Investing in Scenic Heights & Spanish Trail, Pensacola: A Neighborhood Guide with Rob Brooks

The area runs along the east side of Pensacola, roughly between the bayou that separates it from East Hill and Escambia Bay, extending north and to the east of the airport, hugging the coast. It’s called Scenic Heights because it’s geographically high. The hills running along the bay here are among the highest waterfront elevations in the entire Gulf South, spanning Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Some reach around 95 feet overlooking the bay, which makes for excellent sunrise and moonrise views. People regularly park just to take them in. Spanish Trail is a street running a little to the west of the coast, with its own pocket of development. The housing differs somewhat between the two.

People like this area, and a lot of it comes down to access. It’s not far from downtown Pensacola, it’s close to the airport, and it’s near the shopping and hospitals of the Cordova area. There are work centers nearby, quick interstate access, and the beach is a reasonable drive south on Scenic Highway. On housing stock, there’s a soft divide. Scenic Heights has many homes built in the 1970s. Rob’s team recently closed on one built in 1972, with the broader range running from the late 1960s to early 1980s. Along Spanish Trail, you’ll find newer homes built from the 1990s and 2000s up through the last five years. The newer homes tend to be more energy efficient and better equipped for storms with hurricane shutters and modern conveniences. That said, the older homes have weathered many hurricanes and have proven fairly resilient on their own.

Employment and access. Pensacola International Airport is close, as are Sacred Heart, Baptist, and West Florida hospitals. There’s ample shopping nearby, and downtown Pensacola is just minutes away via Scenic Highway and Bayfront Parkway. That easy reach to major work centers is a big part of the draw for renters.

Unlike East Hill, which often doesn’t have inventory below $300K, Scenic Heights sometimes does, and tenants desire these homes. An important caveat from Rob: a price under $300K doesn’t automatically make a property a good investment; it just improves the odds. Within that range, though, it’s realistic to find a three-bedroom, two-bath house with a newer roof and a garage. This is exactly what most prospective tenants are looking for.

It helps to separate the newer Spanish Trail homes from the older Scenic Heights homes. The newer, higher-priced homes come with appealing amenities: higher ceilings, open floor plans, bigger closets, more granite. But you’re unlikely to recoup that premium in rent, which makes those better suited to owner-occupants. The older Scenic Heights homes tend to hit the three-bed, two-bath, garage target investors want at a workable price. They also carry a maintenance advantage over East Hill: more brick construction, fewer picket fences, fewer rose bushes, less immaculate landscaping to keep up. That sounds minor, but maintenance costs time and money, and less of it means a better return on the investment.

A three-bed, two-bath under $300K (ideally under $250K if you can find it) along the northern edge of the neighborhood, closer to the interstate, both just south and a little north of it, where prices tend to run lower. Rob would also look at the very bottom of Scenic Heights, where a property attractive to tenants can sometimes be picked up for considerably less.

Rob expects continued appreciation and steady desirability. People have found it’s a good place to live and to get to work quickly, and he doesn’t see that waning. He anticipates both home prices and rents rising at roughly the ~4.5% annual rate the national market has averaged over the past 30 years, and expects that to continue here.

The chimney along Scenic Heights represents a very important part of the history of this area. The cliffs along the bay were mined for clay by the Spanish and later companies over the decades, and that chimney is where the clay was fired into bricks. Forts around the region were built with bricks made here, and Pensacola even exported them for a long stretch. It’s a genuine piece of local history worth knowing.