Blog # 1 Continued -- Most Interesting Real Estate

             For nearly 40 years, my dad’s family has owned a beach house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. In 1976, my grandpa, Thomas Howard paid $80,000 in cash for the lot and house. My dad and his family lived in Georgia at the time and they went down to the beach house every couple of weeks for the first few years working on the house, making renovations and enjoying the beach front propery. We have always been a family that enjoyed fishing so the 50 yard walk down to the water always made for good fishing adventures.

            When my dad was in college the entire Howard clan migrated to Dallas, TX for my grandpa’s work. But they kept the beach house 12 hours away in Gulf Shores and transitioned it to more of a rental property. The house and lot is managed by Kaiser Realty, one of the two major property management companies in GS. Gulf Shores is somewhat of a second home for me. I have been every year of my life and hold fond memories of my time there with family.

            When my grandpa purchased the house it was the last house on the road. Since the 80’s the area has grown tremendously and there are now 3 more miles of houses past ours. Before Hurricane Ivan there was an extreme shortage of available houses and lots in the area which caused the prices to spike upwards. The value rose to 2.5million. It was the first time in 25 years my grandpa considered selling the house. He chose not to and within months there were over 60 available lots and the price was down to $600,000 in a matter of months after a brutal hurricane season.

            Gulf Shores is one of the most interesting places for real estate because of how volatile the market is. In Gulf Shores there are two main types of real estate: Beach Front and Lagoon front. The beach front is valued at 2-3x as much as the lagoon front and it is only a 30 ft walk across the street. The actualy aesthetics of the beach is what makes Gulf Shores such an attractive place for owning beach realty. The sand beaches, great water, fishing and the lack of a tourist-town feel make Gulf Shores such an amazing place.