The recent decline in real estate is no longer hidden news.  It is a fact that the number of homes in Myrtle Beach, SC and surrounding areas has decreased since 2005.  With that being said, selecting the right real estate agent to sell your home is imperative.  One of the most effective parts of selling a home is how the property is being marketed.  Below is a list of items that are helping to sell homes.  If you are thinking of selling your home, you may want to print this out to ask the real estate agent if your home will be marketed in these places.

1. Real Estate Website- Does the agent have an effective website that is drawing in buyers? Recent statistics show over 70% of all buyers begin their real estate search on the internet before even contacting an agent. Also ask the agent if they have their own domain name website instead of just the website provided by the company.  For my team we have personal site, plus our local company, Coldwell Banker Chicora’s website which you can see here. In addition, we have a profile page on Coldwell Banker’s National site, ColdwellBanker.com. Also all our Luxury Homes Listed for Sale in Myrtle Beach show up on a special company website dedicated just to luxury homes called Previews.com.
2. Real Estate 2.0- Social Networks & other websites are rapidly gaining in popularity.  Buyers are using sites like Facebook, Myspace, & Twitter to find out the information about a community, the agent, and the surrounding areas before making contact with a real estate agent.
3. Real Estate Blog- Buyers who begin their online searches are finding blogs each and every day with the information they are interested in.  They are going to major search engines like Google or Yahoo! and entering the keywords for information they want.  For example, they may want to find a “Myrtle Beach Real Estate Expert” If someone searches for that term, the top three search engine results are for blogs.
4. Real Estate Networks- Real Estate Networks are also great ways for real estate agents to market homes for sale.  Not only are they continuing to advertise your home to potential buyers, but on the real estate networks, your home is being marketed to other real estate agents.  A few of these wonderful sites include Activerain, Trulia, and Zillow.  Activerain for example has over 185,000 members all related to real estate.  While not all these agents are in your area, they do have the potential of referring a buyer to a local agent that could sell your home.

Remember these four areas of effective marketing in the current real estate market.  Unfortunately, just like many things in life, what is effective at one time may not work anymore now.  You need an agent that stays on top of the market and keeps track of what is and is not working in selling homes.

An article I read in our local paper today, The Sun News confirmed that our marketing efforts are targeted in the right direction. The article shared about how the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce is focusing over 60% of their advertising towards internet marketing.  23.2% towards tv, 7% for newspapers, 5% on magazines 3% on radio & 1.8 on billboards.  Just as the chamber has come to realize, in order to be effective with marketing the focus needs to be on internet advertising!

I am not in a hurry to sell my Myrtle Beach home! This is a common phrase in real estate that is heard when working with sellers.  The sellers want to sell their home, but don’t want to give it away.  Also, sellers normally have a particular price in mind that they want their home to sell for.

What most sellers do not realize though, is when prices in real estate are declining and a high amount of inventory of homes available for sale in Myrtle Beach, SC, pricing your  home properly from the beginning is crucial.  What happens many times is a seller decides to list their home a few thousand dollars higher than market value to “See What Happens” and after a few months of no activity on their property we discuss improving the price. At the time they decide to reduce, they drop it to the price we had discussed when listing the home.  Unfortunately in the last 6 weeks prices have dropped again.

Let me give an example. Say you have a beautiful 2 BR/2BA golf course condo in Myrtle Beach that you wish to sell.  You contact me, as your Myrtle Beach Real Estate Agent to assist in selling the condo.  I check the comparables for the area and share that the comps for units similar to your unit are selling around $145,000 to $150,000.  Since you are a seller not in a hurry to sell and don’t want to just give it away, you decide to list the home for $159,900 to just see what might happen.  As your real estate agent, I share that this is not going to help sell your home quicker, but agree to list your home at that price with a mutual understanding made that if your home does not sell in the first 60 days we will adjust the price at that time to be in line with the current market.

After 60 days, we haven’t had any offers yet, so as we originally agreed I call to reduce the price to which you want to change the price to $149,900 and be in line with what the market had said when we met originally.  Only problem is that price was for 60 days ago.  During that time, 3 more listings have come on the market as well as there have been two more sales making the market range now $138,000 to $143,000.

Do you see the pattern? Even though the seller is making improvements on the price of their property, they are still not getting in front of the market curve on price.  Unfortunately, until they get in front of the curve, the likelihood of their home selling is slim. The sad part is a price that could have been set correctly in the beginning is going to cost more the seller more money in the long run.  Not only has the home decreased in value more than the original range, but there have also been many more months of mortgage payments made, utility bills, and other various expenses. 

So remember, when listing your home for sale in Myrtle Beach, are you in front of the curve always behind?

Over the past 7 years of helping clients buy homes for sale in Myrtle Beach, I have experienced all types of situations and questions from clients.  Unfortunately, because of the Fair Housing Act there are certain questions that as a Real Estate Agent, I am not allowed to answer.  Here are just of the few questions I have been asked in the past.

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  Are there a bunch of kids in the neighborhood? I don’t want a bunch of children living around me! One of the classes covered under the Fair Housing Act is age.  If the age of your neighbors is an issue to you, I always suggest driving through the neighborhood and look for clues to make your own conclusion.  Look for basketball hoops, trampolines, swing sets and children on bicycles.

