Area Real Estate News & Market Trends

You’ll find our blog to be a wealth of information, covering everything from local market statistics and home values to community happenings. That’s because we care about the community and want to help you find your place in it. Please reach out if you have any questions at all. We’d love to talk with you!

Jan. 26, 2023

Housing Market in Myrtle Beach is Picking Up

 

Posted in Market Updates
Jan. 26, 2023

The Myrtle Beach Real Estate Market Is Not Going To Crash

Posted in Market Updates
Jan. 9, 2023

Reasons Why It is Still A Hot Seller's Market In Myrtle Beach

Posted in Market Updates
Nov. 30, 2022

Biggest Mortgage Rates Drop Ever In One Day

Posted in Market Updates
May 29, 2020

Ready to Live in an Oceanfront Condo?

Living by the ocean is a healthier way to live. You'll be more tempted to spend time outside in the sun and in the fresh air. In addition, beach vacations have been shown to decrease stress and increase focus. You'll likely sleep better by living by the beach and you may even lower your risk of heart disease. 

When you choose to live in Myrtle Beach it's like being on vacation year-round. You'll get to enjoy the beach whenever you want and the ocean water will feel so good on a daily basis. If you're considering a beachfront condo in Myrtle Beach because you want a healthier lifestyle, you may be ready.

You're Retired or About Ready To

Retiring to live by the beach is a dream of many people as they work their lives away. If you've retired or you're considering retiring soon, you may be ready to buy and enjoy an oceanfront condo in Myrtle Beach.

Condos are very low maintenance as you don't have to cut any grass or maintain any outdoor areas of the property. In addition, you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your new condo and the beach found right outside your door.

Financially You're Ready

It's awesome to be ready to live by the beach in all other aspects, but if you're not financially ready, it doesn't make much sense. The good news is an oceanfront condo in Myrtle Beach won't cost nearly as much as one in Florida, California or many other beach states in the United States. Myrtle Beach real estate is more affordable than many other areas of the country.

If your finances are in order and you'd like to live in an oceanfront condo choosing Myrtle Beach may just make perfect sense. Whether it's meant to be a vacation home or your primary residences, you'll likely be able to afford a Myrtle Beach condo on the beach over many other beach areas in the country.

Are you ready to live in an oceanfront condo in Myrtle Beach? If so, let us help you find the perfect condo today. 

 

Posted in Buyer Tips
July 31, 2017

Curious About Local Real Estate?

Receive the Latest Local Market Stats

Curious about local real estate? So are we! Every month we review trends in our real estate market and consider the number of homes on the market in each price tier, the amount of time particular homes have been listed for sale, specific neighborhood trends, the median price and square footage of each home sold and so much more. We’d love to invite you to do the same!

Get Local Market Reports Sent Directly to You

You can sign up here to receive your own market report, delivered as often as you like! It contains current information on pending, active and just sold properties so you can see actual homes in your neighborhood. You can review your area on a larger scale, as well, by refining your search to include properties across the city or county. As you notice price and size trends, please contact us for clarification or to have any questions answered.

We can definitely fill you in on details that are not listed on the report and help you determine the best home for you. If you are wondering if now is the time to sell, please try out our INSTANT home value tool. You’ll get an estimate on the value of your property in today’s market. Either way, we hope to hear from you soon as you get to know our neighborhoods and local real estate market better.

Posted in Market Updates
Feb. 13, 2014

Spring 2014 Events in Myrtle Beach: Rundown for March, April and May

Spring in Myrtle Beach, SC

Spring is a great time to visit Myrtle Beach. The weather is warm and the beaches and restaurants are uncrowded since tourist season isn’t in full swing yet. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do. Below you will find a list of Myrtle Beach Spring 2014 events that will keep you entertained during your visit. We hope you will take advantage of all that Myrtle Beach has to offer.

MARCH

State Park Race

March 1, 2014
The Amazing Myrtle Beach State Park Challenge Race – view info

This is Myrtle Beach’s version of the Amazing Race. Answer questions about Myrtle Beach State Park, solve puzzles and complete challenges in this contest that covers six to eight miles. Two people per team. Registration is now open. Call the Nature Center at 843-238-0874.

