Plantation Lakes Blog!

One of CNN’s most popular sites is called CNNMoney. Dollars and cents are its singular focus—no film reviews, fashion statements, or political insights. For Myrtle Beach readers minding their bank accounts, it makes consistently interesting reading.

The other day, an eye-catching ad for CNNMoney appeared on the screens of real estate sites. If you’d been browsing the Myrtle Beach listings, there it was, with this challenge: “Are you a home buying genius?” For anyone who couldn’t be absolutely sure of the answer, the ad led to an online quiz. A simple mouse click brought up the first question.

It was a good thing CNNMoney isn’t called CNNGrammar, because the first question was “How will a bad credit score effect (sic) your ability to buy a home?” The choices were four, starting with “I may not qualify for a mortgage.” Then came, “I may need a bigger down payment;” “I’ll have to pay a higher mortgage rate;” and the last, “All of the above.” They all looked possible, so Myrtle Beach home buying geniuses had an easy time with that one.

But others could have tested the neurons of any home buying Einstein.

“What’s the most surefire way to get the financing you need?” was one. “Play the Powerball” was clearly not the right answer, but the difference between “Get pre-approved for a mortgage” (choice #2) or “Have the mortgage pre-underwritten” (#3) might depend on the Myrtle Beach mortgage broker’s office terminology. If you went for #3, you got it right.

If you knew that Myrtle Beach closing costs usually run between 2%-5% of the selling price, you had another right answer. Likewise, if you chose the standard “28% of your gross monthly income” as the most you should budget for a mortgage payment. By now, it had become clear that this quiz had been put together by someone with an interest in promoting mortgage loans. All the questions were dealing with mortgages, and now ads for national mortgage outfits were beginning to appear at the bottom of the screen. Since this is nothing new when it comes to web quizzes, most readers would have kept at it.

They would have run into one question about how much savings you “should have left” after you buy a home—the kind of question that could start a debate. This one could challenge any genius. For instance, if you are The Donald, you really wouldn’t need the “at least six months’ worth of savings” that was ruled the right answer. The explanation sounded reasonable (“you’re probably spending freely to furnish or update the place”), but what if you had just bought a new home or one of the spotlessly renovated Myrtle Beach listings that are now on the market? The amount it would cost to move in could just as easily be next to nothing!

Such quibbling in internet quizzes isn’t allowed. If you got all the answers right, you were pronounced a home buying genius (with an exclamations point)…and an offer to tell the world via Facebook or Twitter. If not, you could retake the test before you told anyone anything, which does seem a little bit like an offer to peek at the teacher’s answer sheet…

In my opinion, you don’t have to be a Myrtle Beach home buying genius to score a spectacular home in this summer’s offerings. The properties are there, and the financing numbers are still historically terrific! It won’t hurt to have a knowledgeable professional clearing the way, either. Just call, anytime!

Myrtle Beach residents been hearing about unbelievably tight housing situations in some U.S. cities for many years, but last week there was one report that would have challenged any imagination. This was about a Wharton School graduate who is spawning a new way to afford rents in the San Francisco Bay area. His solution: live in a shipping container.

The article appeared (with pictures) in BloombergBusiness. The photos weren’t exactly flattering of Luke Iseman’s 160-square-foot “box”—in fact, the bright blue painted walls seemed definitely in need of a decorator’s input (not to mention the cords and ducts strapped from ceiling to floor). With a shower constructed from discarded boat hulls and a camp stove set atop what appears to be a deconstructed wooden crate, the overall look might be described as post post post modern urban chic.

But Mr. Iseman is making progress turning his container housing option into a business. In fact, he is already presiding over 11 of the “miniature residences,” where his tenants live inside a warehouse he leases across the Bay from San Francisco.

In case Myrtle Beach real estate watchers suspect this is a less-than-serious attempt to forge a new kind of rentable living arrangement, a quick review of housing costs in the City by the Bay will have them thinking twice. According to Bloomberg, the median rents in June jumped 16% from a year earlier (15% in the wider metro area). Median sales price is over $1.1 million in the City.

