Plantation Lakes Blog!

When you find yourself poised on the brink of any new real estate venture, there’s no more important initial step than seeking out a great Myrtle Beach Realtor® to round out your team. Without even thinking about it, everyone automatically knows that they want a real estate professional with the technical experience, communication skills, and local knowledge that such serious business requires. It also won’t hurt if your Realtor has bottomless reserves of energy and a positive attitude to match—as well as the sympathetic human traits that makes them a pleasure to work with.

There are lots of conventional channels that make it easy to identify perfectly well-qualified Myrtle Beach Realtors (and we are lucky to have many talented ones here in the area)—but when you’re looking for the one who will sync with you and your ultimate goals, that level of rapport will most likely take an extra proactive step or two to secure.

Positive word-of-mouth is a good way to start, but it’s realistic to remember that the one making the referral may or may not share your priorities in a working relationship. You will be working together for a while, and depending upon each other to make some significant decisions—some of which could be made under pressure. When the team has good chemistry going for it, those decisions will come easier. A few ideas that people have found helpful in finding the right Realtor:

Check out a Realtor’s Open House

This is a good way to see a Realtor at work. Whether you are buying a Myrtle Beach home or selling your own, dropping in unexpectedly will allow you to listen to what they say and how they interact with prospects. Don’t hesitate to be upfront about your own situation: a great Realtor will be able to help other potential buyers and deal with you without missing a beat!

Use Social Media

You can also start conversations with prospective Realtors on social media to gauge how long it takes them to respond, whether or not they can give you detailed answers, and to see how they engage with other members of the public. This is a good way to tell if they use social media skillfully, building their brand while clearly valuing the people who interact with them.

Consult with Other Professionals

The opinions of contractors, mortgage brokers and repair people can be valuable, too. Professional people have an insider’s view of the Myrtle Beach Realtors who work hard to get the job done efficiently.

Of course, fine-tuning your choice should include doing the conventional legwork, too. Look at the Realtor’s listings, their track records, their accolades, and where they live. The rest is up to you. Needless to say, I hope I make it to your final cut!

When the first spring day comes along (as opposed to the first day of spring), a goodly proportion of Myrtle Beach’s residents feel the annual pull toward the garden store aisles. Even those who’ve stoutly resisted ordering seeds, gardening tools, or any of the other back yard paraphernalia the catalogs kept hawking all winter can succumb to this particular Call of Nature.

Burpee, Scotts and Miracle-Gro shareholders can relax: spring has sprung.

The Myrtle Beach spring real estate selling season starts stirring, too, pretty much in lockstep with the appearance of the tulips. Whether or not the tulips have succeeded in poking up out of the ground, it’s a cinch that by this time they will have made colorful appearances on store shelves everywhere, just like the Peeps and chocolate bunnies. Unlike the rest of the early spring’s trappings, though, the spring real estate phenomenon doesn’t disappear from sight once Easter Sunday is a memory. In fact, it picks up steam.

There are any number of explanations why spring real estate in Myrtle Beach is always expected to ramp up. Part of the reason is the calendar. For families with children, if a move is going to involve a change in school districts, summer vacation is the least disruptive time of year for it to happen, so spring is the time to start house hunting. Part of the reason is due to the comparative difficulty of selling a home in wintertime: not only can foul weather make it harder to keep a home at its showy best, it also can throw a monkey wrench into property maintenance and the few cosmetic fixes that almost every home could use before it hits the Myrtle Beach listings. The result is a certain amount of bottled-up inventory that bursts onto the scene all at once—and springtime is the single time of the year when that happens.

Then there is the automatic momentum effect. When you sell a Myrtle Beach home, most families need to turn around and buy the next. The National Association of Realtors® tells us that the spring real estate selling season may actually be stronger than the numbers indicate, because many sales that really did begin “in season” don’t actually close until summer begins. Spring real estate as a phenomenon is “real” enough that you can’t blame them for lines like “Spring brings rain and flowers—and possibly extra green in the final sales price of your home.”

The spring real estate selling season is indeed underway, so if you are planning on listing your own Myrtle Beach home anytime soon, now is a great time to give me a call. It’s the best way to take advantage of the traditional boom in prospective buyers!

