head here, I'm not asking for hard numbers, but like, you know, if you, have you had any offers come in on listings recently and were they like, you know, were they quote unquote low ball or are we getting somewhat reasonable offers?
• 5:37
  Speaker B: I've gotten a few quote unquote low balls, but I've actually, you know, I'm actually having an A client potentially putting an offer in on one of my listings in the next week. Don't know where it's going to be at, but I've been working with the buyer's agent so they really like it. I feel like, listen, in this market, I think any buyer is going to probably take a chance by offering a bit lower. It is technically a buyer's market. However, you know, I feel it has to be somewhat realistic. No one's fire selling these houses.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: The sellers are not. Yes, they're not necessarily willing to dump them even though they've some. In some cases we're seeing things on sale, offer for sale for two years or more. Multiple listing agreements, sometimes multiple listing agents. And at the end of the day, you're right, they're not fire selling. Although I do again, this to be timely here and this. I don't know when you're listening to this show, this podcast, I do think that this January and February are ripe for the picking because there's no rents at all. And that's when the sellers that are over it, that have owned it for seven or eight years and maybe they're not using it as much as they thought they would when. And the rents aren't coming in in January and February, you know, so that's when a lot of these sellers are just throwing in the towel and being like, man, I'm so sick of this thing. You know, maybe that's when that. And also there's not a lot of offers coming in in January and February. The real estate market nationwide, this isn't even beach markets or, you know, vacation markets or anything nationwide, real estate sales are always at their lowest in January and February. Correct.
• 7:23
  Speaker B: Definitely around the holidays, sales slow down. But in these markets specifically, you know, when the rents up or slow down for the off season, sellers just realistic get a little more realistic and willing to negotiate. I always tell my clients, January, you know, if you have to buy before the end of the year, obviously we would have known that and we would put in the offer accordingly if that cost sag is not your priority or requirement. January, February is actually A very good time to make an offer because you want to have it really ready for spring break because that's really going to kick off the season and it allows especially a new short term host to kind of test the waters and get their systems and processes in place before the real busy season kicks off.
• 8:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, I always see a lot of folks that are nervous about, you know, going under contract in January and February because they're like, well, it's not going to get busy until the end of March or middle of March or whatever. And I'm like, dude, this process is not an overnight thing. Is going to take you 30 to 45 to close it. And then you got to get your furniture figured out and get your locks and deadbolts and cleaners. And if you're brand new, that process is stressful and it can take some time. Now if you've got five or six other rentals, then yeah, we can move a little quicker. But I'm sitting here like, wait a minute, you're worried about January and February and I'm, I'm like, probably wanted to close, you know, like the middle of January so that you have like what you just said, like a buffer zone there. I know what another good time to buy is like August, especially if you're doing. We're way off topic now. But if you're doing bonus appreciate or you know, material participation, you got a full time job. August is a great time to buy. Cause things have slowed down. September, things are slowing down as far as rents are concerned. But then you got also got a very good chance that your hours. Again, I'm not tax professional, but it's going to be hard for your cleaner to hit more hours in the year than you if you start in September. So that's another thing to consider. Again, talking the general public into this notion is difficult because it's, it's like strike when the iron's cold, you know, like nobody's buying. And that's the perfect time to buy. But for whatever reason, everybody gets in it all at the same time. You know, it's like same thing with stocks. It's like people buy when it's hot. Yep. And then as soon as it starts going down, they're like, I better get rid of this. Wait a minute. No, it's supposed to be the other way around.
• 9:50
  Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. Well, we, we like to follow the, the herd.
• 9:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'll follow her. It's the sheep. So those low balls, you know, you mentioned a couple of low balls recently, which is great. I mean that's what I'm doing. I've, I've bought two beach, purchased two beach houses this year and I'm right now actually working a deal on a third. What were, what were those? Low ball, in other words, Give me as many details as you can. I would assume those deals are dead. So maybe. Yeah, you know, like what was the asking price versus the offer and what was the seller's reaction?
• 10:19
  Speaker B: So I did get one creative deal on a, on a, on a property that I have about. It's listed at about 1 8. He just basically flat out turned it down. It was full ask but it was a creative deal. And so my, my seller has no interest in doing that.
• 10:35
  Speaker A: Can you explain that, what that means?
• 10:37
  Speaker B: So basically they would be taking over the existing mortgage and then write a note for his equity portion.
• 10:42
  Speaker A: I see. The Morby method, if you will.
• 10:44
  Speaker B: The sub 2 hybrid.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 10:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. So yeah, my seller is just not open to that. I've had other sellers that are and I've done, you know, I've done a bunch of creative deals. It works for some people, it works for others. They're just not willing to do something they don't understand. I could actually walk them through it but it's, you know, you have to be willing to kind of participate in something like that. The other offer I had a condo, which we did. They decided to take it off the market, but it was listed at 469 and we got a 429 offer and they just flat out turned it down.