Can-Am Days 2014

March 8- March 16, 2014
53rd Annual CAN-AM Days

It isn’t officially Spring in Myrtle Beach until the Canadians get here. We welcome our northern neighbors with a parade on Ocean Boulevard and that’s just the beginning. The whole week is full of planned activities designed to enhance the relationship between our two countries. All are welcome to participate in Can-Am days.

St Patricks Day 2014

March 15, 2014
The 26th Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Myrtle Beach

The largest parade on the Grand Strand begins at 9:00 am in North Myrtle Beach. After the parade, Main Street becomes a block party. Enjoy bag pipers Irish folk songs and dancing, plus Irish food and beer served all day. Don’t miss this one.

Irish Festival - Myrtle Beach

March 15, 2014
Irish Fest

Meet your friends at Myrtle Beach’s newest party spot – Market Common. Enjoy a celebration of all things Irish from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sample Irish food, beers and a traditional oyster roast. This is a family friendly festival with face painting and inflatables just for the kids.

Run to the Sun Car Show

March 20 – March 22, 2014
26th Annual Run to the Sun

Run to the Sun is Myrtle Beach’s premiere car show. Car enthusiasts from across the country meet at the old Myrtle Square Mall Parking Lot to show off their vintage vehicles. Then Three days of full of cruising along Ocean Boulevard, car shows and races begin.

Beer Fest

March 28, 2014
6th Annual Myrtle Beach Beer Fest

Find more info at http://www.myrtlebeachbeerfest.com/

This popular event takes place at the House of Blues. Samples some of the best craft beers from around the country. Call House of Blues 843-272-3000 for more information.

APRIL

Art in the Park - Myrtle Beach

Art in the Park

A great event for our local artists to be able to show their work in a casual atmosphere. There are some real gems to be found at Art in the Park. The event is hosted by the The Waccamaw Arts and Crafts Guild. The event is held throughout the year beginning in April. Dates have not yet been determined. Keep your eye out for it.

SOS Spring Safari

April 4- 13, 2014
Society of Stranders (SOS) Spring Safari

The Spring Safari is a 10 day celebration of the State Dance of South Carolina – the Shag in North Myrtle Beach. The event includes planned activities, a parade, and shagging events in the local clubs.

MAY

Rivertown Festival

May 3, 2014
Rivertown Music & Arts Festival

While you are visiting don’t miss the chance to tour the town of Conway – just a few miles west of Myrtle Beach. Conway host the annual Rivertown Music and Arts Festival. Local and regional bands provide the sounds of jazz, gospel, steel drums and more! Local artists display their pottery, wood, glass and paintings. Be sure to visit the River Walk and enjoy some local cuisine at some fine restaurants tucked away in this historic southern town.

Harleys at the beach

May 9-18, 2014
Myrtle Beach Bike Week 2014

Spring Rally! There is nothing like the sound of a Harley engine and you will see and here them all at this event. Enjoy the sights and sounds of the beautiful machines as they cruise up and down the Grand Strand. Numerous vendors, local bars and venues bring plenty of biker fun to the beach for this event.

MayFest on Main

May 10, 2014
8th Annual Mayfest on Main

Come on out from 10a.m. to 6 p.m. and enjoy live music, crafts and food vendors all along Main Street in North Myrtle Beach. The weather is usually perfect for this outdoor event.

Blue Crab Festival

May 17 – 18 2014
33rd Annual Little River Blue Crab Festival – view info

You can’t say you’ve been to the grand Strand until you’ve gone to the annual Blue Crab Festival on Little River Waterfront. Enjoy your blue crab and cold beverage as you watch the fishing boats come in with their catch. There will be live entertainment, vendors, a wide selection of food choices and of course all the Blue Crab you can eat. Bring the whole family!