The chief market analyst for one S.F. real estate outfit put the housing situation in perspective. “People have to get creative,” he said. Bloomberg put its perspective another way: “The market…is crazy…”

Iseman’s “new model for urban development” does have some serious hurdles to clear before the “more sustainable, affordable and enjoyable” urban development model gets much further. One of the hurdles is that it’s illegal—he’s already been rousted from two other sites. But with Bay Area building inspectors busy dealing with converted garages, offices, living room conversions and other unlicensed structures (like rental tents), his startup concept may last a while longer.

What seems somewhat comical to Myrtle Beach observers is actually a creative answer to a very real problem. Iseman had been paying $4,200 a month for a badly maintained two-bedroom apartment before he thought up the container idea. He bought his first container, which had been classified as industrial waste, for $2,300 (delivered), spent $12,000 converting it, and voila!—suddenly he had himself some affordable East Bay housing. In and around and area where 10 jobs are added for every new residence, who’s to say this stop-gap solution might not prove to have some staying power?

One thing is for certain—our Myrtle Beach real estate scene is going to continue to offer a choice variety of affordable housing offerings, even without the benefit of shipping containers. Give me a call whenever you’d like to go over the wide range of opportunities today’s market is providing.

In a perfect world, before you set about selling your Myrtle Beach property you would have emptied it of all evidence of human habitation, called in the best staging pros on the planet, and set off to vacation in a Caribbean island spa-hotel so you could sift through the dozens of offers in comfort.

“Let’s see,” you would soon be musing to no one in particular, sipping your first mimosa of the afternoon as you thumbed through the sheaf of faxes from your Myrtle Beach agent; “should I accept this all-cash offer for 150% of comparable value—or hold out for this one for 200% of comp that came in with only 50% earnest money…?”

It is here where we might best depart from this reverie to point out that in this less than perfect world—the one that we actually live in—the more probable situation is one where your Myrtle Beach property is fully occupied, either by your own family or a tenant.

How do you make the most of that mimosaless situation? If you and your family are the occupants, your Myrtle Beach property fits the most common profile, so the standard to-do’s apply: you will want to clear the clutter and store any non-essential furnishings; de-personalize as much as practical; deep clean; and work with your agent to make showings as routine as possible.

But what if you have a tenant? It’s going to be a true balancing act that affects four parties: seller, listing agent, tenant, and buyer. Of these, the one with the least to gain is the tenant, who is paying for the privilege of tenancy while being asked to keep the property clean and showable on the others’ schedules.

Let’s face it: this could be a minefield. Almost any tenant’s interests lie elsewhere. In fact, they may very well like your Myrtle Beach property so much they would just as soon discourage prospective buyers—and there are subtle (and less-subtle) ways to go about that!

One solution that is sometimes offered involves this creative procedure:

Compensate the tenant for their cooperation by offering a significant bounty (say, 20% of the monthly rent) to be placed in an escrow account. It’s a meaningful award for the tenant’s full cooperation—one that will grow with the payment of each month’s rent. It will be turned over upon the completion of the sale. This ingenious plan has the effect of reversing the natural order of things. Since the amount in escrow grows with each passing month, rather than becoming increasingly annoyed with each ensuing showing, the tenant is increasingly incentivized to make the property ever more appealing. There’s cash on the line! In fact, as the escrow account builds, who’s to say the tenant won’t start doing some arithmetic…and start considering becoming the buyer himself…???

In any case, the best results for selling your Myrtle Beach property happen when there is rock-solid communication between the listing agent and owner—and when a tenant is involved, that’s another party who should be included as well. It’s the best way to insure that everyone can go about their business with a minimum of disruption and inconvenience.

If you are sizing up the coming fall market, whether your Myrtle Beach property is occupied by a tenant or your own tribe, I hope you will give me a call to discuss how I can get the results you’re after!

For many homes that will be listed for sale in Myrtle Beach, virtual tours will be part of their prospective buyers’ experience. It’s increasingly common that in addition to the eye-catching still photographs that enhance the online listing, some form of clickable virtual tour is there, as well.