Owning a Myrtle Beach rental property owes its popularity to the distinctive financial attributes it offers investors. Like a dividend-producing stock, it’s a holding that stands to produce a regular income stream. It’s also a real asset in the truest sense of the word—one with solid collateral value. For adroit Myrtle Beach rental property investors, it’s also an asset that can build value over time.

When it comes to quantifying a Myrtle Beach rental property’s income-producing potential, after an investor has estimated the projected rental stream, there follows a less sunny exercise: expenses need to be taken into account. If a Myrtle Beach professional management service is going to be part of the equation, they will supply reliable budget parameters. If you will be managing the property yourself, doing a thorough job of nailing down this—the management budget—is as crucial to coming up an accurate bottom line as was projecting income.

Unless you are prepared to be at the beck and call of your renters 24/7, it's a good idea to budget funds for a skilled general maintenance person. The ideal candidate can deal with a myriad of issues, from electricity outages to clogged garbage disposals. If the Myrtle Beach rental property is an apartment building or set of condos, it’s often a good idea for the maintenance pro to be kept on retainer. For single-property rentals, this handyman (or gal) can usually be hired on a job-by-job basis.

Specifics for every Myrtle Beach property differ, but it’s generally considered prudent to reserve between 10%-15% of gross rental income for maintenance and repairs. This part of your budget includes remuneration for your maintenance person. Getting a rental home back to status quo isn't always easy—especially because it’s in both the landlord’s and renters’ interest to place a premium on speedy rehabilitation. That’s not cheap!

There are also two words that belong in any rental property management budget: property insurance. The right formula may include a sizeable deductible number (you’ve already budgeted an ample reserve for lesser emergencies), but it’s also vital to take into account the possibility of any large and unexpected emergencies that you or your maintenance person can't handle alone. It may be common business wisdom, but over large parts of the country, this past harsh winter once again demonstrated the wisdom of the practice. Tenants are encouraged to insure their own property, both inside and outside the rental property, but the landlord’s policy should cover repairs to the entire structure, any small sheds on the property, landscaping damage, and the like.

This is the traditional time of year when many of the most promising investment properties go on the market. If you are looking to the future—a future that includes owning a lucrative Myrtle Beach rental property—now is the time to start looking…and to give me a call!

Since Myrtle Beach home interest rates continue to play such a leading role for buyers in today’s real estate market, any relevant news items bear watching. For quite a while, home interest rates in Myrtle Beach have cooperated nicely, dwelling at tantalizingly low levels. It’s been helpful to sellers and buyers alike.

Meanwhile, some strange headlines about European home interest rates have been appearing from time to time. They never seemed to make much sense, but it’s Europe, after all—and we have our hands full trying to clarify our own economics right here on this side of the Atlantic.

Yet there are some headlines you just can’t ignore. Late last month, this one appeared in Yahoo Finance:

“NEGATIVE MORTGAGE RATES IN DENMARK”

After pausing to be certain the item wasn’t under an April Fool’s dateline (it wasn’t), further examination didn’t dispel the feeling that someone at Yahoo had spent too much time reading Alice in Wonderland. The article said that bank interest rates had declined so far that home interest rates in at least one country had now fallen below zero.

In other words, through the looking glass.

Now, before leaping to the conclusion that home buyers in Denmark would therefore expect banks to pay them every month, this seemed to be the point at which bringing a little common sense would be called for!

Or not.

That, according to Yahoo, is exactly what’s going on in Denmark.

Since we’ve all been hoodwinked by silly news items on the web, here is where it was clearly time to check out other authoritative sites. A respected European blogger named Jan Oravec stated in no uncertain terms, “Many economists consider negative interest rates impossible.” But reading further, Oravec admitted that nonetheless they do exist.

Per Market Realist: “In Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Belgium, and [you guessed it] Denmark, it was about time we saw negative mortgage rates in Europe as well.”

Bloomberg Business quoted Danish Business Minister Henrik Larsen: “There’s a need for us to create clarity over how we can best handle this situation going forward” (that seems to be something of an understatement).

