Sales Surge at DeBordieu!

Activity at the private, gated oceanfront community just north of Charleston, SC has been brisk to say the least! But it's not just at DeBordieu. The National Association of Realtors has found through its annual survey that investment and vacation-home sales rose to 27% nationwide in 2011. 

According to Dawn Wotapka of the Wall Street Journal, "sales of investment and vacation homes surged last year, the latest evidence that investors and higher-income households are taking advantage of low home prices to scoop up bargains." 

Read the whole story below. 

At DeBordieu, we're finding that it's not just vacation homes selling...we've seen a surge in primary residence sales as well. People are realizing that to find a gated community, with beach access, creek access, private golf and tennis, on-site fine dining, all surrounded by thousands of acres of nature preserves is a pretty special opportunity. 

We've also seen a number of people lately who bought a home to use as a vacation home years ago, decide to make it a permanent move, and relocate here. Pictured throughout this article are homes that would make wonderful vacation homes as well as permanent homes. 

CLICK ON THE PICTURES to be linked to more information about the homes and a virtual tour on the DeBordieu Website. 

Click here to watch the WSJ Video

Here's the Wall Street Journal story by Dawn Watapka:

Sales of investment and vacation homes surged last year, the latest evidence that investors and higher-income households are taking advantage of low home prices to scoop up bargains.

In its annual survey of investment- and vacation-home sales, the National Association of Realtors found that the number of homes purchased by investors rose 65% during 2011 to 1.2 million, accounting for 27% of all home sales. In 2010, investment properties accounted for 17% of all sales.

The number of homes purchased as second or vacation homes jumped 7% last year to 502,000—accounting for 11% of all transactions, up from 10% of all sales in 2010.

While the majority of homes sold last year went to traditional buyers who plan to use the home as a primary residence, their presence in the market declined to 61% from 73% in 2010.

During the housing boom, speculators were blamed for helping to inflate the bubble by snapping up homes, especially new homes, and then quickly reselling them as prices rose higher. That led to overbuilding. Some economists now believe that investors are helping to stabilize the market by buying up excess inventory.

While their activities could help to stabilize prices, they also are creating problems for some buyers. Real-estate agents say investors, and to a smaller extent vacation-home buyers, are outmaneuvering traditional buyers, who are less likely to have the financial means to pay cash for a home and may not devote as much time to searching for properties. The NAR survey found that nearly half of all investors and 42% of vacation-home buyers purchased their homes using cash. Traditional buyers, meanwhile, are seeing deals derailed because they can't qualify for a mortgage or because appraisals for the homes they are trying to buy or sell come in too low.

"The last two to three years has been a battle between the first-time home buyer and the investor," said Budge S. Huskey, president of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, a national franchiser based in Parsippany, N.J. "Investors have won."

In some of the hardest-hit housing markets, investors are the largest category of buyers. But unlike during the boom years, when many investors were buying properties to "flip" quickly for a profit, many of today's investors buy the homes with plans to rent them out and sell them when the market improves.

"Obviously, it's a great rental market, and it's going to be a great rental market for a while," said Geoffrey Jacobs, principal at Empire Group, a developer that has amassed a portfolio of nearly 1,000 single-family homes in Phoenix since 2009. Because the typical home that he buys is only about 10 years old, "it'll compete well with a new home down the road when we go to sell the houses," Mr. Jacobs said.

Amid increased demand from investors, real-estate agents say there aren't enough foreclosed homes in good condition available in some markets, including parts of California and Florida. Buyers are "begging for properties," Mr. Huskey said. "There is an insatiable demand."

Thirty percent of vacation-home buyers said they plan to use the property as a primary residence in the future, indicating that buyers who can afford to take advantage of low prices and low interest rates to buy their future retirement homes are doing so.

In December, Sarah Donovan, who owns a home in Littleton, Mass., purchased a roughly $300,000 vacation home on Cape Cod. "My husband has wanted a house on the Cape for about 20 years," said Ms. Donovan, a stay-at-home mother who made an offer near the asking price the day she saw the three-bedroom home with a guesthouse. "The Cape market is coming back with decent housing prices, and we didn't want to miss out," she said.

(—Nick Timiraos contributed to this article.)

DeBordieu Colony is an oceanfront community located just south of Pawleys Island, South Carolina featuring private golf and tennis, saltwater creek access to the ocean, a manned security gate, and luxury homes and villas surrounded by thousands of acres of wildlife and nature preserves.

