Destin, Florida.
Typical home $616,654 (+2.0% in a year), asking rent $2,087 (+3.9%). Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,658 (+105%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $12,293 +2%
- $604,362$616,654 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,498 +10%
- $559,156$616,654 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Destin$3,237
- Florida$1,970
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 35 years.
Typical home values in Destin, FL rose 2.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Destin, FL rose 3.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Destin runs $2,104/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $2,905 in Oct 2023.
That is $4,191 a month against $2,087 rent: a $3,237 mortgage payment, plus $294 property tax and $660 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Destin
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$4,191
- Renting$2,087
- Mortgage only$3,237
Property tax · $294/mo 0.57% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Okaloosa County, FL
Insurance & upkeep · $660/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Destin, Okaloosa County, Florida
Destin is a city of 13,931 people in Okaloosa County. Half its households earn more than $89,011 a year and half less, against $81,998 across Okaloosa County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 70% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 30% are rented. Unemployment in Okaloosa County was 4.4% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in restaurants and hotels, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Destin is a Florida Gulf Coast city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and incomes run above the county's. Typical home values and rents are high, and a large share of adults hold a four-year degree. The winters are mild and the summers hot, with plenty of rain through the year and snow a rarity.
Work. Residents work mostly in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, with many others in professional and business services, banks, insurance and property, or in schools, hospitals and social care. Among the largest workplaces in Destin are Publix Super Markets, Target and Destin Senior Care. Across Okaloosa County, jobs slipped slightly last year, and unemployment is a little higher than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Henderson Beach State Park is a beach a short drive away, and the Destin History & Fishing Museum sits in or beside town. Big Kahuna's, an amusement park, is also in or beside town. For a longer drive, Topsail Hill Preserve State Park is a protected area along the coast.
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- 6,221households
- 46%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 16%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Okaloosa County had 89,542 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 63° and lows near 45°; warmest in July, with highs near 91° and lows near 76°. About 55 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Destin Fort Walton Airport weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest employers in Destin
- Walmart Supercenter450
- Big Kahuna's Water & Adventure Park300
- Fudpuckers250
- The Home Depot200
- Harborwalk Hospitality LLC200
- McGuire's Irish Pub of Destin200
- Destin Fire Control District150
- AJ's Seafood & Oyster Bar150
From the City of Destin’s annual financial report for 2025, its schedule of principal employers (its source: “Okaloosa County Economic Development Council (One Okaloosa)”), as Florida’s Auditor General publishes it: the report. Employees as the report counts them.
Natural hazards
- HurricanesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of DestinRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Destin’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Okaloosa County and the Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, FL metro.
Destin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Destin$616,654
- Florida$375,361
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Destin listings, and the typical home goes pending in 95 days — the market is heating up.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Destin20.77%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Destin95
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Destin757
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Destin89
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Destin$592,651
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Destin95.23%
Zip codes with a Destin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Destin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.