• 11:23
  Speaker A: You're kidding me. Now see, this sounds like actually an offer I may have worked if I was the seller. We're pretty close there. Really.
• 11:29
  Speaker B: I think they were not in a position to take it.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: Oh, in other words the loss of equity or something like that.
• 11:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, they just weren't in a position to take it and they're not selling that property really because they don't make money. They had a third child and they just really don't have the time, you know, as to be short term rental
• 11:50
  Speaker A: hosts or possibly would need a bigger property at this point.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
• 11:55
  Speaker B: So I mean they still have it and it's still generating money.
• 11:58
  Speaker A: So I got you. Okay. Okay.
• 12:01
  Speaker B: Got another listing in 38 about a week and a half ago. That one. I have a showing already. It's only been listed for about 10 days or so. I already have a showing coming up the day after Thanksgiving I believe.
• 12:20
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 12:20
  Speaker B: Advance. But they're not going to be in town till then.
• 12:23
  Speaker A: I got you. Yeah. And let's keep that in mind. This is, this is. It's not uncommon for showings to be virtual with a beach house. Correct. You know, the seller doesn't have time to come in. So you'll maybe go do a FaceTime showing or something like that, or videos. Correct. But this person's actually coming in. And I'd say that's a pretty good period of time on market to have a quality showing. Now I just want set the expectation here because I do think a lot of folks are still living in the COVID era and they're like, wait a minute, you've only had one showing in two weeks. Yeah, that's reality now. Yeah, right.
• 13:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. The typical days on market in these markets are above 90 days. And so, and here's what I always tell my clients too, is this, you know, in, in suburban markets, depending on where you are, days on market are higher as well. The days on market in a beach market, especially a vacation rental beach market, could be a little deceiving because you have to understand these are not properties that most people are needing to sell to buy their next. Right. These are investment properties so they can hold firm more on their number than most primary home sellers. You know, if they're, if they're needing to sell to buy, they oftentimes may be a little more negotiable or under the gun as opposed to someone owning a strict vacation rental. So days on market could definitely be saving, especially if they listed anytime in the summer, because getting into them to show it can often be days in advance if it's booked out. You can't even typically show these properties. So that just adds to the days on market.
• 14:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. And, and again, back to the nationwide data, 72% of sellers are buyers. This is nationwide because you got to understand, almost all single family real estate, which is what we work, we deal with, is primary home. So if they're going to sell it, clearly they're going to need another house. Now some people rent or whatever, decide not to buy. Totally understand that in a lot of cases renting a home to live in makes perfect sense. But 72% of all sellers are buyers. That's not the case here in a vacation town. You know, these people may or may not buy another beach house, but they may as well. They may just, you know, move on to a motorhome or a boat or something. You know, this is a, it's a toy in a lot of cases. It's just that, you know, here at the short term shop we've kind of perfected it so that it, you know, hopefully is as a quality asset that you're happy to have on. On your paper. So it's exactly what Pete just said. Just because they're selling in a vacation town doesn't really mean much of anything. These, these people are generally fairly wealthy, you know, as compared to average Joe. You know, the average human that can afford an extra house most of the time is not sitting around worried about buying groceries for their family. You know, so they can afford to wait for the time to be right. But at the same time, there, there's a. There's always deals where there's a will, there's a way I'm finding this market to be actually fairly enjoy for me personally, because I love the fact that I'm not fighting a bunch of crazy, you know, like 20 offers. And it was just so busy for so long there in the COVID era. I'm loving this stuff. You know, I got people, I got a deal right now where they've just come back. We went back and forth on this house six or seven times. Five or six of them were on paper, and we went probably three or four verbals. So it's probably like seven or eight times, really. And this was months ago, this is probably two months ago. And now they're back again and I'm like, wow, this is great. I love this. And so now I'm working a deal. I got a couple other properties that just. They're long term rentals and they. I got to turn them. The tenants moved out. One of them was pretty trashed. So I gotta, I gotta get my crews over there and fix them up. And I might, I might just exchange them into this beach house that this guy keeps coming back to me on. And I'm like, man, this is great. So I don't want to hear this. I can't find deal scrap. And you go, that's another thing. You go on Facebook. I happen to. I hate Facebook. But negative. You know what I mean?
• 16:55
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's all negative. Absolutely.