For more information, visit the website, www.DeBordieu.com, or call Troi Kaz, 843-455-4523. 

Good News from the NAR!
Take a look at this interesting press release from
the National Associaton of Realtors:
Housing and Economic Forecast Points to Rising Activity
WASHINGTON, May 12, 2011
Home sales are expected to stay on an uptrend through 2012, although the performance will be uneven with mortgage constraints weighing on the market, according to experts at a residential real estate forum today at the Realtors® Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo here.
Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said existing-home sales have been underperforming by historical standards and will rise gradually but unevenly. “If we just hold at the first-quarter sales pace of 5.1 million, sales this year would rise 4 percent, but the remainder of the year looks better,” Yun said. “We expect 5.3 million existing-home sales this year, up from 4.9 million in 2010, with additional gains in 2012 to about 5.6 million – that’s a sustainable level given the size of our population.”
Mortgage interest rates should rise gradually to 5.5 percent by the end of the year and average 6.0 percent in 2012 – still relatively affordable by historic standards.
“A huge volume of cash sales, supported by the recovery in the stock market, show that smart money is chasing real estate. This implies that there could be a sizeable pent-up demand if mortgages become more readily accessible for qualified buyers,” Yun said. “The problem isn’t with interest rates, but with the continuation of unnecessarily tight credit standards that are keeping many creditworthy buyers from getting a loan despite extraordinarily low default rates over the past two years.”
Yun said that if credit requirements returned to normal, safe standards, home sales would be 15 to 20 percent higher. He added that some parents are buying homes with cash for their children, and offering them loans which provide better returns than bank accounts or CDs.
Yun projects the Gross Domestic Product to grow 2.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2012, adding 1.5 million to 2 million jobs yearly over the next two years. The unemployment rate should decline to 8.8 percent by the end of 2011 and average 8.6 percent next year, returning to a normal level of 6 percent around 2015.
Housing starts are forecast to rise but remain below long-term trends, reaching 603,000 in 2011, up from 595,000 last year, and continue growing to 908,000 in 2012. New-home sales are seen at a record low 320,000 this year, rising to 487,000 in 2012. “A recovery in new homes will be slow because of the extra price discount in the existing home market,” Yun noted. In March, the typical new single-family home cost $53,300 more than an existing home.
Inflation appears to be relatively modest for now, with the Consumer Price Index rising 2.9 percent this year. “We’ll be closely watching the impact of fuel costs on consumer spending and inflation – that would slow economic growth, job creation and home sales,” Yun said.
Apartment rents are trending up, and are likely to rise at faster rates as vacancies decline. Following the correction in home prices, it has now become more affordable to buy in most of the country. “Twice as many renters had enough income to buy a home in 2010 in comparison with 2005, so we have a much larger pool of financially qualified renters,” Yun said. “Rising rents and excellent housing affordability conditions will encourage potential buyers who’ve been on the sidelines.”
Yun expects the median existing-home price to remain near $170,000 over the next two years, which would mark four consecutive years of essentially no meaningful price change.
Frank Nothaft, chief economist at Freddie Mac, holds similar views on the outlook. “Economic activity will accelerate this year – there will be no double dip in the economy,” he said. Nothaft is more optimistic on job growth, expecting 2.0 million to 2.5 million jobs created in 2011 with unemployment dropping to 8.4 percent by the end of the year.
Nothaft expects the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage to trend up to 5.25 percent by the end of the year, and for home sales to rise 5 percent. “National home price indices are close to a bottom and prices are likely to bottom sometime this year,” he said.
Refinancing activity in 2011 will be only half of what it was last year. “As a result, banks may become more willing to lend to home buyers,” Nothaft said.
The National Association of Realtors®, “The Voice for Real Estate,” is America’s largest trade association, representing 1.1 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
# # #
Each of the homes pictured on this page are on the market at DeBordieu, an oceanfront community located just south of Pawleys Island, South Carolina featuring private golf and tennis, saltwater creek access to the ocean, a manned security gate, and luxury homes and villas surrounded by thousands of acres of wildlife and nature preserves. Click on the picture and link to listing details and a virtual tour. For more information email TroiKaz@DeBordieu.com, Call 843-455-4523, or search the website at www.DeBordieu.com.
There has never been a better time to consider a purchase at DeBordieu!