Myrtle Beach Condo Market in Peril??
What’s
happening to our condo market here in Myrtle Beach, SC??
The beginning of February, our Broker pulled statistics
for North Myrtle Beach
Oceanfront Condo pending Sales. Much to our surprise, that number was 24%……
Wow, 24%
of our current inventory was Pending a sale (having Contracts to
purchase in place) Our average number is normally 2.5%,
so you can see that a
Tenfold increase is a big deal considering how tough the market has
been
lately.
My major
concern with this information was that the majority of these
offers were contingent on Financing (meaning the buyers are applying
with a Lender
and the offer is only accepted if they are approved) So, out of that 24% of
pending sales, how many will actually close?
The
increasing restrictions that Lenders are placing on Financing
Investment Property,
2nd homes or even a regular purchase
are making it harder and
harder for people to buy. The interest to buy may be there, but the
money is
becoming increasingly harder to come by. Take an example: Want to buy a
Condo in Myrtle
Beach, SC? Oceanfront, Oceanview or even Second Row condos
require
quite a bit from you before you will be approved to Finance your new
property.
First, prepared yourself to put anywhere from 25% to 50% of
the Purchase price as a
Down Payment. Second, the Money used as a Down Payment, typically, must
be seasoned
(have been sitting in an Account of yours) for well over 60 days. You
will need
to have a Credit Score very close to 700 or even better and they will
prefer
you to have had Liquid assets(Money in Checking /Saving Accounts,
401Ks,
Stocks, Bonds, Mutual Funds or IRAs) in your account for 12 months or
longer.
The days of 100%
financing for investors is very long gone!!
Let’s go over some figures..
All these figures below
are based on
Oceanfront
Condos only!!
The main reason for that, is simply that Oceanfront properties set the
tone for our market. Let’s face it, that where everyone wants to be and
the reason your looking here!!
Pulling
Statistics on Wednesday, 2/25/09: North Myrtle Beach
- Current number of Active Listings
for sale: 474
Avg. Which
is
28%
of our Whole Associations inventory
- Current number of Listings that are
Pending a Sale: 111
That’s 23% of our
Inventory
- Current number of Condos that have
Sold since Jan.1st :
20
That’s only 4% !!! Ouch!
Now,
lets pull Statistics for the Entire
Grand Strand (
from Georgetown up to North Myrtle Beach)
- Current
Active Listings for sale:
1675
- Current
number of Listings Pending a Sale:
143
This
is 9%
of the Inventory
- Current
number of Condos that have Sold since Jan. 1st:
45
This is 3% of our
full
inventory
Next,
let’s pull the Myrtle
Beach Proper area
only
(majority of our Condo market share at 60%)
- Current Active Listings for
sale: 1008
- Current number of Listings Pending a
Sale: 27
That is only 3%
- Current number of
Condos that have Sold since Jan. 1st:
24
That is only 2%
Now, after pulling all the Statistics
above, I thought it would interesting to see what numbers were like in
past years. What I found was that we were seeing prices on Oceanfront
condos reverting back to 2003 .
That is a major shift in Market values and an even larger buying
opportunity. Take a look at what I found:
- Jan-Feb.2009 Myrtle
Beach Area Avg. List
price:$192,119 Avg Sold Price: $176,399
- There is an
8%
difference in price between Listed and Sold
- Jan-Feb. 2003 Myrtle
Beach Area Avg. List
price:$165,712 Avg. Sold Price:$159,433
- There is only a 4%
difference between Listed and Sold
- Roughly, comparing 2003
to 2009 ,
Avg. List prices are only different by 13% ;
Sold Prices were off by 10% .
Those are small margins considering how high prices were in 2005-2006
- Jan-Feb. 2005 Myrtle
Beach Area Avg. List
price:$247,824 Avg. Sold Price:$243,626
- Only 2% difference
between Listed and Sold prices
-
- The Avg. Sold price Soared
53%!!!
from 03
- Jan-Feb. 2006 Myrtle
Beach Area Avg. List
price:$271,709 Avg. Sold Price:$267,932
- Just 1.3% difference
-
- The Avg. Sold price increased
another 10%!!
from 05
- Jan-Feb. 2007
Myrtle Beach Area Avg. List
price:$330,617 Avg. Sold Price:$312,114
- Here we see a Difference of 6%!
-
- The Increase
from 06 to 07
was yet
another 16%!!
- Jan-Feb. 2008 Myrtle
Beach Area Avg. List
price:$262,048 Avg. Sold Price:$239,642
- With the prices just now being to fall, the difference is
9%!
- For the first time in Seven
Years, we see a decrease
of 23%!!! from 07 to 08
Here
comes some surprising numbers:
-
- The Average Sold
price increase from 03
to 05 was 53%!!
,
03
to 06
was 68%!!
03
to 07 was a whopping 96%!!!! HUGE
- Looking from 03
to 08 we see a change of only 50%!!
and to come full circle, form 03
to 09 we see it just at 11%!!!
Yep, it’s official! We have certainly come full circle in prices!!
The question that will continue to be on everyones mind is,
how much more will prices continue to drop? How much longer
do you think you should wait??
Well, if you are still waiting to see if the prices will drop
any further? Be careful, if you wait too
much longer, you very
well may miss the boat and find yourself in that large
category of
people who will have said
“Man, I wish I had bought
something then!”
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