Bike Week

May 23 – 26, 2014  (Memorial Day Weekend)
Black Bike Week 2014

Atlantic Beach Bike Week closes out the spring and starts the summer on the Grand Strand. The Atlantic Bike week features custom and stock motorcycles of every make and model. There will be plenty of places to find good food and good fun, plus live entertainment and vendors selling all types of bikes and accessories.

Feel free to comment about these events and more on our Myrtle Beach Visitors Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/myrtlebeachvisitors.

April 13, 2012

Selling your condo in a buyer’s market

Homes for Sale Sign

It may be a buyer’s market, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things you can do to get the most from the sale of your condo.

First, you need to be realistic with your expectations. Accept the cards you’ve been dealt and do the best you can. While this can be hard, especially when other condos in your building were selling for top dollar just a few years ago, times have changed.  So don’t let your ego or unrealistic expectations get in the way of getting a fair price in today’s market.

Some Lucky Person Will Purchase Your HouseStudy the market. What’s the competition look like? Put yourself in the place of a buyer and look at ads in the newspaper, online and in real estate magazines. Get in your car and spend some time looking at all the condos you can. The condo amenities in Myrtle Beach like pools and lazy rivers are generally accessible for short periods of time for you to take a look. Attend open houses and eavesdrop on others attending. All of this helps you get a better idea of what buyers are looking for and what your condo should be selling for.

Make your condo ready for immediate occupancy. When buyers have a wide selection of condos to choose from, they’re not going to want to buy one that needs a lot of work unless it’s bargain priced. You need to remove any reason a buyer could say no.

Think about offering incentives. Lowering your price isn’t the only incentive you can offer. Perhaps you can pay the buyer’s discount points to help lower their mortgage rate, provide flexibility with closing dates, or pay closing costs. You might even consider a premium for the buyer’s agent with extra commission or another perk to help spur extra effort on their part.

And, of course, the most important thing of all is to put the right price on your property. Just because your home was worth tens of thousands of dollars more several years ago doesn’t mean that’s the price it will sell for today. It’s important for you and your Realtor to do adequate research and set a fair price on your condo in today’s market. While it’s not uncommon in a seller’s market to ask for as much as 20% more than you expect to get, in a buyer’s market, 3-5% more is more realistic.

For more good info on buying and selling, check out this real estate blog for Myrtle Beach.

Posted in Seller Tips
April 9, 2012

Finding the right Realtor to work with your condo

Realtor for Your Condo

If buying a condo is the most important financial decision most people make in their lives, selling a condo is certainly a close second. And the most important step in selling a condo is finding the right Realtor with the sales and marketing expertise you need.

Who Will Your Realtor Be?First, always work with a licensed REALTOR®. As a member of the National Association of Realtors, these real estate professionals meet the association’s strict code of ethics that can often exceed the requirements of state law. And they must meet stringent education and licensing requirements as well.

Questions you’ll want answers to include:

  • Is the agent’s real estate license in good standing? The state’s real estate governing agency will have this information.
  • Is the agent a member of the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), a cooperative information network with descriptions of other condos for sale in a particular area? Almost all will be, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure.
  • What, if any, real estate designations does the agent hold? Designations and certifications from programs offered by the National Association of Realtors show a higher level of skills and knowledge in specific real estate areas. Just because a Realtor has no such designations doesn’t mean they’re not highly capable, but having them is further assurance of their expertise.
  • And, of course, get references and check them.

Ask friends, associates and others whose opinion you trust for recommendations of experienced Realtors and then focus on the three that seem to be the best. Ask each to come visit your property and to then produce a marketing analysis for it, giving the specifics of his or her plan to sell it. Be sure to get the marketing analysis and sales plan in writing

The market analysis for your home should compare it with at least three other condos currently on the market, three recent sales of comparable condos, and three inactive listings that didn’t sell. It’s a good idea to take a drive to see some of the properties in the market analysis to make sure there aren’t major discrepancies. And if there are, ask why. There could be very good reasons.

Other tips for deciding whether you have the right Realtor.

