If all goes well, and as many people expect, the worth of homes, land and improvements on that land in Volusia County will reach yet higher levels once again in 2024.

“We hit a 15 percent [increase] in just value last year. I don’t think we’re going to have that this year, probably at $10 billion,” county Property Appraiser Larry Bartlett told The Beacon.

“We hit a 15-percent [increase] in just value last year. I don’t think we’re going to have that this year, probably at $10 billion,” county Property Appraiser Larry Bartlett told The Beacon.

Sales prices are good indicators of value or worth, and the prices are trending upward.

“Somebody just bought Ormond Crossings for $62 million,” Bartlett said.

Commercial property has been on the rise elsewhere in the county. For example, the Integra 289 apartments in DeBary changed hands in 2022 for $71 million. Though generally considered residential, rental housing is currently treated as commercial property because there are no homestead exemptions.

If Bartlett is right, that means the county’s overall estimated market worth, known as the just value, will rise above the $100 billion mark this year — a new all-time high. 

The county ended 2023 with a total just value of $97.8 billion, which includes all land, buildings, personal property and centrally assessed improvements, such as utilities and railroads. Bartlett’s office reported that figure to the Florida Department of Revenue as part of the county’s latest certified tax roll. 

What areas are seeing rapid increases in property values?

“It’s pretty much all over the county,” Bartlett said.

The total tax roll, or tax base, of the county is just under $55.1 billion. The taxable values of property are derived from subtracting any total or partial exemptions in the just values. Examples of exemptions, or write-offs in the market value, include the homestead exemption, as well as other markdowns in the taxable value of one’s primary home of qualifying low-income senior citizens, widows and the blind. The 1992 Save Our Homes amendment of the Florida Constitution limits the annual increases in the taxable value of a homestead to 3 percent or the Consumer Price Index, whichever is less.

For the past seven years, Volusia County has seen steadily increasing increases in real-estate values, as more new settlers arrive from Northern and Midwestern states, and as more businesses relocate or expand to serve the growing population. The surge in population is not letting up, as Florida as a whole and the Interstate 4 corridor in particular continue to become like a singular linear metropolis.

“There’s too much demand and not enough supply. When you have that, prices go up,” Bartlett said.

The days of the landward and outward spread across Volusia County’s undeveloped acreage may be numbered. Long-planned and long-awaited neighborhoods and de facto cities appear poised to move from dreams and drawings on paper to concrete blocks and wood framing on both sides of asphalt streets.

“Avalon Park is going to start building — and Farmton,” Bartlett noted.

Avalon Park is a planned-unit development that may bring as many as 10,000 new dwellings to some 3,000 acres along State Road 40 near Ormond Beach.

Farmton spreads over some 50,000 acres of wilderness in Volusia and Brevard counties.

The more development that occurs, the more open space or land for future growth and construction diminishes.

“We’re going to build out the county. Then we’ll build up. We think prices are going up,” Bartlett said. “People want to come here and live here and have a business here.”

One sidelight of the likely fast-paced growth is that people will experience slowdowns in getting from place to place, and that may affect where they buy to live.

“Traffic is going to get worse,” Bartlett predicted.

Are there any clouds on the horizon of the generally optimistic outlook?

“Interest rates could change,” Bartlett said. “If interest rates go back up, that could change things.”

In fact, one local real-estate agent observes the market has already changed.

“I’m way down,” Deltona Realtor Stony Sixma said, regarding the pace of property hunting in recent weeks and months. “It’s been very slow.”

Sixma added he had “a great summer, but since November, it’s definite slowed.”

“I’ve got a beautiful four-bedroom home in Deltona on a lake, and it’s getting few buyers,” he said. “Inventory is still fairly low. Interest rates are putting a lot of people out.”

Sixma noted he has seen a change in buyers’ thinking, especially those from Northern states who are watching to see if local real-estate prices decline from their summer highs.

Still, Bartlett concluded, buyers cannot go wrong by putting down stakes and dollars in an area destined to attract more settlers and the wealth they bring with them.

“I think the best investment anybody in the world could make is buying land in Volusia County,” Bartlett said.

The first comprehensive look at the 2024 local real-estate market values and the tax base of local and state government comes this spring. By state law, Florida’s county property appraisers must release the pre-preliminary just values and tax rolls no later than June 1. Bartlett generally releases his pre-preliminary numbers during the last week of May.

Bartlett, who was first elected in 2016, is seeking a third four-year term as Volusia County’s property appraiser this year.