- May 5, 2024
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Flagler County is the third-most profitable place in the country to flip a home, according to a national study released this month. The same study listed Palm Coast as one of the top 15 markets for home flipping.
The study, released by California-based RealtyTrac, which analyzes the housing market, also showed a 19% increase in home flipping nationally.
But you don’t need to tell Palm Coast officials that: Searches for property liens have more than doubled since the city first began offering the service in 2010. The recovering real estate market and increase in home flippers is flooding city staff with work, said Chris Quinn, finance director for the city.
To help remediate this, the city will begin charging $30 for searches for property liens, starting Oct. 1. Such a search reveals the number of liens filed against any given property, or, in other words, how much money is owed from things such as unpaid utility bills or back taxes.
Often, developers and investors will request searches for many — even hundreds — of properties at a time so they can decide which properties to purchase. The new fee is meant to compensate the city for staff time used to conduct the searches for those who request them.
The city first began offering lien searches in January 2010. For that fiscal year, there were 3,011 lien searches. The next year, there were 5,111.
For the fiscal year 2011-2012, the city processed 8,394. So far this fiscal year, the city has processed 7,499 such requests.
The Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 20, voted unanimously to begin charging for property lien searches.