Yahoo got specific: "Nordea Bank’s IT systems need to be reprogrammed as it’s not accustomed to situations where the bank isn’t receiving interest payments on outstanding mortgages.”

According to a Google translation of blogger gjohnsit, banks there “have had to pay interest back instead of charging them.” Reading our minds, he asks, “How is it possible, that someone could go to a bank, take out a mortgage, and expect the bank to give them money every month?”

The answer, according to economists, is Euro deflation (but then again, wasn’t it economists who considered negative interest rates to be impossible?)…

We might be tempted to wish for the same situation for our own Myrtle Beach home interest rates, but I don’t know. There is an aura of something-for-nothing hovering over the whole idea.

Besides, today’s mortgage rates are already quite reasonable—and a solid reason to give me a call!

A few weeks ago, an eye-catching article surfaced on the Investopedia web site—one with the arresting title of “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” I have always assumed that for prospective Myrtle Beach home buyer, the answer to that question varies by the individual circumstances. But if there is a more cut-and-dried universal answer, it would certainly be good to know it. Definitely worth reading.

Despite its name, Investopedia is not an encyclopedic history of investing. Its own history is interesting, though—it started in Canada, was acquired by Forbes, then sold a short while later to ValueClick for $42,000,000 (talk about good investments)!

The article that was to supply the answer to “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” did turn out to have the right answer, though it’s a little less definitive that you would hope—prospective Myrtle Beach home buyers don’t get the simple “NOW” or “LATER,” which would be most useful. However, before the final answer is presented, scattered between the many ads and other clickbait that apparently pay for Investopedia are some interesting current facts and observations, and several cop-outs.

When it comes to the big question, “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” by halfway through the article, it’s looking a bit more like “now” than “later.” It cites The National Association of Home Builders’ Housing Opportunity Index, which now finds that nationally, the majority of homes are affordable for families earning a median income of $63,900. True, most Myrtle Beach families don’t earn exactly $63,900, but still, it’s good to know. Reading on, we learn that this level of affordability has been better in the past, and might be better later “unless mortgage rates move higher in the future.” Since elsewhere on the site we find that “the consensus is that interest rates will rise,” it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce where “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” is leading.

Or so you might assume, before the article quotes a saying on Wall Street: Don’t try to time the market, which Investopedia advises also applies to real estate. Oddly enough, it also says, “If you’re looking for an edge, interest rates are near historic lows so now appears to be a better time than most for purchasing a home.”

That’s a pretty strong hint, but the answer isn’t spelled out. Yet. There follow some bits of good advice (hire an inspector prior to purchasing a home; don’t buy a car while your credit is being checked; inquire about taxes) before we get to the ultimate heading, “THE BOTTOM LINE.” It took a while, but here is the advice Myrtle Beach readers would have been looking for all along, bottom-linewise.

Investopedia’s answer for “When is the Right Time to Buy a Home?” is a lot more sensible than most: “When you can afford it.”

I couldn’t agree more. Even if all the other factors weren’t as positive as they are today, being able to make a good fit financially is at the top of the list.

If now is that time for you—or if it’s time for you to put your own Myrtle Beach home on the market—it’s also a good time to give me a call!

Trying to ferret out which features home buyers value most is no simple matter, even though that’s of particular importance when you have a Myrtle Beach house for sale. Updated kitchens and bathrooms are always near the top of the ‘most desired’ features compilations; and I’d put ample storage right there with them. It may not come to mind when you ask prospects what they value the most, because it’s a “feature” that’s so much an integral part of a home’s design—but a house for sale with small closets and few drawers is still likely to register with buyers as somehow “smaller” than others with the same square footage.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, updated cabinets and counters may catch a buyer’s eye, but other less expensive improvements are may serve the same purpose. The top three features home buyers from all walks of life want in a kitchen are double sinks, room for a table, and a walk-in pantry. That doesn’t mean tearing out walls or reconfiguring the whole kitchen—but it can call for seeing if a similar effect can be achieved within a sensible budget. If you don’t have room to create a walk-in pantry, see if there is room for a stand-alone pantry cabinet. If you will be updating the kitchen sink and fixtures anyway, consider a deeper-welled model. Any improvements that add extra ‘roominess’ to the kitchen will register with many prospective buyers.

