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St. Joe (JOE) Plans Residential Community in Brannonville

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The St. Joe Company (JOE - Free Report) recently announced that it plans to develop a new residential community in Brannonville area, with a capacity for nearly 800 homesites on 592 acres of land. Notably, the development in the Bay County, FL, comes at a time when demand for workforce housing is growing.

The company is in the permitting process for the first phase of the community, that is expected to begin site work in 2019 to include 41 homesites.

Per management, shortage of workforce housing in the region has primarily driven the company’s decision to undertake the project. Further, scale of this site offers St. Joe flexibility regarding different lot sizes, builder interests and phased expansions.

In fact, St. Joe is well reputed for constructing quality residential developments and this project will support the housing needs for many worker residents. With high demand for apartment space in the region, the community will likely enjoy high occupation.  

Notably, the company remains focused to develop the Bay County region, thereby creating long-term value for stakeholders in Northwest Florida. Also, St. Joe is one of the major real estate developers of Northwest Florida. Over the years, it has developed successful residential and commercial projects and related infrastructure, which in turn, have attracted regional and national businesses that contributed to regional growth and prosperity.

However, with its business primarily concentrated in Florida, any change in demographics which might affect the projected population growth in this region, including a decline in the migration of baby boomers, could affect the company’s performance. Though Florida has experienced strong population growth over the past few decades, any weakness in economic conditions, restrictive credit, occurrence of hurricanes and elevated cost of living might impact the rate of migration into Florida.

St. Joe currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of the company have declined 9.3%, which is narrower than the industry’s loss of 15.4%, in the past month.




Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the real estate space are Marcus & Millichap, Inc. (MMI - Free Report) , HFF Inc. (HF - Free Report) and Jones Lang LaSalle Incorporated (JLL - Free Report) , carrying a Zacks Rank of 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Marcus & Millichap earnings per share (EPS) estimates for 2018 have been revised marginally upward to $2.06 in the last 30 days.

HFF Inc.’s EPS estimates for 2018 remained unchanged at $2.67 in 30 days’ time.

Jones Lang LaSalle’s Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 EPS remained unrevised at $10.91 in the past month.

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