Sales, Digital Marketing, and Business Development expert with a love for all things real estate. Real Estate has been a passion of mine for many many years, and no matter what type of business venture or career I am involved in, locally I will always be engaged in the real estate industry as an agent, investor or developer.
There are many wonderful beach resort communities here in South Carolina such as Kiawah, Seabrook, Folly Beach, Sullivan’s Island, but the Isle of Palms SC has to be one of the best. Just located a few miles outside the historic area of Charleston, SC the Isle of Palms holds a little resort “gem” called Wild Dunes. Gated, but not private the Wild Dunes resort is open to the public for golf, tennis, and dining. Isle of Palms is just on the other side of Mount Pleasant in Charleston county across the isle of palms connector. Mount Pleasant is one of the Charleston area’s most popular suburban communities. Real estate in Mount Pleasant SC is what you would expect to find in most “standard” suburban areas around the country.
However, you must be aware of what it takes to buy in a gated resort. Unlike purchasing a home in a “normal” area, owning in a resort comes with some extra costs you might not be used to. Resorts have more costs like regimes, HOAs, Dues, and at Wild Dunes in SC There is a ONE TIME transfer fee of 1/2 of 1% of the purchase price. So if you purchase a $500,000 home that means you’ll pay $2500 transfer fee to the Wild Dunes Association. This helps pay to keep up the area (in addition to your monthly regime payments), and HOA dues. Which ALSO go to help keep up the maintenance of the building (if SFA), grounds, amenities, insurance, clean up, etc.
The HOA monthly payments (aka regime fees) usually range from $400 a month to well over $1200 depending on the building and area. Some of the condo developments ALSO have half of 1% capital contribution fee due at closing. Regime dues can be monthly or quarterly. The good news is that these payments also cover your insurances on your unit for the wind coverage, flood, and hazard (especially when pertaining to condo/villa). Not SFD. These fees do not give you free golf in the resort, however, most times ownership in a resort does get you some privileges and discounts for use of golf, and tennis amenities.
Regimes By Building & Property: $924 HOA payment each year as well.
Every year people come to The Isle of Palms, to vacation in and buy Wild Dunes real estate and enjoy the lifestyle of living or owning a home in the Wild Dunes resort. Featuring two stellar golf courses, and tennis courts, elegant landscapes, beach access, swimming pools all over, Wild Dunes offers a vacation lifestyle anyone could love. From an investment standpoint having a vacation rental on the island isn’t a bad choice either. Many of the homes on the Isle of Palms rent for $5000+ a week, and beachfront condos can easily gross $40,000 – $80,000 a year.
According to USAToday.com (2013 The Associated Press), the number of people who signed contracts to buy U.S. homes jumped in May to the highest level in more than six years, suggesting people are seeking to buy before mortgage rates rise further. The National Association of Realtors says that its seasonally adjusted index for pending home sales rose 6.7% to 112.3 last month. That’s the highest level since December 2006. Signed contracts have risen 12.1% in the past 12 months.Sales of previously occupied homes jumped above the 5 million in May for the first time in 3 ½ years, evidence that the housing recovery is growing steadily.Sales last peaked 5 million in November 2009. During that month and October 2009, a home-buying tax credit briefly inflated the sales pace. Prior to that, sales hadn’t been above 5 million since July 2007. However, before you get too excited and thing we are out of the woods; that’s still below the 5.5 million annual sales that are consistent with a healthy market. New home sales also jumped in May. They rose 2.1% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000, the fastest pace in five years.
Great news for those looking to sell. The housing market is still showing signs of growing with no signs of stopping anytime in the near future. This is great news for those who are underwater and facing short sale scenarios or foreclosures. As prices continue to increase and demand grows it will be much easier to get those homes off to buyers without having to take a huge hit on a short sale. Home prices rose a record 12.1% in the year ending in April, the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index showed.According to USAToday.com: Nationwide, 9.7 million, or 19.8% of homeowners with a mortgage, owed more on their homes than they were worth as of March, says market researcher CoreLogic. The number of underwater homeowners has dropped below 10 million for the first time in more than at least three years.Rising home prices, up 12.1% in April year-over-year, have lifted 1.7 million home loan borrowers above water in the past year, the data show. As long as home prices continue to rise it will encourage homeowners that have been struggling to put their homes back on the market. “We still have along way to go;” says Charleston, SC realtor, James Schiller. Based on median asking prices per square foot for all non-foreclosure listings on Trulia through May 2013, it found urban home prices up 11.3% year-over-year vs. 10.2% in the suburbs.“As market conditions improve across most of the country, some metros have moved onto the IMI list while marginal seasonal fluctuations have nudged others off of it,” says NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “This is to be expected as the recovery expands. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the number of improving markets is now more than three times what it was in June 2012.” While the Case-Shiller index measures prices for leading cities, data from real estate website Trulia shows prices rising nearly everywhere in the U.S., but even faster in cities than in the suburbs.Bottom line is things are moving in the right direction and struggling homeowners that have loans over what the house is worth are shrinking. They need to get with their agents to crunch the numbers and see if they can sell on the positive side.
