Greetings from Saint Simons Island and all of the Golden Isles. We just celebrated July 4, Independence Day and the crowds were here in full force so that was encouraging to see and it seems like every year people come from further and further away to vacation. All you have to do is look at the license plates and they are from all over the country which we love!

County wide we saw a 22% increase in the actual number of homes sold in this second quarter compared to that number in the first quarter and last quarter was up 13% from the quarter before that but maybe for some reason it doesn't feel like it due to the increased inventory on the market.

The average days on market that it takes a property to sell is down slightly to just under 100 days at 98. The list price vs sale price remained virtually unchanged as well and sits at 98%. The median sale price for homes this quarter is now just over $426,000 which is up 5.1% from the previous quarter. But despite all of the positive trends and indicators there are a lot of properties that are sitting on the market and that are not selling. A fair and appropriate asking price is more essential now than we have seen in probably 10 years.

The highest sale recorded this quarter sold on Sea Island on E. 26th St. An oceanfront home sold for $12 million.

I am hearing that we should not expect any interest rate cuts this year so things may stay relatively the same as we sit in limbo between a “buyer’s market” and a “seller’s market”.

We hope you enjoy reading this market report and enjoy the in-depth review of many of the beautiful neighborhoods that make up Glynn County.

- John Hallman

Listing Specialist & Expert Real Estate Broker, Engel & Völkers Golden Isles

St. Simons Island, or simply St. Simons, is a barrier island and census-designated place in Glynn County, Georgia. Part of the Brunswick Metropolitan Area, it had a population of 12,743 according to the 2010 census. Located on the southeast Georgia coast between Savannah and Jacksonville, St. Simons is both a seaside resort and residential community. It is the largest of Georgia’s Golden Isles, which also include Sea Island, Jekyll Island, and Little St. Simons Island. Visitors come for its warm climate, beaches, outdoor activities, shops and restaurants, historic sites, and natural beauty.

A popular tourist destination, Jekyll Island has beaches frequented by vacationers. Guided tours of the Landmark Historic District are available. Bike trails, walks along the beaches and sandbars, and Summer Waves, a water park, are among the active attractions. The historic district features numerous impressive and ambitious buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The island is also full of wildlife, consisting of many different mammals, reptiles, and birds living in the island's inland salt marshes. In 2018, Architectural Digest named Jekyll Island the eleventh most beautiful small town in America.

Sea Island is a privately owned, unincorporated area of Glynn County, Georgia, and is part of the Golden Isles of Georgia, which include St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island, Little St. Simons Island, and the mainland city of Brunswick. The well-visited seaside resort island is located along the Atlantic Coast just east of St. Simons Island. Known for it's beachside estates, Sea Island offers a true escape for discerning homeowners on the island.

Brunswick is a city in and the county seat of Glynn County, Georgia, United States. As the main urban and economic center of the state's lower southeast, it is the second-largest urban area on the Georgia coast after Savannah and contains the Brunswick Old Town Historic District. Brunswick supports a progressive economy largely based on tourism and logistics, with a metropolitan GDP of $3.9 billion. The Port of Brunswick handles approximately 10 percent of all U.S. roll-on/roll-off trade—third in the U.S., behind the ports of Los Angeles and Newark. In the 2010 U.S. census, the population of the city proper was 15,383; the urban area, 51,024; and the metropolitan area, 112,370.