The U.S. Chamber of Commerce awards Watermark Real Estate Group with Blue Ribbon Small Business Award

All 2010 Blue Ribbon Small Business Award® winners are eligible to win the Community Excellence Award. The business with the most votes between Monday, March 1 and Friday, March 12, will be presented with the award at America’s Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C. Polls close March 12.

DREAM BIG Small Business Award
The U.S. Chamber is proud to announce the 75 Blue Ribbon Small Business Award® winners of 2010. Seven Blue Ribbon businesses will be named finalists for the DREAM BIG Small Business of the Year Award, sponsored by Sam’s Club, on Monday, March 15.
The Blue Ribbon Small Business award is about more than recognizing financially successful businesses. It’s about honoring those that show a commitment to their employees, sound business practices, and bettering their communities.” –Thomas J. Donohue, U.S. Chamber president and CEO

Valentines Weekend Winter Wonderland...in Myrtle Beach, SC!

If you weren't in Myrtle Beach, SC this weekend, you missed a rare event...SNOW! This was really exciting for the locals, including me, who were out walking, playing,
and, of course, taking pictures.

Only drawback...The 13th Annual Myrtle Beach Marathon was cancelled. We look forward to seeing the runners next years!

US Airways Magazine Features Myrtle Beach

In the beginning, there was the beach. Not just a juncture of ocean and sand, but more than 60 miles of wide, pristine shoreline bordered with sand dunes and sea oats. Add the balmy rays of a Carolina sun, seagulls and egrets leisurely dining in tide pools, and palmetto trees swaying in the gentle sea breeze, and you’ve got the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, area circa 1940. While much has changed since then, the natural beauty of the beach has not, and it remains the star attraction. (See Full Article) Source: US Airways Magazine

Myrtle Beach Area Real Estate Revives

November real estate sales shot up more than 60 percent from last year and marked a three-month trend of increased sales in the Grand Strand market.

In November, single-family home sales were up 65 percent, and condominium sales were up 69 percent, when compared with the same month last year, according to statistics compiled Thursday from the Multiple Listing Service.

"We've got a trend here," said Tom Maeser, a real estate analyst for the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors. "It's very encouraging ... certainly a definite improvement. Last year was just such a terrible year, it's good to see some rebound."
The real estate market has seen some positive growth in sales in part of the market since June, but until November sales, increases hadn't been consistent for three consecutive months in more than two years.

"We've been looking for some uptick for a long time, and we've seen it in the last few months," said Rod Smith of Coldwell Banker Chicora. Business has slowly and steadily been picking up since June, he said. There are a number offactors driving up sales, Smith said, including pent-up demand, the first-time home buyer tax credit and increasing consumer confidence.

The first-time home buyer tax credit, which was originally set to expire at the end of November, was extended through April 30 and expanded to add a $6,500 credit for most people who buy a new primary residence. People who have owned a home for at least five consecutive years in the past eight years are eligible for the $6,500 credit, and people who have not owned a home in the past three years are considered first-time buyers.

As first-time home buyers started buying, other people who had been waiting to purchase a home decided to buy as well, he said.

Smith said that the looming expiration date of the tax credit likely did push some buyers who wanted to take advantage of the benefit.

Some critics say that the tax credit is propping up the weak housing market, but Smith disagrees. He said it merely encourages people who may have wanted to buy but were reticent.
"I really do believe we're at the bottom now, and we're stomping along in the mud," Smith said. "I don't think you're out of the bottom until values start increasing, and I think the values are going to remain constant for a while."

The median home price ped 12 percent to $170,000, and the median condo price ped 19 percent to $121,450 in November, when compared with the same month last year.
Maeser said a several-months trend of price increases would signal that the market is coming out of the strong buyer's market the downturn has created.

"The prices are just so good, and because we're such a heavy investor market, we're getting people to commit their cash to buying houses ... and that's what's driving the market," he said.
Radha Herring, of the Watermark Real Estate Group, said that she is mainly selling condos priced at less than $150,000 to cash buyers.

"We've continued to see the investors come into Myrtle Beach looking for these kinds of opportunities," she said.

With prices so low, investors who had been sitting on the sidelines are taking advantage of the good values, Herring said, adding that she thought business would be slow in November and December but has been surprised to find that it isn't. She is also seeing properties sell faster than they have in at least a year, with desirable properties moving quickly. Herring is telling buyers that there will still be the opportunity to buy in 2010 but that the deals and features they are looking for may start to dwindle. "There will still be tons of inventory into 2010, just maybe not at the price you want," she said.

Inventories are starting to draw down from last year, and as properties sell, the market will eventually see home values rise, said Penny Boling of Century 21 Boling and Associates.
Foreclosures and short sales - a sale when a seller negotiates with the lender to sell a house for less than what is owed on the mortgage - continue to drive prices down, and until most of those properties have been sold, prices will not start to gain value. Foreclosures and short sales made up about 25 percent of total sales last month on the Grand Strand.

