Drive to the northwest edge of Alys Beach today and you will pass construction fencing before you reach a finished street. This is the GG Block, Phase 4 of the town's build-out, where cottage-style homes are rising around a wetland park, linked by a boardwalk that threads into the pine woodland along the edge of the Nature Preserve. A crane works near the site of The Silva, the amenity center designed by Hart Howerton that pairs an event lawn and an enclosed pavilion called The Summerhouse with a pool and a terrace café, targeted for completion in 2026. Cross back over Scenic Highway 30A into Rosemary Beach or walk the streets of Seaside and you won't see any of this. Both towns, laid out under the same New Urbanist master planning as Alys Beach, are essentially finished.
That difference explains more about what you're actually buying in Alys Beach than the white stucco or the courtyard fountains do.
It's a density decision, not a shortage
As of 2026, Alys Beach sits at roughly 65 percent complete, with full build-out not projected until sometime between 2029 and 2031. The obvious guess is that the town costs what it costs because the land ran out. The lot count says otherwise. The town holds 899 approved lots, yet the plan on file caps the count near 550 finished homes, with the balance of the acreage reserved for amenities, condos, and commercial frontage along 30A. Nobody ran out of ground here. A developer decided, years ago, to leave roughly a third of the buildable entitlement unbuilt on purpose, trading density for the uncrowded feel the town sells itself on.
That trade-off is why the usual signals a buyer relies on don't translate cleanly to Alys Beach. In a finished town, listing counts track owner behavior: more homes for sale means more owners chose to sell that season. Here, a meaningful share of what hits the market is simply the next scheduled release from the developer, not a resale decision by a current owner. The eight builders approved to work alongside the in-house Alys Beach Construction team, plus the Somerset Custom Home Program that pairs an architect's plans with that in-house crew, are still actively building because the town has held back inventory on purpose. Alys Beach Construction has built roughly three out of every four homes in town since the 2004 founding, so even a listing marketed as brand new construction is, more often than not, coming out of the same builder that has shaped the streetscape from the beginning. The upside is visual consistency block to block. The tradeoff is that new supply arrives on the developer's calendar, not in response to how many buyers show up wanting one.
What the 2026 slowdown actually tells you
Sales activity in Alys Beach cooled through the first half of 2026, and on its own that sounds like a buyer's market opening up. Look at the numbers across the year and a more specific pattern shows up.
| Period | Active listings | Homes sold | Avg. days on market | Price signal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q4 2025 | — | — | — | Avg. sale price ~$9.04M, avg. $2,111/sq ft, 98% sale-to-list |
| February 2026 | 17 | 21 (vs. 46 in Feb. 2025) | ~139 (up from ~105) | Some luxury listings reached 185 days by March |
| August 2026 | 29 | — | ~98 | Price range $2.65M to $32M, median ~$5.74M, avg. sale ~$5.93M |
Read the middle row and the slowdown looks straightforward: fewer sales, longer waits, a market losing steam. Read the August snapshot next to it and the picture gets more specific. Active listings had grown from 17 to 29, which is real loosening. But average days on market had actually come back down from the February peak, not stayed elevated. That combination, more homes for sale but faster turnover than the winter low, suggests sellers spent the first part of 2026 recalibrating prices to where cooler demand actually sat, and once they did, homes moved again.
None of that changes the structural fact underneath it. Inventory in Alys Beach loosened this year because owners decided to list and the developer released more of Phase 4, not because a finished town suddenly produced more resale supply. In Seaside or Rosemary Beach, a slowdown shows up almost entirely as existing owners waiting longer to sell or accepting lower offers. In Alys Beach, part of what shows up as new inventory is simply more of the town getting built. A buyer watching listing counts rise here isn't necessarily watching a softer market. They may be watching the next block of GG Block come online.
What that means if you're comparing a custom build to a finished resale
If you're deciding between a homesite in Alys Beach and a finished home in a built-out neighbor along 30A, the phase math matters as much as the floor plan. Buying a resale in Seaside or Rosemary Beach means bidding on something finite. Buying a homesite or new construction in Alys Beach means buying into a schedule you don't control, the same schedule that has already produced homes from architects such as Gary Justiss, along with corner-lot projects like the Sea Garden Street build that paired a Chancey Architecture design with construction by Arkon.
Slower sales in 2026 have given custom-build buyers more leverage than they had a year ago on things like contract contingencies and closing timelines. That leverage is a function of softer demand meeting the same fixed release schedule, not a sign that more homesites suddenly became available. The number of lots released this year was set by the town's phasing plan long before this year's buyer pool showed up to compete for them.
The costs that come with the certification
Every home in Alys Beach must meet the Fortified for Safer Living standard, an insurance-industry certification built around reinforced wall systems, solid masonry roofs, and construction methods that go beyond standard code. Alys Beach was the first community anywhere to make that certification mandatory for every house in town. Local agents commonly point to insurance savings somewhere in the 30 to 50 percent range tied to that certification, though the real number depends on the carrier and the policy, so treat that figure as a starting point for a quote rather than a guarantee.
The certification comes with its own line items. Buyers should plan for a one-time capital contribution commonly cited somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000, a foundation fee near half a percent of the purchase price, and quarterly association dues that different sources place in the $3,100 to $3,600 range. None of that is unusual for a master-planned coastal town, but it belongs in the same conversation as the sale price, especially when weighing Alys Beach against a finished neighbor with a different dues structure.
The question this actually answers
The question worth asking before touring another homesite in the GG Block isn't whether Alys Beach still has room to build. It does, for a few more years. The question is whether you'd rather buy into a finished town where the only variable is what current owners decide to sell, or a town where a private developer is still deciding, phase by phase, how much of it gets built at all. Both are real coastal ownership. They are not the same bet.
If you're weighing a homesite against a finished resale on 30A, or trying to make sense of what a slower 2026 sales pace actually means for your negotiating position in Alys Beach, The Morar Group can walk through the current phase, the active listings, and what a comparable budget buys in a built-out neighbor. Text or call to start that conversation.