The NAHB has more findings that should interest anyone with a Myrtle Beach house for sale. Buyers increasingly favor environmentally friendly homes, for instance—but…they don’t want to pay extra for those ‘green’ features. On the other hand, they are willing to pay more for a home that’s energy efficient. If you have already determined that new appliances will be needed anyway, installing those with high Energy Star ratings is a definite recommendation. Likewise, if window replacements are also in the cards, new energy-efficient windows are worth considering. Today’s buyers are more aware of details like windows constructed with triple-pane glass. It’s common knowledge that those favorable Energy Star ratings mean decades of lower utility bills.

One low-cost way homeowners with a Myrtle Beach house for sale can capitalize on buyers’ safety concerns is by installing some exterior lighting. It’s a feature rated as “essential” or “desirable” by 80% of buyers in one study. Addressing the same issue: security systems. When a house for sale features a wireless home security system in its listing, even buyers whose safety concerns are less than top-of-mind will take note.

Before making any improvements, it’s only sensible to have a discussion with your Myrtle Beach Realtor®.

Even before you’re fully committed to putting your Myrtle Beach house up for sale, I’m ready to offer a no-obligation assessment of your home and how to best take advantage of today’s active market!

Myrtle Beach real estate trends don’t always trace patterns that are precisely identical to those in the rest of the state or nation, but sooner or later the local market almost always responds similarly. That’s because there is a certain amount of momentum—positive or negative—that is automatically spawned by the good or bad real estate market news reported in the mass media.

So when last week’s Commerce Department report on new residential home sales was released, Myrtle Beach real estate watchers had reason to smile. Delightedly.

It wasn’t just that the bottom line number for February’s new home sales was substantial (estimated at 539,000, seasonally adjusted annual rate); it was how all the other stats supported them. Forbes headlined that February’s numbers hit a 7-year high. The financial web site Calculated Risk observed that although the report contained only two months’ worth of this year’s data, “Sales in 2015 are off to a solid start.”

In fact, just about all the accompanying details were heartening. The monthly new home sales are always revised several times as final real estate figures become available, and this time ‘round, January’s already-strong numbers were revised further upward. And the Census Bureau also tracks not seasonally adjusted sales (NSAs)—and so far this year they are up a full 19% above the same beginning months a year ago. For February alone, sales were up 24.8% year-over-year.

So, does that mean we should assume Myrtle Beach’s real estate sales are certain to jump by a full 24%, too? That would be terrific—but let’s not get carried away. For one thing, the new home sales statistics are a lot more volatile that real estate sales as a whole (new homes comprise less than 20% of the overall market). And the technical way the Commerce Department samples makes it prone to error. They put the margin of error at 15%, which makes for a lot of wiggle room.

Yet the sheer size of the sales increase makes it pretty unlikely that the trend won’t be borne out. Per Forbes, this report’s results are “viewed by economists as a measure of economic momentum and an indicator of future consumer purchases…” Those purchases are in furniture and appliances which traditionally accompany strong home sales.

Forbes’ “solid start” is exactly what we would hope for—especially since it tracks activity that was taking place even before the spring selling season got underway.

It’s getting started in earnest right now, so if you are interested in establishing your own Myrtle Beach real estate trend, this is the right time to give me a call!

Staging is to a Myrtle Beach home what packaging is to a supermarket product: a vital element that can supersede all others. Product managers rely on advertising and marketing efforts to create awareness among consumers, just as homeowners use their Realtor’s marketing know-how (the listing, web page, signage and all their other advertising initiatives) to bring Myrtle Beach prospects to the door. Then, just as well-designed, attractive packaging is what finally moves a product off the shelf, it is first-class staging that can transform casual lookers into Myrtle Beach home buyers.

