You’re all awesome! Thanks for taking the time to help and proving such great insights and advice! So helpful to hear from folks in the know and learn a little of the history and things to consider.
two quick follow up questions:
# how is crime in the area? I can’t find stats anywhere online.
# is the area mainly rentals, mainly FT residents, or a mix of both?
I forgot to mention Bid-A-Wee Beach! It's about 1.5 miles east of Pier Park and has half a mile of private beach. Too busy an area for my taste, but probably preferable if you plan to do short term renting. Unlike the west end, it's incorporated and part of PCB.
I'm not aware of any serious crime problem on the west end.
About 15% of the homes are homesteaded.
The best thing to do is drive around during the day and see how well the neighborhood is maintained. Drive through on a weekend night to see if there's a problem with rowdy short-term rentals. That end of the beach tends to attract families rather than partiers.
The areas with run down mobile homes are best avoided. No problem with the well-maintained ones. I have nothing against mobile homes; I've owned one.
The west end is unincorporated, so Bay County rather than the City of Panama City Beach takes care of code enforcement. In some areas, both in PCB and in unincorporated, it appears code enforcement is non-existent.
I believe the unincorporated areas are on county water now rather than well water. The well water is safe but smells of sulfur. While most of the unincorporated areas are on septic, I'm pretty sure you can get hooked up to the city sewer system. I think it costs about $25,000 to do so, but check with the city.
From the PCB government website:
"Septic tanks used to be a widely used method of wastewater disposal in the City. Six areas which used septic tanks as a means of wastewater disposal included: El Centro, Gulf Highlands I, Gulf Highlands II, Bid-A-Wee, Bahama Beach and Open Sands Subdivision. All of these subdivisions have been retrofitted by the City with sanitary sewer and reclaimed water. The improvements were funded by a grant from the State of Florida."
Below is a link to the the Bay County Property Appraiser. Do a search for a particular street and it will show you the homestead status of houses as well as the last sales date. Click on the arrows above and you can see the information in ascending or descending order. About 15% of the houses are homesteaded.
You can also do a search by subdivision (Sunnyside, Laguna Beach, etc.) under the "Search by Legal Information." There are also comp and sales searches.
When you click to see the map, you can click on the menu on the left to see what has sold by year for the last 5 years and they will be highlighted by different colors.
You can click to see FEMA Flood Zones, measure distance and area, Google street view, Google Earth and other stuff. Appraiser sites vary by county. The Bay County site is the best of the dozen or so that I've used.
Online access to maps, real estate data, tax information, and appraisal data.
qpublic.schneidercorp.com