Myrtle Beach Real Estate Sales News

According to our resident real estate expert at the Sun News, Jenny Burns, our real estate agents are seeing an increase in sales interest from January. My clients and websites are reflecting that as well.

Sales of Myrtle Beach condominiums are still low, but that is to be expected until the glut of building and large amount of available new condos is taken care of.

Myrtle Beach condo rentals are at an all-time high. My friends at Condolux had the best year ever in 2006, and are geared up for 2007 with about 10 new projects to add to their rental lists...from Kingston Plantation (seemingly the hottest place down here for rentals) to the recently completed resorts like Bay View Resort in Myrtle Beach.

This could very well translate into a better environment for sales...and certainly more traffic to the condos that have on-site sales offices.

According to Jenny, new homes sales fell more than the prophets expected it to. I guess even though they "created" the bubble in the first place, they aren't always powerful enough to control the market just by the word of their predictions. And yes, I said they created the bubble. I am firmly convinced that it never would have happened anywhere if they hadn't kept screaming about it ad nauseum for the whole year that sales were so high. It was a self-fulfilled prophecy.

They report that single family home sales fell 24 percent to 296 from 389 last January. Sales of condos in Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand fell 35 percent to 276 units from 425. This according to the local MLS people.

It was also noted that some home prices dropped, but CONDO prices jumped 32 percent in average and 25 percent in median.

Days it takes to sell a condo increased from 160 to 345 days, while homes seem to sell much faster...only increasing to 160 from 143.

My friend Diann Tonnesen in Las Vegas predicted the turn around to take about 17 months from last summer. She's been in the business for more than 20 years, so I value her opinion. My group around here are perhaps a bit more optimistic. Myrtle Beach real estate sales tend to run much differently than some place like Las Vegas...or even the Florida beaches.

Also, our insurance crisis on condos is so in the news that I think buyers are waiting to see how that turns out. I'm seeing the leads and the interest, but there is more hesitation to buy unless they are looking for a personal vacation condo and feel like they can handle the price. And with rentals being so good, perhaps they can increase the price for them to help assuage the extra costs for HOA and insurance fees. People are going to come and vacation at Myrtle Beach regardless. It may slow down the spring breakers (no loss there) and maybe limit the number of days people stay. Perhaps in the future these condo rental places may need to make an availability for 3-4 day stays instead of requiring a weekly deal.

At any rate, it's very heartening to see more leads coming in and the various real estate websites doing well. Since I do real estate marketing, I appreciate it!

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