A dramatic rise in Pensacola’s median home prices is forcing local investors to rethink their target price points and investment strategies, according to veteran real estate investor Mike Hamby.
“The median price of a house in Pensacola has gone up to about 310 [thousand] this year. When I moved here in 2020 it was 190,” says Hamby, owner of Hamby Housing. This 63% increase in just three years is prompting strategic shifts in how investors approach the market.
“I’m starting to feel like the low 200s resale price is a price range that I’ve always liked to be in, because I felt like it’s an affordable price,” Hamby says. “But I’m wondering if I should be changing the houses I target to resell more in the low three hundreds, if that’s the median price of a house.”
Hamby suggests this shift may be necessary due to changing buyer dynamics: “If people in that [low $200s] category have trouble getting financing, whereas somebody with a better job may be more consistent can afford the $300,000 house, maybe their income is more reliable.”
While some local agents describe the current Pensacola market as erratic, Hamby offers a more measured view based on recent data. “The talk that I’m hearing around the community is that we hit the bottom of price point and days on market this summer,” he notes, though he expresses some concern about summer traditionally being the hot season.
Hamby credits his market intelligence to regular data updates through his brokerage network. “Keller Williams puts on a great team meeting, every month where we go over all the data about what happened in Pensacola the past 30 days, and where are we at according to year to date, last year.”
While acknowledging some positive indicators, Hamby remains cautiously optimistic: “We’re definitely heading towards the green right now, but I think there’s a good chance that we could be starting to get on our way up.”
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