Local Market Monitor (LMM), a service we have referenced here before, estimates that home prices will decrease 3% in Myrtle Beach over the coming months compared with the firm’s forecast of a 4.6% drop nationally. LMM, which offers a discount to Golf Community Reviews readers for its market-by-market reports [click here for the details], forecasts a 5% increase in prices in Myrtle Beach between now and 2014.
For now, Myrtle Beach real estate is “stuck in a rut,” according to a recent headline in the local Sun News. In the month of September, the newspaper reported, the median price for a single-family home stood just under $164,000, down 4 percent from September 2010. The combined category of condos/town houses showed a median price of just $109,000, down 7 percent from a year earlier. Interestingly, the number of single-family home sales was up 4 percent from 2010 signaling that, perhaps, prices are at a point buyers cannot ignore. However, the number of condo sales was down 5 percent from 2010; condos are almost a commodity in Myrtle Beach.
The approach to the 8th hole on the fine Tom Fazio layout at Wachesaw Plantation. Attractively priced homes begin in the low $200s.
Some buyers will always be tempted to “time the market”; given the current environment in Myrtle Beach, waiting in the hope of picking up an extra percentage point or two in eventual appreciation is a fool’s errand (sorry speculators). Inventory, low prices and the willingness of many owners to negotiate on price are encouraging buyers, especially when a cash transaction is involved and those pesky lending institutions can be left out of the equation. Most of all, and I admit I am a broken record on this point, those moving from the north can experience a windfall in terms of cost of living differences. It is simply cheaper to live in Myrtle Beach than in virtually any northern area outside of the Dakotas. For example, according to BestPlaces.net, the cost of living in Myrtle Beach is 40% lower than in Stamford, CT, 47% less than Needham, MA, 31% less than West Orange, NJ, and 12% less than Schaumburg, IL. Most of the differences are in the dramatically lower prices for real estate in Myrtle Beach, but most other routine activities of life in the south are priced lower than in the north (taxes, gasoline, pharmaceuticals and all cuts of pork, for example).
Here are the lowest-priced current single-family and condominiums for sale, as well as unimproved properties, in a few of our favorite golf communities in the Myrtle Beach area (we have visited and reviewed all of them):
DeBordieu Colony, Georgetown, SC
3 BR, 3 BA Golf Villa, furnished, $539,000
No condos in the community
Wooded lot, $175,000
Wachesaw Plantation, Murrells Inlet, SC
3 BR, 2.5 BA, golf view, $349,000
2 BR, 2 BA cottage, $229,000
Corner lot, $119,900
The Reserve, Litchfield Beach, SC
3 BR, 2.5 BA to be built, $499,260
3 BR, 3 BA cottage, $495,000
Wooded lot, $98,500
Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island, SC
3 BR, 2.5 BA, $247,500
2 BR, 2.5 BA, $195,000
Foreclosure lot, $54,000
Winter may not be the best season for real estate agents in Myrtle Beach, but after the damaging early season snowstorm in the northeast last month, with tens of thousands of folks without power for over a week, real estate agents in all warm weather locations might want to get ready for a heavier than normal house-hunting season. If you would like more information about Myrtle Beach real estate and golf communities, or would like an introduction to one of the many professional realtors we know in the area, please contact me.