PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla., (Reuters) – Chris Reid was pumped. After suffering through a few years of tight credit and the U.S. housing meltdown, the Pensacola-based realtor was ready to sell some beach-front property. Summer was coming and that is the region’s busiest season.
All that changed after the April 20 explosion on BP’S Deepwater Horizon drilling rig which killed 11 people and burst an oil well, currently spewing up to 60,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf each day.
Now Reid is hoping for the best as she faces a catastrophe that threatens not only her livelihood but her way of life.
“We’re water people,” she says of herself and husband, Robert, who moved from the mountains to be near the shore.
“This is why we’re here,” she said, pointing at the Gulf from a vacant 13th floor condominium unit she’s trying to sell for a client at the Portifino Towers on the east end of Pensacola Beach.
Condominiums that would normally be packed with summer guests are eerily vacant as people shun the once-pristine beaches that usually attract them to the region in droves this time of year.
Some rental agents say bookings are down by more than half as cancellations mount and visitors that do arrive cut short their visits in the face of health advisories, tar balls, heavy machinery and orange-vested cleanup crews brought on to keep the beaches clean.
On the sales front, coastal realtors say it’s simply too early to tell what impact the BP spill will have on a market that was just getting back on its feet from a real estate bubble that burst in 2006, sending stratospheric prices back to earth.
But there are widespread concerns about the long-term effects if the spill knocks out fishing and other water-based activities that are major draws along this stretch of beach just east of the Alabama-Florida line.
Such losses affect not only property owners, but the local governments that rely on property taxes to keep the lights on.
On paper, the results are mixed. Pensacola area home sales jumped 14 percent in May from a year earlier, fueled in part by median prices that fell by 13.5 percent. Farther east in Panama City, home sales were slightly stronger, posting a 17 percent gain year over year.
Condominium sales, however, were much weaker. While condo sales in Florida shot up by 40 percent in May from a year earlier, sales in the Pensacola area fell 7 percent and they were down 17 percent in Panama City.
“We were all looking forward to the summer season,” Reid said. “We were gearing up for what we thought was going to be a busy time. I was excited. We all thought, ‘Here we go.’“
BANNER SEASON BECOMES NIGHTMARE
Noel Faddis, owner of Realty Marts International, has been selling property in the area since 1963. He and his wife have helped develop much of Pensacola Beach. During that time, they’ve survived hurricanes, tropical storms and most recently the housing crisis. They were starting to hit their stride again without having to dip into reserves to make ends meet.
The oil spill changed all that.