Posted in Seller Tips
April 2, 2012

[VIDEO] Who’s Buying In Myrtle Beach Right Now?

Buying Myrtle Beach Real Estate

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

Hello I’m Greg Harrelson with 21 Harrelson Group down in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. And I just wanted to send you a quick little video sharing some answers to some of the questions I’ve been getting from the e-mail and even incoming phone calls.

Some recent questions that I’ve been getting about Myrtle Beach real estate in particular, investing in Myrtle Beach “is anyone buying?” The answer to that is yes. Quite a few properties are being sold right now to investors. The other thing is “can you get financing?” The answer to that is yes. There’s financing even on condo tails. And depending on credit assuming somebody’s got good credit then there’s even investor loans out there for with only 25% down on the ocean front. So there’s a lot of things loosening up right now that maybe isn’t being talked about in the media. It seems like the national news always talks about you know they always tell us about the times when no one can buy because the mortgages are not being given out. And yet you don’t see a lot of news of then notifying you that the mortgages have become easier to obtain. So I wanted to share that bit of information with you.

WHO is buying on the Grand Strand?

One of the interesting questions that I had from somebody though is they said, “well okay if people are buying who are those people?” And of course there are thousands of people that have different, every person has their own motivation for making a purchase or an investment property together. But I did think that was a great question and I wanted to address that because I looked into it and I found something’s that were fairly interesting that I wanted to share.

Warren BuffettSo who is buying? Who is buying real estate in Myrtle Beach South Carolina? Before I tell you who they are I wanted to say I was watching CNBC one day, probably a couple of months ago and I recall the analyst talking about  Warren Buffett was buying some particular companies. And what they were talking about is how there are certain bit of analysts that will actually follow Warren Buffets every move and when he purchases something they start to go in and look at it more carefully for consideration of purchasing themselves. Because of his past track record and the results and the returns he’s obtained in the past a lot of people look at him as an authority and when he makes a move they start considering making moves also.

So I just kind of wanted to put that in perspective. Of course this is not about Warren Buffett. And I don’t really know much about his real estate habits but I can tell you who’s buying in Myrtle Beach right now.

Developers. This may come as an interesting fact to you but developers have been purchasing some of the properties that they originally sold to other people. Now there a quite a few developers that no longer even exist maybe they went through bankruptcy or have been foreclosed on. So I’m really not talking about them, I’m talking about some of the very successful developers who created good projects, sold them and still actually have done very well in the down times or the adjusting market. What they’ve done is they had originally sold say a three bedroom condo on the oceanfront they may have originally sold that for $500,000. Okay you saw those purchases back in 2005 and 2006. Well unfortunately the buyer who bought it missed the market and was not able to flip it and then over the years they found themselves in financial strain because the rental income could not support the massive mortgage they had placed on the property. So then the bank foreclosed on that property, relisted the property for say $170,000. Now can you imagine the developer sold it at $500,000 and now it’s back on the market 6 years later for $170,000? Well yes the buyer who bought it for $500,000 it made no sense from a rental standpoint. In other words financially a purchase price of $500,000 could not be supported by the rent. But in some cases the rental income will support a purchase price of $170,000. So because so many developers are also in the rental business they are able to come back and buy the property at today price, put it in a rental property and actually make financial sense.

DeveloperNow what they’ll do is they’ll break even and make a little bit of money on a monthly basis from  the rentals and then they’re waiting 5,6,7,8 years and then the market appreciates, who knows when the market will appreciate, but they’re waiting longer term knowing that they’ll actually make profit on that unit again.

So who is buying? There are situations where developers are buying. I actually know some of the buildings that they are buying in and the price points that they look to purchase. Number two who are buying. Realtors are buying. I am noticing offers on my listings and in the disclosures they are disclosing that they are actually the purchaser or maybe their son is the purchaser. I think that’s a good sign. When you see real estate agents purchasing their own products, real estate, then I think it’s safe to assume that they’re analyzing the market, they’re projecting what they think is going to happen in the future, they’re noticing that there’s quality products on the market for sale and they’re analyzing the cash flow and then they’re making offers and making purchases. I think it’s a great thing. I think when you need to stay away is when real estate agents who a lot of them are investors. They’re kind of called insiders. If the insiders are not buying their own product then you probably shouldn’t be buying their product.