A jumbo mortgage loanis one where the amount borrowed is above conventional conforming loan limits. This standard is set by the two government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and sets the limit on the maximum value of any individual mortgage they will purchase from a lender. Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC) are GSEs (government sponsored entities) that purchase the bulk of U.S. residential mortgages from banks and other lenders along with the FHA, allowing them to free up liquidity to lend more mortgages. When FNMA and FHLMC limits don’t cover the full loan amount, the loan is referred to as a “jumbo mortgage” in which private investors are in the marketplace to provide these necessary funds. The average interest rates on jumbo mortgages are typically higher than for conforming mortgages due to the inherent risk the investors are taking on riskier backed assets. On October 1, 2011 the jumbo conforming limit of $729,750 in “high cost” areas was reduced to $625,500.As of 2010, the limit on a conforming loan in “general” areas was $417,000 for most of the US, apart from Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the limit was $625,500. The limit in “high cost” areas was $729,750 and $938,250, respectively.
Jumbo mortgage loans are a higher risk for lenders. This is because if a jumbo mortgage loan defaults, it may be harder to sell a luxury residence quickly for full price because less of the population can afford pricier homes. Luxury prices are more vulnerable to market highs and lows in some cases. That is one reason lenders prefer to have a higher down payment from jumbo loan seekers. Jumbo home prices can be more subjective and not as easily sold to a mainstream borrower, therefore many lenders may require two appraisals on a jumbo mortgage loan. The interest rate charged on jumbo mortgage loans is generally higher than a loan that is conforming, due to the higher risk to the lender. It can be more expensive to refinance a jumbo loan due to the closing costs, because taxes, insurance and other related costs are so much greater. Some lenders will offer the service of an extension and consolidation agreement, so that a jumbo refinancer will not have to pay for mortgage tax again on the same principal balance. In other cases, title insurance companies will offer up to a 50% discount, often required by law for those refinancing within 1 year to 10 years. The largest discount is for refinancing within one year. Some consumers seeking a jumbo mortgage choose to seek advice from a competent professional familiar with jumbo mortgage loans.
OPTION 2 – Some investment brokers and/or large investment firms will lend money to their clients for jumbo luxury loans but secure it against liquid assets they manage for them. Often times these loan are lower in cost since their is collateral backing the loan to the borrower.
As reported by CNBC on Thursday new construction home sales were the best on record since 1963. Sales of new homes rose in April to the second highest level since the summer of 2008 while the median price for a new home hit a record high, further signs that housing is recovering. The median price of a home sold in April was $271,600, the highest level on government records going back to 1993. The April price was 8.3% higher than in March and 13.1 percent higher than a year ago. With the April increase, sales are now 29% higher than a year ago, but sales are still below the 700,000 level considered healthy by economists.How’s this translate for those of us in Charleston, South Carolina? According to USAToday, Sales in the South were up 3% but sales fell 16.7%. Sales of previously owned homes rose in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.97 million, the highest level in 3½ years.As the supply of available homes to buy remains tight this trend is likely to continue through the foreseeable future. Applications for permits to build homes rose in April to the highest level in nearly five years. While construction of new homes dipped a little in April, the drop came one month after construction topped 1 million for the first time since June 2008. Several major homebuilders have told of strong annual increases in orders for the first three months of the year, others, said that orders in April jumped 59% from a year earlier.
USA Today reported that mortgage rates are rising and if you have checked recent mortgage websites you’d see the changes for yourself. WASHINGTON (AP) — The nationwide average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose for the third straight week May 23, hitting their highest levels since mid-March.The Fed has been buying treasuries for over three years now to keep rates lower and boost the not only the housing market but also the economy. It’s only reasonable that this can’t continue forever, considering the fiscal problems in Washington. The average on the 15-year loan jumped to 2.77%, up from 2.69% last week. The record low of 2.56% was hit on May 2.
