There are a great number of homes of all kinds and sizes peppered throughout the Florida Keys.  The fact is, however, that in a normal market the demand for existing homes here well exceeds the supply.  This is due to the very low number of building permits issued by Monroe County.  Our unincorporated areas receive just 197 building allocations yearly, 80 percent of which are for market-rate development and 20 percent are earmarked for "affordable housing".  Just-built affordable housing sells at a somewhat lower price than a market-rate home, but the owner of a home in the affordable housing category has to abide by a deed covenant which places a cap on what that person could ever sell the home for, and it limits the amount of income a Purchaser may have.  As a result, the very low number of new housing units that are available tends to put pressure, in a normal market, upon the stock of existing homes, making it hard to find a place to buy in the Keys. 

Right now, there are some abslutely fantastic bargains on existing homes here, and those lucky folks buying them will have a hard-to-get piece of Keys real estate when the market finishes returning to normal, the process of which appears to be well on its way here!