Most frequently found are virtual tours that are actually still shots that can be displayed sequentially—this kind of virtual tour could more specifically called a ‘virtual slide show,’ because the viewer is in control of the speed at which the photos appear. When a one-click ‘play’ symbol is onscreen which triggers automatic playback (frequently with musical accompaniment or even narration), it really does produce an experience that’s like an actual tour. And further enhancements can be added, like pans across (and zooms into or out of) the still shots, creating the feeling of movement. When music or narration are added, the result can be quite effective.

Another Myrtle Beach virtual tour is more ambitiously produced: the shots in it consist of some (or all) motion sequences that are created with a video rather than still camera. When the camera is set into motion—as when it moves down a path or through a doorway, it can convey the feeling of actually ‘being there’ more effectively than stills. For the viewer, there is a subtle difference between what is experienced when viewing a computer-created sweep (“pan”) across a still image of a room versus a video camera actually panning across the same scene. In the video, there is more of something like a 3-D experience because the objects in the room shift in relation to one another. Not a lot…but just enough!

So which is the most effective form for a Myrtle Beach virtual tour? The answer is…not what you might expect. The format, whether stills, moving stills, or video is really not what makes the greatest difference. It’s vastly more important that in any format, what’s being shown is almost all that matters—or as they say in Hollywood, it’s lights! camera! action!

Lights—blotchy lighting with areas of impenetrably deep shadows may be fine for film noir productions, but for your virtual tour of your area home, it’s a negative. A skilled photographer or videographer will see that most areas are cheerfully, brightly exposed.
Camera—most (if not all) your images will work best when a very wide angle lens is used. It gives the impression of spaciousness.
Action—in both video and slideshow modes, the speed at which images move should be slow enough that viewers don’t find it dizzying, yet fast enough that the pace of the ‘production’ isn’t annoyingly pokey (for example, a virtual tour which zips right along in a progression that makes sense—like an actual tour).

A Myrtle Beach virtual tour can provide a genuine boost to your home’s selling campaign when it is attractively produced—and accurate (thus avoiding showings to prospects for whom the property is clearly unsuited). It’s only one of the many tools which can be called into service to draw the interest of the qualified prospective buyers you need to reach. Call me if you’d like to discuss what’s happening in today’s market!

For Myrtle Beach homeowners, the news was a long time coming. The bounce back from last decade’s dizzying plummet in the nation’s residential housing values has been underway for quite a while now—but those values hadn’t quite returned to their former heights.

Until last month!

The Wall Street Journal was early to break the long-awaited headline, “Existing-Home Prices Hit Record: $236,400.” Using just-released June sales numbers, the Journal reported that the nation’s average housing prices now topped the previous high water mark set in 2006. It meant that a lot of paper losses have been obliterated—and the return of full nights’ sleep for many U.S. homeowners who have long been underwater.

Another aspect of June’s housing report card could also ease nerves on a wider scale. USA Today led with it: “Existing homes were sold at the fastest pace in eight years…” It quoted the NAR’s Lawrence Yun as pronouncing this year’s spring buying season “the strongest since the economic turndown.”

That’s where the current housing market profile seems to differ in kind from the previous peak of $230,400, registered in July 2006. That mark was reached after sales volume had started to fall. Prices then followed, starting with a slow decline that continued until the spring of 2008, when the slump became a nosedive—unleashing the subprime mortgage crisis. The “bubble” of unsupported high prices had burst.

There was more glad tidings in last week’s news, as well. U.S. home builder confidence levels hit its highest mark in “nearly a decade” (WSJ). A rise in demand for apartment housing caused a jump of 9.8% in housing starts.

But the biggest news was the existing-home price rise, reported as having “rocketed” 35% since 2011, “benefiting current homeowners by giving them an opportunity to trade up to better homes or sell and cash out.” That’s the kind of spur that can stimulate the entire housing market.

With one economist (Andrew Hunter of Capital Economics) quoted as saying “the housing recovery has shifted into a higher gear,” it wasn’t surprising that other analysts were in agreement. “Don’t Laugh” read one headline from international observer Quartz.com; “the U.S. housing market is the best story in the global economy right now.” Reuters agreed about the implications. Their headline: “Strong U.S. housing data boosts dollar.”