Moreover, as the economy improves investors are more likely to purchase equities versus MBS (mortgage backed securities) the driver of how the mortgage market trends.As investors, and traders get more comfortable with the economy as a whole their likelihood of staying conservative in treasuries weakens into more aggressive strategies. Thus they pull capital out of MBS and into stocks, and equities resulting in higher mortgage rates.Mortgage rates rose sharply this week because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note.The yield rose above 2% Wednesday for the first time since March 14 and was at 2.02% Thursday. Investors began selling government bonds Wednesday after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed several policymakers favored slowing the Fed’s bond purchases, perhaps as early as this summer.
According to CNBCnew home sales are up almost 15% and the highest price jump on record since 1963. Charleston, SC homes prices have gone up as well. Existing-home sales also rose slightly last month to reach their highest level since late 2009, while the supply of homes for sale took a big jump but still remains tight, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.April’s annual sales rate was the highest since November 2009, when sales hit an annual rate of 5.44 million. But sales are still at a relatively low level. From 2000 through 2005, before the housing bubble burst, the annual rate of sales averaged more than 6 million a month. Although to most agents things are almost booming it is a misleading because the boom for builder and sellers really has to do with lack of inventory in available Charleston, SC real estate listings. The inventory of homes for sale, meanwhile, expanded in April to a 5.2-month supply from 4.7 months in March. That means all the homes would sell in that time-frame if no new supply was added. Realtors consider a 6-month supply to be a balanced market between buyers and sellers. “The robust housing market recovery is occurring in spite of tight access to credit and limited inventory,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “If not for those constraints, existing-home sales easily would be well above the 5 million-unit pace,” he said. New-home construction is needed to alleviate the inventory tightness, he says, and “tame” price growth to a healthy pace.While here locally – Charleston, SC new construction is up +8.6% from May of 2012 as seen on the left.
Charleston South Carolina is blessed to have many fun things to do, attractions and activities to choose from when visiting the area. Below are a list of the area’s most well known, and loved fun festivals, gatherings, and outdoor tourist destinations in Charleston area.
There are essentially 4 beaches in the Charleston area: Folly beach is the more “crazy” youthful and less family oriented of them. The Isle of Palms & Wild Dunes beaches, which vary between quiet and good for families to the fun “party” block near the Windjammer. Sullivan’s Island which connects to Isle of Palms, is a little more laid back and even more quiet and offers a slightly more private less touristy feel.
Lastly is the beaches of Kiawah and Seabrook which are most reserved for those that live on Kiawah or Seabrook or are staying in one of the resort’s homes. These beaches are very private, quiet and pristine.If you love to be outdoors then come visit our wonderful city and have some fun.
If you have children here are some fun ideas to tire them out:
Piccolo Spoleto – Piccolo Spoleto (smaller version of Spoleto which is 2 weeks) is the perfect complement to the international scope of its parent festival and its 700 events in 17 days, transforms Charleston into an exhilarating celebration of performing, literary and visual arts.
Southeastern Wildlife Exposition – A 3-day celebration of nature that has earned a reputation for excellence, SEWE now hosts the world’s foremost experts in wildlife and nature art, as well as conservation research and environmental education.
Charleston Boat Show –The biggest boat show and sale in the Charleston Area, returns to the Convention Center, with hundreds of boats from the area’s top retailers on display.
Low Country Oyster Festival – Every year our waters bloom with some of the best, most succulent oysters in the United States and we like to celebrate how blessed we are have them right in our back yard.
Charleston Food and Wine Festival – A festival showcasing the best that Charleston has to offer in restaurants, chefs, and dining for the foodie in all of us.
Patriots Point – One of the largest Naval museums of its kind in the world The USS Yorktown with the addition of other ships such as the destroyer USS Laffey, known as The Ship That Would Not Die. The Treasury class Coast Guard cutter Ingham would join the Patriots Point battle group along with the Balao class submarine Clamagore.
Boone Hall Plantation – Boone Hall is also one of America’s oldest working, living plantations. We have been continuously growing and producing crops for over 320 years.
Fort Sumter – Fort Sumter was built following the War of 1812, as one of a series of fortifications on the southern U.S. coast. Construction began in 1827, and the structure was still unfinished in 1860, when the conflict began.
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens – Founded in 1676 by the Drayton family, Magnolia Plantation has survived the centuries and witnessed the history of our nation unfold before it from the American Revolution through the Civil War and beyond.
Middleton Place – National Historic Landmark and a carefully preserved 18th-century plantation that has survived revolution, Civil War, and earthquake
Cypress Gardens – Outdoor kayaking through native cypress swamp and trees with alligators, wildlife, flowers and more.
