homes on piles in SoFL really only near water where soil conditions suck.
Yeah, the wife originally aspired to be "near a beach". We looked in north Florida, and there is a hurricane zone where houses on the beach are on stilts. Somewhat further inland is still the zone, but houses are "normal", and I learned it's good to be out of said zone for insurance purposes. A couple miles inland is all it takes.
A house right on the beach will be elevated, a nice house will simply have a garage downstairs and the house built up a level, like on Hilton Head. There are some million dollar homes there "on the beach", but they are 100 yards or more away from high tide. They aren't on stilts at all of course.
We have 125 units in our building, nothing for sale right now, which is pretty typical. Our realtor friend tells us if you want one here, you need to know before it comes on the market and have a check in hand.
I am somewhat concerned about over building, but the developers are not apparently. They tend to over build here before a crash.
The popular thing is a 2 bdr 2.5 bath condo with about 1200 sf. Those start at half a mil in anything of recent construction. They could be a good investment.