So, who else is buying?

As a matter of fact we could say maybe I got lucky but in 2005 I was not buying real estate. In 2011 and going into 2012, guess who’s buying? I’m buying real estate. So not only are some developers buying properties that they’ve already sold and now buying them back on the foreclosure block because they see opportunity. And not only are realtors in general getting back into the investing game and buying properties. I myself am actually buying. This week I made two offers on two different properties that I wanted to purchase. Now I will say I’m not the most aggressive investor. I’m probably a little bit more conservative when it comes to investing in real estate markets and any other type of investing. I’m very analytical at looking at all the numbers. I look at what the cost of the property is of course, the cost of borrowing money, the cost of ongoing maintenance, the cost of any management fees and I come down and look at it logically and determine whether or not the property that I’m purchasing can actually make some sense and maybe carry itself, give me a little bit of positive cash flow and then give me opportunity for appreciation later on.

So I just wanted to let you know that you get videos from me from time to time and you know it’s easy to for someone for a realtor like me to just send a video and say go out here start buying. I know that would make me a lot of commissions but I think there’s a little bit of validation when as I’m saying now is a good time if I’m also purchasing. I think that validates my comments.

Going one step deeper who is buying? My dad is buying. So not only am I considering properties right now but even my dad is considering property. Now you don’t know my dad but my dad brought me into this real estate business 17 years ago. He retired with about 25 years under his belt and in the local Myrtle Beach economy. He has seen the market go up. He has seen the market go down. He’s seen it go sideways. And at this time he noticed that there are some quality properties that are coming on the market at extremely discounted prices. Giving us an opportunity.

Buy real estate smart or don’t buy at all…

So developers, realtors, myself, my own family. Before I end I think some of you will probably ask well Greg what are you buying. I’ll kind of share a little bit of that with you. But first of all the key is to buy smart. You know don’t just go in and start making offers like people did in 2005, 2006. Where they were just making offers. They didn’t look at the stability of a homeowners association. They didn’t look at what the real rental income was. They didn’t look at the fine print on the management contracts. They didn’t understand really what they were buying. That wasn’t too smart. And when you don’t buy smart you end up getting in trouble. And I think we’ve got plenty of stories that we can observe to see exactly what comes up when you don’t buy smart.

So I’m telling you buy smart. Cash flow for people that are looking for cash flow. Cash flow is in the annual rentals right now. It’s not necessarily in the vacation rentals on the ocean front. You can break even in some cases, slight negatives in other cases. On the ocean front if you can break even and you can find yourself in a good position for future appreciation that might be a good investment for you.

For people that are okay with buying houses and putting long-term tenants in there. I find in myself recently making an offer on a property that’s not $90,000. It’s 1450 sq. ft. 3 bedroom 2 bath. With a two car garage in a neighborhood located near the best school system in Myrtle Beach. I’m actually making an offer for a $90,000. I’m going to put 30% down. I like to put a little bit more down and my payments are only going to be 300- 340 dollars a month. On that particular property. I can rent it immediately for $1000 a month.

So let’s say after everything I have $525 in expenses and I’ve got it rented for $1000. I’ve got a quality home. I bought it at a discount. It’s located in the best school system in Myrtle Beach and I’m making cash flow. So those are just a few ideas. Some of you want a vacation spot and you want to rent it and use it. There’s opportunity up and down the grand strand as long as you look at everything. Research everything. Make sure your realtor is providing good information to you.

So I hope that helps you and at the end of the day and developers aren’t buying, I’m at least looking. If realtors are buying I’m looking. Okay and that’s why you see that I’m buying. If I can ever help you I or my agents will be here to assist you in any way. Once again I’m Greg Harelson with Century 21 the Harrelson Group. And I hope you have great holiday season. Thank you.

Posted in Seller Tips