Wilbur by the Sea, FL

Wilbur-by-the-Sea is a small community nestled along the Atlantic, south of Daytona Beach.  It is a quiet residential, unincorporated area without a condo or hotel, but with stunning beachfront homes, on a no-drive part of the Daytona Beach (these are protected sand dunes which provide a natural nesting habitat for our native sea turtles). The beach consists of approximately 100 yards of soft, white, rock-free sand.

Wilbur-by-the-Sea is surrounded by uncrowded, pristine beaches, nature reserves, golf courses and historic attractions.  A few minutes' walk away is Boondock's restaurant, where you can dock your boat and stop in for fish and chips (or any of their other fresh seafood dishes). Within minutes' drive is Racing's North Turn restaurant, which in the early days of motor sports served as the turning point for the Daytona 500. There you can indulge in fresh seafood on the oceanfront dining patio as the live band plays.  Only 20 minutes from I-95, it's not a bad commute to Jacksonville or Orlando. 

Homes in Wilbur by the Sea take advantage of the spectacular views, as you would imagine, and range from the millions to under $300,000 (yes - incredible prices for waterfront homes!).  Use the RealBird widget at the end of this blog to view current homes for sale in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, and set up your own oceanfront search.

This home is listed at $2,500,000, on a 16,000 SF lot, obviously beachfront.  Living area is 3,366 SF, and includes 4 bedrooms/3 baths, 1-car garage, central A/C, fireplace, and 2 porches.  The seaside property has been renovated in a balance of tropical charm and high-end amenities.  Take a look at the VTour:  http://www.tourfactory.com/idxr417180

Ponce Inlet is 2.7 miles south, and features the Ponce DeLeon Lighthouse, constructed more than 100 years ago. This 175-foot lighthouse houses a museum with historical displays and a gift shop. A 203-step climb to the top provides spectacular views, and is the tallest working lighthouse in Florida.  Ponce Inlet is home to another marina eatery called Inlet Harbor Restaurant, which also offers fresh seafood and live band entertainment.

Daytona Beach is 7.2 miles north, with the famous pier and boardwalk, speedway, and lively nightlife.  Downtown Daytona offers the culture of a big city with the activities of a resort town.  Watersports are popular:  swimming, sunning, shelling and beachcombing, fishing, boating, snorkeling, scuba diving, parasailing, canoeing, and nature tours. The silky, white sand beaches are some of the best in the world and some of the wildlife you might encounter include the Bottlenose Dolphin, Florida Manatee and a variety of birds.   Daytona has an historic district full of antique shops and specialty boutiques. Museums, professional theater, gardens, local crafts, and live concerts bring culture to the area, with plenty of bars, clubs, and casino gambling available for nighttime enjoyment. Dining ranges from beachside sandwich shops to exquisite European bistros.

Wilbur by the Sea is a unique address in our busy, resort-like area, a quiet place to call home, to relax and listen to the ocean and enjoy the wildlife.  Contact me for information about any of the properties available in this community, or to request a free Relocation Guide.

Sherry Armstrong, Realtor
386-679-3191
yourkeytothebeach@gmail.com
www.sherryarmstrong.com

It's time for me to continue with my first quarter real estate reports for each city in East Volusia County. For the 1st Quarter of 2009 we're comparing New Listings, Total Number of Listings and the Number of Sales for each city. And for some cities I've separated the condo listings and sales from the houses or in one particular city (Daytona Beach Shores) we looked at the totals for each category, then just pulled the condos into a seperate category.

So far we've covered Port Orange, South Daytona, Daytona Beach and Daytona Beach Shores. In this post we're going to take a quick look at Wilbur-by-the-Sea.

Why are we only taking a quick look at Wilbur-by-the-Sea? For starters because Wilbur is a very small town. And more importantly because there were no sales at all in Wilbur, for the first quarter of 2009. That's right. Zip; Zero; Zilch on the sales. No houses. No duplexes. No condos.

I'm going to let the chart speak for itself, then we can move along to the Ponce Inlet report, which holds much more real estate data.