The Angel Oak Tree– is a Live Oak that is a native species found throughout the Lowcountry (Coastal Carolina). This tree on Johns Island is believed to be in excess of 1500 years old. Is a national landmark here in Charleston, SC.
Charleston, SC Theaters, PLAYS and Musicals Stage shows
Charleston Stage – At the Historic Dock Street Theatre, Charleston Stage has presented over 150 productions and played to a collective audience of over one million strong.
Footlight Players – Shows and Plays in Charleston SC – The Footlight Players presents six plays in a regular season, stage productions which mark them as one of the leading community theatres in the South. Generations of plays presented by and for the community have consolidated the aims of the Footlight Players:
Theatre 99 – As “Charleston’s Home For Improv Comedy”, improv is our thang, but we also offer sketch and stand up, cabaret, music, and other raucous entertainment for people who groove to something saltier than the mainstream.
As one would expect sellers are testing the waters again as word of price increases gets out. Here in Charleston, South Carolina we are seeing the same trend in housing. The supply of newly listed homes for sale is starting to show signs of keeping pace with buyer activity in some of the nation’s hottest real estate markets, new data suggest.One agent interviewed stated about a new townhouse development in Mount Pleasant, SC: “we are all sold out before construction even begun. The only one we have available won’t be finished until October, we sold everyone before we even broke ground.”
Charleston SC Home Prices Increasing with Supply
According to many Charleston, SC real estate agents; word of multiple offers are becoming the norm and as soon as houses come on the market offers are coming in almost immediately. In 21 of 24 major metropolitan markets tracked by residential brokerage ZipRealty, new listings outnumbered new sales contracts for the 30 days ended March 15.Other cities seeing the same situation included Phoenix — where January home prices were up 23% year-over-year, Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller data shows — the San Francisco Bay Area, Denver and Houston. San Francisco home prices followed Phoenix’s gain with an almost 18% pop in January year-over-year. Supply may “finally start to keep pace with frenzied buyer activity,” says Lanny Baker, ZipRealty CEO.In seven of the cities analyzed by ZipRealty, more than one-fourth of the homes listed for sale sold in less than seven days. The Charleston, SC housing market is no different. Charleston, SC real estate broker stated: “one of my buyer clients put in an offer with three others the same day a house came on the market and we had to come in over list price to beat the competition and secure the winning contract.”As existing homes sit longer inventories will inevitably increase as sellers who have been waiting begin to put out feelers and “test the market”.
Good new for all; mortgage rates fall once more in Charleston, SC along with the rest of the U.S. 30 Year mortgage rates dropped to 3.40% last week, down from 3.41% the week before and although not a huge drop, anything lower is better than an increase. Last year this time rates were at 3.88% for a 30 year fixed. Even better, for those who qualify, the average rate on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage hit a record low 2.61% this week, down from 2.64% in the prior week. Freddie Mac began keeping nationwide average records in 1971.
“The housing market is getting a boost with mortgage rates hovering at or near record lows,” said Frank Nothaft, a vice president and chief economist at Freddie Mac. On the housing front, existing home sales averaged an annualized pace of 4.9 million the first three months of the year, the most since the fourth quarter of 2009. Furthermore, new home sales jumped to 424,000 during the first quarter, strongest showing since the third quarter of 2008.
These lower interest rates are almost sure to improve the Charleston, South Carolina housing market and send prices further higher. With the lack of inventory coupled with very low rates many prospective homebuyers are finding it increasingly difficult to find the home they want as supplies dwindle.
For those who know they may only be in their home for 5 years or less; considering an short term adjustable rate mortgage could be the best option as the 5 year treasury ARM have hit a record low at 2.58% down from 2.6% last week which could equate in considerable savings if your rate is anywhere above 4.5%.
According to USAToday.com: Nationwide, 9.7 million, or 19.8% of homeowners with a mortgage, owed more on their homes than they were worth as of March, says market researcher CoreLogic. The number of underwater homeowners has dropped below 10 million for the first time in more than at least three years.Rising home prices, up 12.1% in April year-over-year, have lifted 1.7 million home loan borrowers above water in the past year, the data show. As long as home prices continue to rise it will encourage homeowners that have been struggling to put their homes back on the market. “We still have along way to go;” says 
homes prices
“The robust housing market recovery is occurring in spite of tight access to credit and limited inventory,” says Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. “If not for those constraints, existing-home sales easily would be well above the 5 million-unit pace,” he said. 
The Angel Oak Tree
You must be logged in to post a comment.