An active summer, but buyers remain cautious

While it has been an unusually active summer in the Vero Beach barrier island real estate world, disappointingly little of this activity involved real estate transactions.

The expected (or at least hoped for) summer influx of real estate buyers failed to materialize, and sales of only 39 single-family residential properties on the barrier island had been reported to the MLS through August 15th – exactly half the number of transactions that closed during the same period in 2007.

The good news, however, was that the average price of a home sold on the island this summer was $1,079,224 – down just 5 percent from the average a year ago. While many buyers are apparently proceeding cautiously, this statistic would suggest that this real estate cycle finally may be about to turn.

On another upbeat note, long-time Vero Beach Realtor Kay Brown reports seeing an upsurge in interest in recent weeks in higher end island properties.

She said that since in the past two months, she has shown oceanfront and riverfront homes “to a number of CEOs of top American corporations who feel this is an opportune time to buy.”

The top sale of the summer was in John’s Island, where an 8,000-square-foot oceanfront retreat at 664 Ocean Road that was totally renovated in 2007 sold on July 1 for $7.1 million.

John’s Island Real Estate had several other high-end sales this summer, including a home at Llwyd’s Lane that sold in June for $5,350,000 and an oceanfront building lot at 660 Ocean Road that sold in July for $4,750,000.

The only million dollar condo sale of the summer was at Seaquay on the north side of Central Beach, where an oceanfront penthouse sold on June 9 th for $1.1 million.

But while Realtors may not have been as busy as hoped showing homes, many kept busy in what has been one of the more significant realignments of high-end Realtors and brokerages in recent years.

As forecast by the 32963 Insider in our last issue, the local real estate landscape was rocked in mid-June when Premier Estate Properties, Inc., a leading high-end brokerage in Palm Beach and Broward counties, took over the Beachland Boulevard office of French & Co. and announced that anchoring their new Vero boutique would be Kay Brown, a co-owner of Norris & Co.

The announcement represents the first move by a major Palm Beach real estate company into the Vero Beach luxury market, and Premier could hardly have found a more respected Realtor than Brown to smooth their way into the community.

Premier never exactly explained what the deal was with French & Co. founder Clark French, whose high-end firm had been hard hit by the real estate slump. But French and his top agent, Cindy O’Dare, are now listed as estate specialists in the new Premier Estate Properties office.

It also was never made clear what the arrangement is between Premier and Norris.

In announcing that Kay Brown would be moving over to the Beachland office, Joseph Liguori, one of the three principals of Premier, talked of forging “a new alliance with our colleagues and longtime friends at Norris & Company” and added: “We look forward to combining our expertise in ultra luxury properties with Norris’ sterling reputation, local knowledge and agent base.”

The remaining Norris co-owners, Gena Grove and Jane Schwiering, who also specialize in high-end properties, expressed confidence that future of the 34-year-old firm remains bright.

“We are continuing to focus on our goals set in 1974 – to be the most successful company in Vero Beach,” Grove told us. “Norris & Company’s success will continue to be accomplished by having the most knowledgeable agents and staff, providing quality service for our clients.”

But several long-time Norris agents clearly were destabilized by the changes.

In the past few weeks, the husband-and-wife team of Ron and Christine Hughes, who have sold more than $250 million in homes over their career, and long-time Norris top-producer Sally Woods have defected to Dale Sorensen and Company.

Sorensen, in fact, appears to be bulking up to go head-to-head in competing for barrier island high-end real estate business with Premier. In addition to adding the Hughes, Woods and several other Norris agents, the firm has taken on Daniel Luce and Jonathan Zissel, two agents previously with Watermark Properties, another high-flying real estate firm that has had its challenges of late.

Interestingly, Watermark early in the decade was run by Clark French before he left to start his own company. The barrier island real estate universe remains a small world indeed.

------------------

In an interesting development, the Evans Report, published by Palm Beach real estate attorney Leslie Evans, reported on August 22 nd that home prices on the Palm Beach barrier island actually rose during the first half of 2008. While the total number of sales was down, the median price of a single-family home sold in Palm Beach during the period was $4.3 million -- a 9 percent leap over prices during the first six months of 2007.

Along with this comes news from Joe Liguori of Premier Estate Properties that his firm had a very strong second quarter with some very impressive sales in Manalapan, which is on the barrier island south of Palm Beach.

Hopefully, these are positive omens for the fall real estate market on Vero’s barrier island.