About seven years ago, my wife and I looked around the country for a community that we could afford to retire in. The community had to provide us with a quality of life along with amenities and things to do. We found Ocean Springs and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by process of elimination. My entire journey can be found on my personal blog site HERE. The point of this article is not to relive the process but to point out to locals and people located outside of the Mississippi Gulf Coast that we are no longer off the radar. This article was written in June 2021, things may change so check back.

Mississippi Gulf Coast is now on the radar

While many people are considering the possibility of relocating to Florida, Austin, Denver, and other similar communities, they have found that those places are now literally “full”. Full of high taxes, high home prices, traffic, and the things they were trying to get away from. This is starting to cause people to look beyond the typical places that have for the past few years attracted a wave of newcomers. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is now on the radar as they say. People have found us, not in great numbers such as Florida but in sufficient numbers to affect our housing market.

The point of this article is not to weigh in on the merits of more people moving in as much as it is to inform prospective sellers and buyers as of Summer 2021 that the market has changed for all parties. Gone are the 2-3% annual increase in property values. Some values have gone up 30-60% in the last couple of years with the average probably about 6% if you believe Zillow and other similar firms. I have a good example, my friend asked me to sell his home a couple of months ago. He had decided to sell his vacation home here and wait a few years to buy another.

22% increase in home value

He paid $265,000 for his four-bedroom home in a great neighborhood two years ago. I sold it for him at $325,000 a couple of months ago. That’s a 22.6% increase in value over just two years or an average of about 11% per year. I can provide other similar examples, I believe you understand what I am attempting to convey. Prices are going up and there is no end in sight.

The second part of this example is that the buyer was from out of state as many are these days. Local buyers tend to pay less than $300,000 for homes. I recall looking at the multiple listing service about four years ago and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see how many homes over $450,000 were listed and sold. Virtually none. In fact, I looked at the number of homes above that price and they represented just a small handful. It was very uncommon to see anything priced over one million dollars and those priced the highest were on the market for a long time.

Big dollars flooding the Gulf Coast

A recent review of the same information tells me that the higher-priced homes are selling as well as the lower-priced homes. Buyers are coming in from other higher-cost states and think a home on the water for $600,000 is a bargain. Also, a couple of years ago, most homes did not sell at the asking price, now there are bidding wars. Wow!. In large part, I believe, that it’s the big dollars coming in from outside our area. I was speaking with a real estate attorney a few weeks ago and he told me that over half of his closings are to buyers from out of state.

Now, what does this mean for you? If you have a home priced above the median which is probably around $200,000 now, it will probably be purchased by a buyer from another area who views the home as a bargain. My suggestion is to price your home at the top of the market and bump that a small amount. By the time your property sells at that price, the market will have risen to meet it. I recently saw a house that should have been priced at about $480,000 sell for less than $400,000 because the Veterans Administration let it go for far less than the market would have paid for it. I was and am angry that our tax dollars were not better cared for. Sorry for the editorial.

No need to dump your property

Some people need to sell their home quickly, if your home is offered at less than $250,000 it will sell fast at market pricing. There is no need to “dump” it. Try pricing the property at the market and see what happens, you can always lower the price or offer closing cost assistance.

All of this outside money in other areas would harm the local population’s ability to buy homes they can afford. I do not see that happening here because most of the outside buyers are buying new houses and larger houses that are already owned by people living outside of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The lower-priced homes are typically purchased by residents from other residents. Some investors do purchase lower-priced homes for rentals but their numbers are not significant now. Most investors buying lower-priced homes are looking for fixers. They actually provide a service to the community by fixing up homes and selling them. This activity can improve a neighborhood.

The Mississippi Gulf Coast was once a place where people bought vacation homes. Many people living in the New Orleans area buy homes they can drive to for the weekend. We get a large number of snowbirds coming from colder areas and of course people who live in large cities e.g. Houston, Dallas, etc. who need to getaway.

Recently, however, several people have been moving into the area to live permanently. My brother lives in a development that was recently built. The majority of residents are from other states. This makes sense since the prices of the homes average about $300,000 which is well above the median price of $200,000 in the area.

I am guilty of offering people outside of the area an invitation to come and live here. As a result, my brother and two friends have all bought houses on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. As a real estate agent/broker, it’s my job to find homes for people and to help people sell theirs. The largest market for my industry along the Mississippi Gulf Coast is to work with people who live in California, Illinois, New York, and other high-cost states. We can only hope they embrace our culture which includes lower taxes.

Thank you for visiting our website and reading our blogs.

Please contact us if you have decided to move into the area or one of the few who must leave us. Click this link to sign up on our site to search properties without obligation. . Contact us at connect@logan-andersonllc.com or call us at 28-215-0031, press one for Sean and two for me.