Myrtle Beach Condo Sales On the Upswing

The Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors finally has a bit of good news for those interested in Myrtle Beach real estate.

According to the local paper, they say that condo sales have started on the upswing, although home sales and prices are still down from last year in April.

April 2007 saw 865 home and condo sales compared to 520 in 2008, which is a 40 percent decline. There were, however 268 condo sales in April itself, which reflects a steady increase every month since the new year.

It's speculated that the prices are now in line with what buyers want to pay, and sellers have lowered their expectations to the same point...so more sales are happening every day. With the usual rise in sales from the summer vacationers, this is great news for the coming months.

Unlike many areas where luxury real estate stayed relatively level, the CCAR reports that the million dollar properties here are the ones suffering the most from the lag in Myrtle Beach home sales, and have a whopping 92 month supply of houses on the market right now. That is NOT good news.

They did report only an ll-month supply of homes less than $150,000, and say that the ideal market is less than 6 months. I'm not sure WHERE you would find a home in that price range except far from the beach, or perhaps a mobile home. Probably there would be nothing in a neighborhood where anyone would want to live. Certainly there is no cheap oceanfront property in that line, although you can find golf course condos for under $100K and not far from the beach.

April saw houses stay on the market for 163 days and condos much worse, for 254 days. That is over 2 months longer than 2007. However, the news column did say that one of the local appraisal companies reported as little as a 30-60 day time on the market for homes and condos in Myrtle Beach that are priced close to the appraisal value.

The market is down the most for the investment property in Myrtle Beach, such as oceanfront homes and resorts. It will be a while before we'll see the level of investor purchases that we had during the big boom of 2004-2005.

But things are looking up, finally!

Good facts to know: Over 10 years, a stock market investment that brings a normal 10% market rate of return would yield $23,600.

According to the NAR, the same investment used as a down payment on a home that appreciated only 5% would return as much as five times that same return, or $110,300.

See our Myrtle Beach real estate news blog!