Myrtle Beach residents don’t have to be global investors to take advantage of this summer’s values. A simple call to my office is all it takes to get things started!

A Myrtle Beach “spec” home is a residence that has been designed and built by a Myrtle Beach entrepreneur who has no pre-existing sales order. Myrtle Beach spec homes are bold ventures: they have to be built with confidence that the design and execution will be attractive enough to generate a sale. To return a profit that’s worth the risk, the sale has to be realized quickly enough to offset the considerable costs advanced.

Dictionaries can be a little confusing about what “spec” is shortened from. Most ascribe it to “speculative,” but some (like Wiktionary) think it has to do with the builder following his own specifications.

I’d like to suggest a new third possibility—at least for one particular spec home. News about it comes to us from Bloomberg’s Business site, under the heading, “California Dreaming.” It’s about a spec home that’s being built on a grand scale…okay, maybe “grand scale” is too modest: it’s being built on an astronomical scale…a gargantuan scale…maybe more like a mega-galactic scale!

Because the asking price is going to be a half billion dollars.

Now, Myrtle Beach real estate watchers may have thought that when Johnny Depp’s luxury property in France (the one that was actually a whole village) was listed a couple of months ago, we’d hit a sort of apex of residential real estate extravagance—but clearly, we were mistaken. A $500,000,000 asking price could buy you a lot of French villages like Depp’s. It could approach a province (albeit, maybe a fixer-upper province).

The California Dreaming spec home is, land-wise, a surprisingly modest offering. Only about 4 acres or, as the builder puts it, “1.6 hectares” (I believe this indicates a hopeful nod to potential foreign buyers). So, what will this home—which won’t be completed for another 20 months—offer that our run-of-the-mill Myrtle Beach spec homes don’t?

For openers, the four acres (or 1.6 hectares) are in Bel Air, which is already a somewhat pricey neighborhood. All the hectares are situated on a hilltop with 360-degree views of the Pacific Ocean, Beverly Hills, downtown L.A., and the San Fernando Valley. Still, with the average residence sale in even that neighborhood weighing in at peasant-level prices (only $5.29 million), you’d think there must be a lot more going on.

There is. It will be roomy: 74,000 square feet in the main residence. And so you won’t have to feel hemmed in when guests show up, there will be three smaller houses. Unless you have more than 30 autos, the garage will also be ample. You’ll have four swimming pools, including a 180-foot infinity pool. To combat the California drought, the yard features 20,000 square feet of synthetic grass. To banish the boredom that might set in if the Queen fails to visit (synthetic grass won’t accommodate the corgis very well) there will be a 45-seat Imax theater. Still bored? There’s always the 8,500 square foot night club. At the end of a long night of TV-watching and night clubbing, there’s a 5,000 foot master bedroom to flop into...if you can find the bed.

Compared with our Myrtle Beach spec homes, I’d suggest the ‘spec’ in this one stands for ‘special.’ Very special. Meantime, in case you are too impatient to wait the 20 months for the California Dreaming mansion to be completed, we have a number of Myrtle Beach properties that are a good deal more practical. Call me to zero in on the great values our summer market has to offer!

For an increasing number of Myrtle Beach residents, what used to be a slam dunk assumption—that owning your home is preferable to opting for a Myrtle Beach rental home—is no longer so self-evident. The powerful reasons for owning are still there: ownership still means that you are building equity over time; it still means you are free from a landlord’s control; and it still means you have the psychological benefits of being the possessor of the place where you live, and the standing in the community that accrues to the permanence that implies.

Those are powerful inducements to forego a rental home in favor of ownership, for sure—yet according to the numbers, the number of Americans who own their homes has been declining since the advent of the housing crisis (at the moment, fewer than 2/3 of households now own their homes).

You might assume that the reasons for the increase in popularity for rental homes are simply financial, and to some extent, that’s the case. The economy, while improving, is doing so painfully slowly, wages are not rising as has been the norm in prior recoveries, and mortgage loans, while still at attractively low interest rates, can still be difficult for some Myrtle Beach borrowers to obtain.

