Anybody familiar with St. Augustine/St. John’s County Florida short term rental market?

[Rolltydr]

We are in the process of selling our house in Alabama and moving to the St. Augustine area. Our house should be listed in a couple weeks and we are in a hot market so it shouldn’t take long to sell. We want to move to St. Augustine into a short term rental as soon as we close and begin the house search there. Is anyone on TUG familiar with the short term rental market in that area or have any contacts there. We have just started working with a realtor but just wanted to broaden the search to see what we can find.

if you know anyone in the area that we could work with, please DM me. Thanks in advance!

 

[dioxide45]

Are you just looking for an apartment, or a home or condo to rent direct from an owner? Apartments are plentiful. The shortest term you might be able to find would be six months. Finding and moving renters in costs a landlord time and money and sometimes an empty house or unit for a few months. Most people renting won't like knowing they have to find someone again in a few months. Apartments will be priced at dynamic rates and they can change pretty much daily as all the big complexes now seem to use computer modeling of when people are moving in and out to determine rental rates. You may be able to find a better place for the same price if you can find a private renter, but again, they may not want a short term tennant.

When we moved to Jacksonville a few years ago, we created accounts with several websites to be alerted when new rental listings showed up.

 

[Rolltydr]

Are you just looking for an apartment, or a home or condo to rent direct from an owner? Apartments are plentiful. The shortest term you might be able to find would be six months. Finding and moving renters in costs a landlord time and money and sometimes an empty house or unit for a few months. Most people renting won't like knowing they have to find someone again in a few months. Apartments will be priced at dynamic rates and they can change pretty much daily as all the big complexes now seem to use computer modeling of when people are moving in and out to determine rental rates. You may be able to find a better place for the same price if you can find a private renter, but again, they may not want a short term tennant.

When we moved to Jacksonville a few years ago, we created accounts with several websites to be alerted when new rental listings showed up.

We don’t want an apartment because we don’t want to sign a lease for that long. That is plan B. Plan A is a condo or house for a couple of months.

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

We don’t want an apartment because we don’t want to sign a lease for that long. That is plan B. Plan A is a condo or house for a couple of months.

Go for an apartment or house which will agree to a 30 day tenant at will lease.........



.

 

[TUGBrian]

st johns county...highest property taxes around!

certainly would prefer it over duval...but clay has plenty of nice areas without that premium!

they also expect significant expansion once the bypass is completed connecting 10 to 95 further south (green cove/st augustine area).

you looking in the nocatee area?

 

[Rolltydr]

st johns county...highest property taxes around!

certainly would prefer it over duval...but clay has plenty of nice areas without that premium!

they also expect significant expansion once the bypass is completed connecting 10 to 95 further south (green cove/st augustine area).

you looking in the nocatee area?

No, more in the World Golf Village area for the new house. For the rental, we’d like to be on or walking distance to the beach.

 

[moonstone]

We use Rikki (info below) to find long term lease tenants for our St. Augustine condo, but she (or her company) also do short term rentals as well. She will handle renting for the owner or the people looking to rent. We find her very easy to work with.

Rikki Badders
Sovereign and Jacobs Management Co.
5547 A1A South, Suite 108
St. Augustine, FL 32080
(P) 904-471-0721

Good luck and enjoy St. Augustine. We've been visiting for over 40 years and like it so much we bought a condo on St Augustine Beach (near the pier) 10 years ago to use in our retirement, hopefully next year.


~Diane

 

[moonstone]

No, more in the World Golf Village area for the new house. For the rental, we’d like to be on or walking distance to the beach.

We have rented at this place a couple times when we couldn't get more timeshare time at our home resort, The Beach Club at St. Augustine Beach. Welcome to Ocean & Racquet of St. Augustine Florida (oceanandracquet.com) Our oldest DS and his family have also rented there when they come down. There are a few units right on the beach but anywhere in the complex is an easy walk to the beach.

~Diane

 

[Rolltydr]

We have rented at this place a couple times when we couldn't get more timeshare time at our home resort, The Beach Club at St. Augustine Beach. Welcome to Ocean & Racquet of St. Augustine Florida (oceanandracquet.com) Our oldest DS and his family have also rented there when they come down. There are a few units right on the beach but anywhere in the complex is an easy walk to the beach.

~Diane

Thanks, I’ll check their website. Do you know if they allow pets? We have cats.