• Are there a bunch of (enter a particular race) living here? Another protected class under the Fair Housing Act is race.  As a real estate agent we cannot discriminate against race.  Surprisingly though, we are asked this question probably more than any other question.
• Is this home located in a ghetto? This is the actual question that sparked me to write this post.  First, I do not know what you would consider a ghetto.  Secondly, even if I knew what was considered a ghetto, I would not be able to disclose that information.  If someone who asked this was referring to the safety of a neighborhood, I cannot discuss that either. I would instead refer my real estate client to the local police department who can share about the safety of the neighborhood.
• Are there a bunch of (enter any religion) living here? Just like race and age, we cannot discriminate against religion either.
• It seems there are some disabled people living next door, will that affect my property value? Disabled people are also part of a protected class.  I cannot comment, positive or negative about disabled people either.

While there are many other wild and crazy questions I receive daily, these are just 5 of the more regular questions I am asked that I cannot answer. So, while you may want answers to questions like these, use some of the suggestions I mentioned to find your answers instead of your local Myrtle Beach real estate agent.

The “Golden Mile” one of the finest sections of real estate in Myrtle Beach, SC.  When I say Golden Mile, I am not referring to a Tom Hanks movie from a few years back.  That my friends was The Green Mile which while it was an awesome movie, it has nothing to do with Myrtle Beach Real Estate.

So what is The Golden Mile you may ask?  Well, it is a section of single family oceanfront homes in located in the heart of Myrtle Beach, SC.  It stretches about a mile long and hence how it got it’s Golden Mile nickname.  There are no hotels, just beautiful homes and scenic views of the beach.

Besides the awesome views, you can also find some great non-crowded areas of the beach.  Even during the busiest times of the year the beach seems to always be less crowded than if you were visiting the beach near one of the large hotels.  This also means you can normally find some really great shells along the Golden Mile.

I went down to the Golden Mile last week and since it was so vacant I saw it was a perfect time to snap a few beach photos.  Don’t take my word though about the great views, see for yourself from my trip.

Beach access off of 64th Avenue North

Shells Found in Myrtle Beach, SC

Anyone who knows me well is aware of the fact that I can be a rather picky eater.  I am not a fan of salads, and not the craziest about certain vegetables.  On the other hand, I am a huge fan of steak, chicken, pork, and just about any other meat out there.

I think that is one of the reasons I love Rioz Brazilian Steakhouse in Myrtle Beach, SC.  I have eaten there on several occasions and absolutely love it!  My wife and I decided to visit Rioz yesterday for lunch and take advantage of their winter special.  During the months of January & February, they are offering half price on their feast on Sundays.

When I say feast, I am by no means exaggerating.  For those who have never been to a Brazilian steakhouse before, let me explain how the meal is served.  You start out by enjoying the very extravagant hot/cold salad bar that features everything from fresh sushi, shrimp cocktail, & fresh mozzarella to Black Beans & Rice.

Once you finish with the salad bar you then let your Gauchos know you are ready for the main course by flipping over your card to show you are now ready for the meats to start coming.  Also, you are served at this time fresh mashed potatoes, cheese bread, fried bananas, and polenta. Gauchos will then stop by your tables offering you fresh hot cuts of all types of meats that they carry on long spears. They have everything from fillet mignon to Parmesan encrusted pork and more.  You can see the full list of the 17 different types of meats available here. The meats will keep coming until you say stop.

While there are many delicious desserts available including my favorite creme brule, we so full yesterday, that we just finished with a nice piece of fresh toasted pineapple.  The meal for two of us was just under $40.00.  I believe it was an exceptional value.  The service was phenomenal as well.  The General Manager who was extremely busy yesterday even found time to stop by our table, ask how everything was and even took time to comment about how cute our daughter is.  I guess that explains why there was a 2 hour wait yesterday for Sunday Lunch! However, if you ask either myself or my wife, the wait was well worth it.

Living in Myrtle Beach, SC we are lucky not to have to deal with a lot of the cold wintry weather that other parts of the country experience for many months each winter.  For example, on Friday, I posted an update on twitter saying, “Its 5pm in the Middle of November & the temperatures is 70 outside!” At the same time, parts of the northeast were preparing for snow!

While living in Myrtle Beach we normally enjoy nice warm temperatures, there are times where we get sudden drops in the temperature, like this morning.

I just checked the temperature and it is saying 42 degrees on weather.com.  This is very chilly for here!  Anyways, on to the point of this post.

I was working from my home office this morning and no matter what I tried I could not warm up.  I looked at the windows and they appeared to be closed properly, but there just seemed to be this continual cold draft on my feet.  Then a large truck drove by the front of the house and it seemed to be rather loud.  So, I jumped up to inspect my windows a little closer.

Upon a more thorough inpection, I realized that one of my windows that looked to be closed properly was not locked tight, and therefore was not sealing the way it was intended to.  This allowed for a continual draft to come in.  A simple fix of turning the lock and draft is now gone!

So, as the temperatures continue to drop and we head into winter, now is the perfect time to check your windows to make sure they are closed properly and locked to help keep the cold air out of your home.  This simple step can save you major money on energy bills!