As you can see, the vast majority of the real estate for sale in Wilbur-by-the-Sea is in the form of condos. And none of them sold during the first quarter of 2009. The most likely reason for there being no sales is because of the layout of the cities. Wilbur-by-the-Sea is sandwiched in between Daytona Beach Shores and Ponce Inlet. Both Daytona Beach Shores and Ponce Inlet draw higher real estate values due to the newer ages of the houses and condos and the shopping conveniences, while Wilbur is a quaint, smaller town, and the houses and condos in Wilbur are older than those in Ponce Inlet and Daytona Beach Shores. And the simple reason for this is because Wilbur-by-the-Sea was unincorporated until just a few years ago. Can anyone read between the lines here? You can find excellent real estate values in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, while still enjoying the restaurants and shopping all around you!

So let's move along to the Ponce Inlet 1st Quarter Real Estate Report for 2009.

To visit my web site, go to www.DaytonaBeachRealEstateSales.com. You can also view house and condo MLS listing Video Tours at www.DaytonaBeachRealEstateVideos.com.

Believe it or not, the photos in this post are of a house I recently sold. We just closed last week. You should know that these sellers are experienced at buying and repairing houses that need a lot of work. But this house brings new meaning to needing a lot of work! It needs a LOT of work! And just before closing we had one more problem that caused the entire ceiling in the garage to collapse. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of that disaster.

However, I do need to mention that during the course of this transaction, I had the extreme displeasure of working with the most incompetent listing agent I've ever met! I'll probably elaborate on that in a future post; with no names mentioned of course. Sometimes our Code of Ethics, that prevents us from bad-mouthing other agents, is what allows those agents to continue to do a huge disservice to their clients. (And it's unfortunate that we can't file a grievance against another agent, just for being an unprofessional jerk.) We can only hope that eventually, their actions will catch up to them. Because it's awfully hard, when in the future, you have a buyer who wants to look at real estate listings that match what these unprofessional agents have listed, to bring yourself to show them. It's very difficult to add those listings to what you have scheduled for your buyers to see, when you know that should your buyer decide they want to buy one of those listings, that listing agent will not only NOT do their job, but will for some unfathomable reason, apparently do everything they can to prevent the sale from happening!?!

For now, I'll let you enjoy the pictures of this listing that sat vacant on the market for about 2 years, in which the listing agent had never even entered!

In closing, what you see in every one of these pictures, is only the tip of the iceberg. The damage to this house was so extensive that if it these buyers hadn't come along, this house would have been condemned within the next year. So good luck *Amy. You've got your work cut out for you. But I know that you genuinely enjoy this type of work. I can't wait to see the end result of all your hard work.

www.DaytonaBeachRealEstateSales.com

www.DaytonaBeachRealEstateVideos.com

(*Name was changed.)

In my blog titled Daytona Beach Real Estate: 2007 Year in Review, I gave many details on the history of the Daytona Beach area real estate market over the last few years. Since Wilbur-by-the-Sea is closely linked to Ponce Inlet, and is part of the Daytona Beach area, I highly recommend you read most importantly, the Daytona Beach post, but also view the charts in each post.

As I said in the Daytona Beach post, it was at the beginning of 2006 that some real estate agents in east Volusia County, where the Daytona Beach Area Association of REALTORS is located, began to report slower sales, while I personally didn't experience the market drop until July of 2006. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country was already a year into the real estate decline.

Before I provide the real estate sale data for Wilbur-by-the-Sea, I'd also like to recommend my recent posts titled Real Estate is Great in 2008 and Good News for Central Florida Real Estate in 2008, to find out how my year has started.

Now for the Wilbur-by-the-Sea sales data.

Here are all of my previous posts, covering each of the cities in east Volusia County.

1. Daytona Beach
2. Daytona Beach Shores
3. Port Orange
4. Ormond Beach
5. Ormond by the Sea
6. Ponce Inlet
7. South Daytona
   
8. Holly Hill

1100 Dunlawton Ave., Port Orange, FL 32127 386-761-6100