 

[troy12n]

If you want to be close to the beach, you better have some money saved up. While your housing market in Alabama may be hot, it's "surface of the sun hot" everywhere in Florida, and near the beach? Hope you have several life savings ready to spend. Selling your Alabama home isn't going to cover the cost of buying a house here.

Rentals? Like someone else mentioned, it's going to be tough finding short term rentals in St. Augustine. And if you do, it's probably not going to be in a great part of town, and certainly not near the beach.

You may find a series of VRBO's you can use in succession, that might be your best bet, or an extended stay hotel.

 

[Rolltydr]

Yeah, we’ve been there looking at neighborhoods and houses a couple of times and we’ve been following the market. We’ve been preparing for over a year so we know what we’ll have to spend and where we want to be. We live in the most expensive county in Alabama so we’re not moving “from the outhouse to the penthouse”. It will be more expensive but we will also be upgrading both our home and neighborhood amenities. Our house in Alabama is paid off so 100% of the equity will go into the new house and we’ll get a 10 or 15 year loan for the rest. I expect finding the rental will be a bigger problem.

 

[TUGBrian]

agreed, florida is utterly stupid for real estate right now with most houses getting multiple offers within 24-48 hours. realtors dont even have to work anymore.

and if you are looking to build its not any better. most all homebuilders have more work than they can handle, selling homes faster than they can get the trades to build them.

on top of that material shortages have crippled many home builders with extremely long wait times on things like windows/shingles/bricks/etc.

Have a family friend who moved up here from south florida early last year to rent a home while theirs was being built. going on nearly 18 months and they JUST got the windows delivered back in august. they had planned for a year of renting while the home was built, and now its looking at 2+

 

[Rolltydr]

We never wanted to deal with building and our realtor also told us about the delays with new builds so we’re not interested in that. It’s the same here with houses selling in 1 or 2 days and most are still selling for more than list. So, it’s great for selling our old house, not so great for buying a new one.

 

[moonstone]

Thanks, I’ll check their website. Do you know if they allow pets? We have cats.

(sorry for not responding more timely but I'm on vacation in The Netherlands)

Since most of the condos are privately owned, some owners do allow pets. I believe there is a spot when you are searching/requesting a unit to specify if you have a pet.


~Diane

ETA, I just looked at the website and unfortunately they do not allow pets in any of the condos now.
Check with Rikki at Sovereign & Jacobs, I'm sure she can find you something.

 

[moonstone]

Rentals? Like someone else mentioned, it's going to be tough finding short term rentals in St. Augustine. And if you do, it's probably not going to be in a great part of town, and certainly not near the beach.

It is going to be tough at this time of year to although northern FL probably isn't as popular with many Snowbirds as the southern parts. When we drive up and down A1A on St. Augustine Beach there are lots of vacation rental companies but I'm sure the rents are expensive. The condo's at the place I linked above are over $2000./month for a 2/2. Perhaps a slightly lower price could be worked out if somebody wanted a 4 or 6 month rental instead of just 1 month. Even long term rentals are expensive which is also tough on all the college kids. We thought the $1500./mo we charge for our condo was absurd until we found out we were at the bottom of scale. Folks we know who don't have a lot of money need to rent out of town far away from the coast.


~Diane

 

[Paumavista]

You might look into VRBO or Airbnb.....that way you don't have to worry about moving and fitting furniture temporarily. My daughter just rented through Airbnb in NY for 3+ months (HOT housing market). Don't just put in start and stop dates.....because if there is one single weekend booked the place will NOT show available. Perhaps if there are only a few days reserved during a 3-6 month period you can either see if the owner is willing to help re-negotiate with the renter or you can take a weekend vacation somewhere else. Also, if you are staying for a longer time period they won't require regular cleaning, or dealing with "open" days & will most probably negotiate a monthly rate (much reduced). Good luck.

 

[Rolltydr]

We were able to find a place via VRBO. We have rented a townhome a couple blocks from Vilano Beach. The owner was very nice and easy to work with. We told her we have 3 cats, 2 of whom are very elderly and they are well behaved and never damage anything in our house. She informed us that she also has 3 rescue cats (ours are also rescues) so we found common ground right away. She is giving us a big break on the pet deposit.

It will be nice to be near the beach. I love sitting on the beach and watching the sunrise and sunset. It’s going to be more expensive than we had hoped but maybe we’ll be able to find a house in short order and get into our permanent home. We’re looking forward to a lot of new experiences in the nation’s oldest city.

Thanks for all the suggestions.