The Corridor Carried August Out the Door

Every year the last week of August gets written off before it starts. The renters are checking out, the buyers are supposedly waiting on Labor Day, and nobody expects much to happen. Vacation traffic has thinned enough that you can get a table at lunch without planning around it.

Quiet on the sand, busy on the closing table. 17 homes closed on the Forgotten Coast, the most of any week in August, and 10 of them came from a single stretch of road. This was not the top of the market doing the work. It was the middle.

What is the Forgotten Coast real estate market doing this week?
For the week of August 24 to 30, 2026, the Forgotten Coast recorded 17 residential closings and 2 land sales across Port St.…

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Do You Need a License to Rent Your Forgotten Coast Home Short-Term?

Yes. If you rent a whole home for stays under 30 days more than three times a year, Florida requires a state DBPR vacation rental license, and your county adds its own layer on top. On the Forgotten Coast that means a Gulf County STR business license, a City of St. George Island business license, or a Bay County Short-Term Vacation Rental Certificate, depending on where the property sits, plus sales tax and tourist development tax registration.

By Billy Joe Smiley | August 27, 2026

I get this question from almost every investment buyer I work with, and it usually comes up late, right after they have fallen in love with a house and started running the rental numbers in…

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What Do You Have to Disclose When Selling a Home on Florida's Forgotten Coast?

Florida sellers must disclose known facts that materially affect a home's value and aren't obvious to a buyer, a rule from the 1985 case Johnson v. Davis. As of October 2024, you also have to complete a separate written Flood Disclosure before the contract is signed, and as of October 2025 that requirement expanded to cover any flooding you know about, even without an insurance claim. Selling as-is doesn't change any of this. The good news is that this process is straightforward once you know the two pieces, and getting it right upfront protects both you and the buyer.

By Billy Joe Smiley | August 25, 2026

I sit down with almost every seller on this coast for…

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School Started, and the Big Money Came With It

The buses started running again last week, and you notice it on the beach before you notice it anywhere else. Weekday mornings out at the Cape go back to walkers and a couple of people working the trough with a rod. Traffic on 98 thins out before ten. This is usually the stretch of the calendar where the market gets quiet right along with everything else.

Not this time. 15 homes closed on the Forgotten Coast, four more than each of the two weeks before it, and the dollars moved further than the count did. Residential volume landed at $13.68 million against roughly $8.06 million a week earlier. One island sale carried a good piece of that. The rest came from a coast that went back to work about the…

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What Should You Check Before Buying Vacant Land on the Forgotten Coast?

Once you are under contract on vacant land on the Forgotten Coast, your due diligence period should confirm three things: a wetland check and current survey establishing your buildable area and legal access, a realistic estimate for utility hookup and well drilling costs, and a land loan that fits the down payment and terms lenders actually offer for raw property. Florida's Vacant Land Contract gives you a generous due diligence window built specifically to run these checks before you are locked in, and working through them in order turns a promising lot into a confident purchase.

By Billy Joe Smiley | August 20, 2026

More buyers are calling me about vacant lots than…

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What Happens If the Appraisal Comes in Low on a Forgotten Coast Waterfront Home?

If your Forgotten Coast waterfront appraisal comes in under contract price, you have four real options: renegotiate the price, cover the gap in cash, request a lender-facilitated Reconsideration of Value with stronger comps, or use Florida's appraisal contingency to walk away with your earnest money. Waterfront and one-of-a-kind homes appraise low more often simply because there are fewer recent comparable sales for the appraiser to work from, not because anything is wrong with the property. In today's buyer's market on this coast, you have more leverage to resolve it than buyers have had in years.

By Billy Joe Smiley | August 18, 2026

You found the right…

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Eleven Sales Again, and a Very Different Eleven

The count did not move. Eleven homes closed on the Forgotten Coast last week, the same number as the week before. Everything underneath it moved.

Mid-August has its own rhythm out here. The weekday beach thins down to walkers and a few surf casters, and the afternoon pop-up storms have gotten regular enough that you learn to run your errands before two. Weekends still fill up. Tuesdays belong to the locals again.

Under that quiet, the money shifted hard. Residential volume came in around $8.06 million on those 11 sales, up from roughly $7.5 million a week earlier on the identical count. The average sale climbed to $732,565 from $682,382. The reason sits out on the Cape, and it is a story about…

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How Does a 1031 Exchange Work When You Sell Investment Property on the Forgotten Coast?

A 1031 exchange lets you sell a qualifying investment or rental property and roll the proceeds into your next one without paying federal capital gains tax right now. You defer the gain instead of losing a chunk of it, as long as you use a qualified intermediary, identify a replacement property within 45 days, and close within 180. Florida has no state capital gains tax to worry about, but documentary stamp tax still applies on both sides of the exchange. Get the timeline and the paperwork right, and this is one of the most valuable tools an investor on this coast has for building real wealth over time.

By Billy Joe Smiley | August 13, 2026

If you own…

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One Day on the Market: Park Point Custom Home with St. Joe Bay Views

This secluded dunes custom home in Park Point at Secluded Dunes on North Cape San Blas lasted just one day on the market—proof that the right buyer showed up at the perfect time. With St. Joe Bay right out the back door and uninterrupted vistas into the St. Joe Peninsula State Park, it’s a rare find in the heart of the Forgotten Coast.

A Setting Like Nowhere Else

Backing up to the state park means your "neighbors" are the deer and native fauna that make this world-class preserve so special. From sunrise over the bay to peaceful evenings, the views and wildlife take center stage every day.

Highlights at a Glance

Stunning St. Joe Bay views from the backyard


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Twelve Miles of Highway 98 Did Most of the Coast's Business Last Week

Eleven closings. That is the whole Forgotten Coast for the first full week of August, down from 22 seven days earlier. Cut clean in half.

August runs on its own clock out here. The shrimp boats work the flats in the early light while everybody else sleeps in, and by four in the afternoon the storms have stacked up over the mainland and the beach empties in about ten minutes. A slow week in August surprises nobody.

What should get your attention is what inventory did while sales were cooling. Active residential listings fell to 571, down from 582 a week ago and well off the June peak of 620. Supply has now shrunk two weeks running, in the quietest stretch of the season.

Active Residential Listings on Florida's Forgotten Coast

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