• 16:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. I actually asked, and I'm going to get to my point, but I actually asked Avery about that the other day. I said, am I just getting. Because we know we have these beautiful Facebook groups that we spent so much time building up, and they're huge. And for our space anyway, they're very large and small potato space is what I'm getting at. I asked Avery, I said, am I just getting older? Like, what, what is it about Facebook? It's just so terrible now. And she goes, Facebook is your drunk uncle throwing the remote at the TV is what Facebook is. And I was like, okay, she's, she's a millennial. She's younger than me, and if that's the way she feels about it, then it's cool with me because I agree this is exactly what it is. But anyway, I happened upon a random thread from some Facebook real estate. I don't know if it was a guru or what it was. Had like 150 comments and it was something along the lines of they were looking for a pro, a property in some town. And, and they were basically soliciting like, hey, DM me if you got a house for sale or something. Which is never. First of all, that's never worked. You know, I've just got this secret house that I'm happy to sell you at a super ridiculous discount that does. That's not real clickbait. But this, this thing had 150 comments from all these people talking crap. You can't get deals. There's no deals. Real estate is so dead if you, you'd have to pay cash just to even break even with a renter in there and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, dude, this is, I like seeing this because, you know, in the COVID era, it was the opposite. It was like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever. You have to do this. You have to do this. Meanwhile, everybody was doing it and now everybody's talking crap about it and I'm just like, sweet, let me, let me swim up in the back door and snipe this deal. You know what I mean? Because nobody's looking. I'm loving it.
• 18:53
  Speaker B: It's, you know, it's, it's, it's funny. And typically those ones leaving those comments don't even own a short term rental. And so, you know, they have a lot to say. It's like they're a keyboard warrior or a couch, whatever they call it from the couch. And so, you know, at the end of the day, you have to, you have to verify your source.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't even know that that thread was about a short term. It may, I may have been a long term. I have no idea. But I was like, so much negativity. Just like these people clearly are not even looking for a deal because they're just. And that, you know, hold on a second, I'm going to back up. We're way in the weeds now.
• 19:33
  Speaker B: But that's okay.
• 19:34
  Speaker A: A lot of these folks are the same folks that were like trying to buy in 21 or whatever. And then they were. They were. They were honestly looking for a reason not to do it. And now the market stinks. And now they're like nana Boo Boo or whatever, you know, like I told you so. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm over here buying three beach houses this year. You know, so it's just a lot of negative Nancy's out there, which is great. It's, you know, it's finally, I think the perception of the market is. Is coming around, like people are starting to realize that things are sitting on the market.
• 20:15
  Speaker B: And it's funny, too, because I feel, honestly, 25 is probably the best time to buy in this market in the last two years or so. You have a few reasons why in a lot of the properties that I am, my clients own or my clients have made offers on when. When we get their past rental numbers. And I don't. I take rental numbers with a grain of salt. But I found a lot of properties are doing better in 25 than they did in 24, so their rental numbers are up. Also, you have the bonus depreciation put back into place. You have interest rates that have now come down over a point from where they were sometime in last year. And you have sellers willing to negotiate. So if rents are coming up and all those three things that I just listed all factor in, this is actually the better time to buy this time in 2025.
• 21:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we. You know what else? This is way off in left field, but we didn't have a hurricane this year. Yeah, I got three. I got three rentals that are booked right now, and it's the end of November. That's unheard of. You know, my prices are in the gutter, to make no mistake. My price is like, hotel cheap. Yeah, like cheap hotel cheap on a house. But there's cars in the driveway. And there was no way that was happening last year. I don't know if it's. I mean, also, Pete, you know, you're right down the street from me. You look outside, it's freaking gorgeous here right now. Beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous.
• 21:42
  Speaker B: I mean, let's be honest. That's the appeal of this market. Yeah, I've. I've been to many beaches across the country. These are the best beaches by. With no comparison. And I feel like as far as real estate goes on, as beautiful of a beach. These are, you know, real. Relatively, compared to other markets, it's still actually pretty cheap, especially if you look at, like, PCB or something like that, where prices for condos on the beach could be under 400,000. And so, you know, I feel it hasn't caught up to a lot of mark beach markets. I'm from Jersey, and beach houses in Jersey are even more expensive than most in Destin, and you can't even generate revenue off of them for. But for three months out of the year.
• 22:34
  Speaker A: Three months?
• 22:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. Because, I mean, in Jersey, it's not around, you know, you're not living there.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Like, what. What area are we talking? You know, like the Jersey shore. Like.
• 22:44
  Speaker B: Like Point Pleasant, Belmar, Manilokin, Spring Lake, all these beautiful towns. Property prices have exploded since Sandy, to be honest. Hurricane Sandy, 10 years, 11 years ago.
• 22:57
  Speaker A: Was that 2010, 2011?
• 23:00
  Speaker B: Was it even longer ago? Something around there?