"We are cleaning up the market that needs to be cleaned up," Boling said.
Sales at her business have been good, and she is seeing increased consumer confidence, with buyers making decisions more quickly. "People have got cash, they want to put it in something, so they put it in real estate," she said. Boling said she thinks sales increases will continue through December and into next year. "I'll be happy to say goodbye to 2009," she said, "and look for a continuation of an increasing in sales and getting our market where we'll see appreciation again."

Contact ADVA SALDINGER at 626-0317.

Home Buyer Tax Credit Extended

Several of our buyers have asked about the rumors of extending the tax credit into 2010 and also allowing "Repeat Home Buyers" access to the tax credit. The below article was in today's USA Today.

Senators agree to extend home-buyer tax credit
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON — Senators agreed Wednesday to extend a popular tax credit for first-time home buyers and to offer a reduced credit to some repeat buyers.The tax credit provides up to $8,000 to first-time home buyers but is set to expire at the end of November. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that new home sales fell 3.6% in September, and some industry representatives blamed uncertainty about the tax credit.Senators agreed to extend the existing tax credit for first-time home buyers while offering a reduced credit of up to $6,500 to repeat buyers who have owned their current homes for at least five years, said Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. (cont'd)

Watermark Real Estate Group-Foreclosure List
Interested in Foreclosures in our area. We will send you a free Foreclosure List. Condo List or House List.

Big homes holding out in Myrtle Beach area

Sales of homes priced under $250,000 are picking up, but finding a buyer for something in the $1 million-plus range continues to be a daunting challenge.

About 75 percent of single-family homes sold on the Grand Strand in the first half of the year were priced under $250,000, up 5 percent from last year, according to numbers compiled by SiteTech Systems, a local company that tracks the real estate market.

How strongly the high-end market comes back depends largely on what happens to the very wealthy and if they will be able to afford second homes, said Tom Maeser, the market analyst for the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors.

Quintie Smith of Harbour Properties Realty said the high-end, high-priced home market is dead. He has had properties on the market for more than a year and despite price s and various types of marketing, they still haven't been sold. Smith has listed several properties in Grande Dunes and said that of the properties that are selling, many have ped prices 50 percent or more. Those lower-priced homes have to be sold before the more expensive ones have a chance, he said. "To get that market moving, you've got to sell the stuff below that," he said. He isn't seeing a lot of investors buying, and many of the contracts he has had have fallen through, he said. "The people who are buying are not buying for something like this," Smith said pointing to the view of the ocean from the second floor of one of his listings, "but because they want to get a deal." He said one problem is that some sellers are having trouble coming to terms with the current value of their home and want more than their house will get in this market. "The problem is they get irrational because they're so desperate to sell something," he said.

Kevin DeRenzo, the owner of Beach Realty said sellers need to be educated about the current value of their property."If the sellers don't get into line with reality of what the prices are, then we will continue in the standoff and there will continue to be few sales," he said. During the peak of the market, buyers were buying properties and driving prices up, now the market is correcting itself and "we're just figuring out what it's worth," DeRenzo said. One of the main reasons people are not buying many homes up over $1 million is that there isn't a lot of financing available for those properties, he said. DeRenzo sold a house last year for $2.4 million but hasn't sold anything over $1 million since then, he said.

Marvin Heyd of Prudential Burroughs & Chapin said that homes under $250,000 are selling at a higher rate because prices have ped and interest rates are low. First-time buyers are also taking advantage of an $8,000 tax credit. "The lending arm and the interest rates are so conducive to that price range," he said. Sales of homes under $150,000 accounted for more than a third of total real estate sales, Maeser said "The lower end is definitely where the most action is," he said. "The problem is inventory, we don't have a lot of it."

Radha Herring, the broker-in-charge at the Watermark Real Estate Group said many of her buyers are cash buyers and are buying beach-front condominiums for under $150,000. "I think it's a question of affordability," she said, adding that there aren't too many people who can bring more than $250,000 cash to the table. The other factor is that the higher-priced home sales take longer because buyers can be picky and there is a lot of inventory available.

Penny Boling, of Century21 Boling & Associates said business has already picked up for her, not only in the lower-priced homes but across the market. Her company has several pending contracts on $1 million-plus houses. she said "It's the emotional stability of the consumer today, they feel more confident that the market has leveled off, that today is the time to purchase," Boling said. Buyers who have been looking for the past year are starting to buy now, she said. "They are not just buying an investment or a place at the beach, they're buying it basically on the long-term," she said.

Adva Saldinger - asaldinger@thesunnews.com