The goal of staging is to draw observers in; to help them picture whether the property’s spaces have all the nuances of what in their own mind’s eye constitutes a welcoming home. Bottom-line studies continue to verify that, staged correctly, homes sell more quickly. Although there are few absolute staging dos and don’ts, (after all, staging is an art); we can point to a number of probably don’ts. They’re relatively easy to avoid:

Failing to Incorporate the Outside

No matter how beautiful a home is once you open the door, prospective home buyers want to be proud of their new Myrtle Beach digs. Even if it will be marketed as a fixer-upper, a welcoming exterior is always a welcome surprise. If, on the other hand, dirty windows, dry grass, and cracks in the sidewalk greet buyers, that first impression can be counted on to drive offer numbers in the wrong direction. Staging efforts need to encompass the whole enchilada!

Neglecting the Little Things

When it comes to staging, nothing is completely unimportant. Light fixtures, cabinet knobs, faucets, drawer pulls—even electric outlet covers—all contribute to the cumulative impression a Myrtle Beach home conveys. It doesn’t mean that every tiny detail needs to be replaced; only those that are conspicuously damaged or dirty need to get attention.

Failing to Capitalize on Natural Light

As photographers know, “It’s always all about the light!” The fewer dim corners, the better. Staging a home to accentuate its rooms’ natural light is important, and where needed, boosting with lamps and overheads.

Forgetting the Nooks and Crannies

Assume that prospects see everything. Before a showing, a last quick walk-through of the whole home is a good idea. Check for stray items that are out of place, and be sure all is properly swept and neatened.

Opting Not to Use a Professional Stager

If the whole prospect of diligent staging isn’t appealing, it makes good business sense to hand it over to a Myrtle Beach staging professional. Pro stagers see every detail with a trained eye, and work to create a rich atmosphere—not just a collection of rooms.

From a buyer’s first glance at your listing to its ultimate sale, each step of the way is an opportunity to propel the process. The first one of those steps is choosing the Myrtle Beach Realtor® who will add energy and expertise to the campaign: I hope you’ll consider me!

It can be a true three-ring circus as you close in on signing day for your new Myrtle Beach home. Sometimes there’s a near-simultaneous sale of the previous house that demands attention. There are the timing issues connected with moving out and then moving in. You may be dealing with furnishing the new house, school schedules, and sometimes work requirements have to be juggled; and everything seems to be happening at the same time.

Amidst all the details you are attending to, there is one that appears so simple that it may not get as much consideration as it deserves. Seeming almost like a non-decision, this one actually has major implications. It’s a true ‘sleeper.’

The subject is your decision on how you want to time the new mortgage payments for your new Myrtle Beach home. It turns out that “once a month” is not necessarily the best answer.

Many lenders offer a variety of mortgage payment options, and they vary in ways that can make a surprisingly great financial difference over the long haul. No matter how busy you get, this is a decision which deserves some serious attention (and probably a hand calculator).

First, there is an English language oddity to straighten out: it’s about the prefix “bi.”

If you think “bi” is a prefix that means ‘two,’ you’re right—but it also has two meanings:

• ‘Bimonthly’ means twice a month (but not once every two months).
• ‘Biweekly’ means every other week.

At first glance, “every other week” and “twice a month” seem to be the same thing; but they’re not. The difference is significant, because there are 52 (not 48) weeks in a year. As everyone comes to realize sooner or later, there are 4.3 weeks in an average month (not four). So the number of mortgage payments you will make could be 12 (if you go with the standard ‘once a month’ mortgage payment), or 24 (a bimonthly mortgage payment), or 26 (the biweekly choice).

Most people who choose either of the ‘bi’ payment choices consider a mortgage payment amount that’s exactly half of the monthly amount. If you choose the bimonthly plan, you might save a bit on interest by paying the first half a little bit early. But most lenders just hold the money and apply both payments at the end of the month—if so, the advantage disappears.

The real significant difference arises if you are offered a biweekly option. You can use any of the online mortgage sites to work out the precise details for yourself. Because you are making two extra payments a year, for instance, what would have been a 3.8% 30-year $225,000 loan for a Myrtle Beach home actually turns into a 26-year loan. All else being equal, you’d own your Myrtle Beach home free and clear four years earlier—and save more than $23,000 in the process!

No matter how hectic a house hunting and moving process becomes, it’s part of my job to help my clients keep the important details and decisions front-and-center. Getting the best answer to the mortgage payment choice is one of them; and of course, another best answer is to give me a call!