• 23:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, I was there. Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker B: And so all these. All these beach towns went from little cottages to now five bedroom, two and a half, $3 million houses.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: 2012. Yeah, yeah, we. We moved from the city, from Brooklyn. Not too long. Just right after Sandy, basically. Yeah, it was. It was messed up. We were in the city when it happened, and the whole city was out of power for a month and. Or two weeks, and it was just. It was horrible. Yeah. And Avery, you know, Avery was like, let's listen. This has kind of made me want to be closer to family. So that was one of the reasons we left. Yeah. And. But yeah. Okay, so now is it legal to rent there? You can. I can rent my house in. In these areas?
• 23:49
  Speaker B: Some towns. Yes. Some towns have regulations put in place.
• 23:53
  Speaker A: I got you. Okay, cool. All right, well, what else do we need to know about the current market? Like, what's going on and anything else we need to know.
• 24:00
  Speaker B: Obvious. You know, obviously, like I said, it's probably the best time to buy here in a couple years. You have a lot of events going on throughout the market. You know, at the end of the day, these properties generate great revenue. And, you know, if you're. If you're using it in order to offset taxes as well as for a beach house for yourself, this place is hard to beat. I feel, you know, I'm a little biased. I live here, I love it. But it certainly is hard to beat, I feel. And compared to a lot of other.
• 24:36
  Speaker A: And if I'm a seller right now.
• 24:38
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: Had this thing for four or five years, I like it. But I've maybe decided to kind of move on to something else or I want to buy $150,000 truck or whatever, you know, like, what's your advice for somebody looking to sell right now?
• 24:53
  Speaker B: So I mean it. Listen, obviously selling is going to take a little bit longer than it than they're used to. So if they do have that Covid mentality, you know, on the first call with my sellers, I kind of give them a reality dose. I show them data. I'm like, you know, typical days on market are probably about 190 to 100. That doesn't necessarily mean your house is going to sell in 90 to 100 days. You have to also be realistic as compared to comps, but not just comps compared to your competition that are actively listed as well. So comps are great and a lot of sellers just want to strictly rely on comps. But you really need to look at what's currently on the market that compares to yours and how they're priced. So I look, I give them both to my sellers.
• 25:43
  Speaker A: Love it. All right.
• 25:45
  Speaker B: Being realistic and, you know, and not expecting an unrealistic number compared to competition.
• 25:56
  Speaker A: Love it. All right. How do I get. How do we get a hold of you?
• 26:00
  Speaker B: My. You could call me 2123-0021-2300-5102. You can email me at petetheshorttermshop.com I'm here to help you.
• 26:16
  Speaker A: So I'm always jealous of that 212.
• 26:18
  Speaker B: I.
• 26:19
  Speaker A: How did that happen? Did you port that over from a landline?
• 26:22
  Speaker B: You know, I went to a T mobile store and I said to them, I'll get another line if you have a 212 number. And they actually called me back the next day. I got one for you.
• 26:31
  Speaker A: No kidding?
• 26:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, and I won't get rid of it. But here's the thing. The funny thing is all spam calls now come from 212 numbers.
• 26:39
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, I get a lot of spam calls. So it's kind of like, you know, it's. It's just nostalgic for me.
• 26:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, this is, you know, for those of you don't know, this is the Manhattan area code and it was the original New York City area code. I moved to New York a couple of months before they came out with 646. Yep. And I had a 917 and I moved there. Or maybe it was the other way around. I don't remember. But Yeah, I think 91 7.
• 27:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, 917 was first, I believe, right?
• 27:12
  Speaker A: I think it was. Yeah. Or maybe I had a. I might have been, you know, I think maybe I had one of the first six, four sixes and I moved there and everybody was like, what is this phone number? Where are you from? I'm like, what are you talking about? This is a New York phone number, but I got it in the. In Nebraska before I moved to the city. And I just said, I need a New York City area code. And they gave me, like, the brand new one. And then it took me forever. I took. It took a long time for me to. To get just a. A 917, you know, I mean, it talked. I was probably on a list or whatever back. However. However they did it 25 years. 20 years ago for two or three months before I got a 917 and was able to switch it. And so the two one, two. I'm jealous. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Speaker B: I've had it for a long time. Won't get rid of it.
• 27:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. And then there was, you know, of course, the 71 8, which means you were in Brooklyn or Queens, you know. Yeah, yeah, we don't want. No. Yeah. That meant, you know, back when those numbers meant something, that meant you couldn't afford the city is what that meant. You know, Exact.
• 28:10
  Speaker B: And Then what's Jersey 2 oh, 1-2-01, 908-97-3732.
• 28:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. 917. Yeah. That's the good old days, man. All right, well, listen, I appreciate it, bro. We'll see you soon. All right, later.