The housing sales figures were just released for the various municipalities including Jupiter for January 2015…

The bottom line is that there are slight;y more sales happening with fewer new listings on the market and this continues to drive prices up in Jupiter by 4.9% when compared to last January.

I received this letter from the Town of Juno Beach.

Juno_Beach_NFIP_ltr_02_19_15

The letter states that the Flood Insurance Rates Map (FIRM) have been updated, are expected to be adopted and made effective this summer of 2015 and that almost 1000 properties in Juno Beach will be affected.

The preliminary FIRM information can be viewed HERE.  The maps for Juno Beach are 12099C0381F & 12099C0193F which shows much of Jupiter as well.   These generally show an increase in zones AE but to be honest I do not see how 1000 properties have been affected as this is about 1/2 of the total units on town.

Still, changes to the Flood Maps affect the cost of ownership of any property in a Zone A or V zone which is mortgaged by a federally chartered bank must have flood insurance on it.  This affects values of real estate and thus we should all be aware of these changes and how they affect the neighborhoods we have listings or sales in.

I had this conversation with someone just the other night. They were telling me that Martin County taxes are sooo much less than they are in Palm Beach County. Let’s just cut to the bottom line here and say that they are not.

CLICK HERE to read my 20149 version of this post.

There are two basic segments of your real estate tax bill: Ad Valorem and Non Ad Valorem. Ad Valorem taxes are a percentage of your assessed value and non Ad Valorem are, well they’re not. The percentage of the assessed value that your tax bill equates to is called the millage rate. There are some cities and towns which have attempted to make there millage rate appear lower by pulling out of the total tax budget used to calculate the millage rate everything they can. Thus in West Palm Beach the millage rate for 2004 is 23.2704 BUT residents pay for trash pick up in addition to this. Where as in North Palm Beach the 2004 millage rate is 22.0701 BUT trash pick up is included in this number.

Anyway, to return to the point. The 2004 millage rate for the unincorporated areas of Palm Beach County is 18.8006 where the rate for the unincorporated areas of Martin County is 17.1003. The difference being 1.7003 or $1.70 per $1000 of assessed value. On a 300,000 total asses value this is $510 per year. Not to dismiss $500 a year but it just would not dictate where I chose to live. I just looked up a non waterfront house at 6 Admirals Walk, FL 34996 and the 2014 tax bill is $3,968 on a house asking $325,000. Whereas the house at 2566 La Lique Cir in Palm Beach Gardens is asking $350,000 and has a 2014 tax bill of $4,248.

Bottom line is that the taxes are, for the most part, a percentage of the assessed value and the differences simply are not that great.

The local Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches (RAPB) just released the 2014 real estate sales statistics figures and there are are some terrific trends to discuss.

2014-pbc-local-market-update

County wide Single Family Home prices were up 4.2% in 2014 while locally here in Jupiter prices went up by 9.1% and Palm Beach Gardens prices were up 6%.

This is terrific however the velocity of the market has increased again depleting inventory to the point where we have properties selling for above asking price.  The average marketing time for a home in Jupiter was just 75 days in December compared with the 2013 average of 122.  A significant drop.

The other sign of the times is that the months supply of inventory has dropped yet again in Jupiter from from 5.6 months in 12/13 to just 4.1 months in December 2014

I was looking through the Town Of Jupiter major projects list and saw some interesting items…

https://www.jupiter.fl.us/DocumentCenter/View/5136

Most of what’s happening now in Jupiter are small scale Planned Unit Developments (PUD’s) or amendments to older PUD’s.  There are some larger scale developments which will be rental communities such as the one under construction right now at Barcelona (f.k.a. Whitehaven) which will be a 351 unit residential apartments and future commercial development at 1030 Military Trail.

The Lakewood project at the northwest corner of Indiantown Road and Florida’s Turnpike will consist of 275 residential units, 150,000 s.f. bioscience/high tech, 5,000 s.f. restaurant and 14,750 s.f. drugstore was been approved last July 2014.  DiVosta hopes to start construction on the $150 million project in early 2015.

Water Pointe is a mixed use development, including 30 multi-family residential units, a restaurant, and a two story office/retail building located 850 feet north of the intersection of U.S. Highway 1 and Ocean Way on the west side of U.S. Highway 1.

The December sales stats were just released by the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches and the median sales price in Jupiter is up 22.1% year over year.  In Palm Beach Gardens the median sales price rose 14.8%.