Yet those dollars-and-cents arguments don’t paint the whole picture. Some of the reason why rental homes in Myrtle Beach are being chosen are due to changes in American lifestyles. Forbes contributor Beth Braverman offered some insights in last week’s article entitled “When Renting is More Expensive, But It’s Still the Right Move.”

Her first reason is not a new one: rental homes offer more flexibility. What is new is how Americans—particularly the group we call Millennials—increasingly value that freedom. Some of that has to do with the difficult labor market—and the premium breadwinners are placing on being able to ‘go where the work is.’

Next reason had to do with the relative illiquidity of the asset value a home represents. This looks like the first cousin to Reason #1: for someone who needs to move for professional reasons, being able to just pick up and move from a Myrtle Beach rental home can de-complicate the situation. For those who are reasonably sure they will be in town for long enough to offset the costs of acquiring and selling a home, the financial benefits may outweigh this one.

Last reason given was, “You’re not financially ready”—which is certainly the most longstanding one of all. Even if a current rental home occupant qualifies for one of the new programs (some can make the down payment as minute as 3%), it’s still possible that the ‘all in’ costs will strain resources. You have to agree with Braverman that in those circumstances, it’s probably best to build up savings, even if it means remaining in a rental home for an extra year or two.

All in all, any increase in the popularity of Myrtle Beach rental homes is good news for area investors who are (or soon will be) landlords. It’s also a great reason to give me a call this summer!

When you put your Myrtle Beach home on the market, your most effective marketing mechanism isn’t the front yard For Sale sign—although that sign is certainly one way to generate valuable neighborhood awareness. It’s not the well-designed ad your Realtor® publishes, even in the most well-read Myrtle Beach newspaper or magazine—although those expensive insertions can draw valuable inquiries.

Without a doubt, the most powerful marketing mechanism at your disposal is the Myrtle Beach Multiple Listing Service. Through it, your home’s listing in the Myrtle Beach MLS is far and away your most potent advertising tool. Although today this seems so obvious that it’s barely worth restating, in important ways that’s a relatively recent development. The Why and the How of today’s listing availability provides an interesting peek ‘under the hood’ of how 21st century real estate works.

Back in real estate’s medieval past (before the Web reached everyone—say, 20 years ago), Myrtle Beach “listings” took the form of printed sheets distributed between cooperating real estate brokers and agents. They were headed by mug shots of the properties, sometimes—when there were printing issues—less than flattering reproductions.

But even that practice was a modern development. Early in formation of the United States, groups called “Real Estate Exchanges”—the antecedents of today’s Boards of Realtors®—would meet on appointed days to exchange lists of properties their clients wished to sell. In practice, these meetings would often become auctions, with brokers bidding on behalf of their principals for properties they wanted to buy from other brokers.

It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that the word “multiple” was sometimes applied to the “listing” of properties; but by the Roaring Twenties, the advantages of “multiple listings” were widely accepted. The difference was that now brokers cooperated to combine their separate portfolios of client offerings into integrated master lists…which usually translated into all those sheets of paper in the “orderly collections” of binders on the shelves and in the briefcases of real estate pros. Orderly or not, it took a lot of diligence to keep everything current…

It was a far cry from today’s Myrtle Beach listings, which can be summoned up instantaneously on computer screens in homes and offices anywhere. Actually, on phones and tablets, no matter where they are! When you think about it, the technology has fundamentally changed the nature of how listings are used. Instead of being information that had to be gathered and shared by real estate professionals who would physically gather for that purpose, today’s MLS listings are available to be inspected and compared by you, the client, yourself—with your Realtor acting as expeditor rather than limiter. It’s the real estate professionals who make sure the parts of the listings on public view are as accurate as possible, and who guide clients all the way from their discovery of the most likely candidate properties through visiting, negotiating, and closing on their next Myrtle Beach home.

The upshot is that today’s Myrtle Beach listings are all right here, right now. And as soon as you find the ones you’d like to look into further, I’m right here—standing by for your call!