| Wilmington Area
Red hot real estate rides a rising wave
Boomers
look to area; fueling ‘phenomenal’ sales growth
Is real estate hot in
Southeastern North Carolina
? You could say.
Jim
Wallace, president of Intracoastal Realty in Wilmington, said his
company’s business is up 99 percent this quarter compared
with first quarter 2004
“And,
last year was a good year,” Mr. Wallace said.
The
national picture is writ large in
Southeastern North Carolina
.
Brunswick
and New
Hanover
counties are experiencing no letup in housing demand. According to
the N.C. Association of Realtors, housing sales were up 23 percent in
Brunswick
County
in March.
New
Hanover
County
saw an even more impressive 36 percent gain.
Paul Martinez, a broker with Laney Real Estate, said he believes many
people shopping for homes are investing
in the housing market
because the instability of the stock market “scared them off.”
Beach
communities, in particular, he said, is seeing phenomenal growth.
Property on
Kure
Beach
has risen as much as 100 percent in the past year, Mr. Martinez said.
Mr. Wallace, just back from a meeting with brokers from other parts of
the
United States
, said the surge in housing sales in coastal
areas is happening from
Spokane
,
Wash.
, to
Portland
,
Maine
. He said that the housing market in
Naples
,
Fla.
, is robust – in spite of being hit repeatedly by hurricanes last
year.
Boomers, the first of who turn 60 next year, are gravitating toward
the coast, Mr. Wallace said. They
want to get in on the market before they retire.
Wilmington
is now on the map. It’s no longer a secret that this is a
really good place to live, he said.
And
that has been reflected in the run-up in housing sales and prices in
this area.
Brunswick
County
’s March house
sales totaled $70 million, up 40 percent over the same
month last year. Average price was $284,476.
New
Hanover
County
(numbers also include part of
Pender
County
) also gained bragging rights. March house sales totaled $186.5
million, an impressive 56 percent gain over March, 2004’s numbers.
Average price was $232,853.
Mr. Wallace said it is not unusual for sellers to get multiple offers.
A
finite amount of beach and waterfront property helps fuel the
market.
“When it’s gone, it’s gone,” Mr. Wallace said.
He expects the market will level off eventually, but no one can say
definitively when that will happen.
George Laney, president of Laney Real Estate and president of the
Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors, said growth
in this area is playing catch-up after the hurricane years
in the late 1990s when the real estate market was fairly level.
Brunswick
real estate, he said, is growing so fast because parts of the county
are only five minutes from downtown Wilmington.
“How many places in
Wilmington
can you say you’re only five minutes from downtown,” he asked.
Brunswick
County
, he said, is “right across the bridge.” When PPD moves its
corporate offices downtown, workers might find
Brunswick
attractive – taxes are lower and the commute to work may be shorter.
Living five minutes from work is a great selling point, Mr. Laney
said.
Both Mr. Laney and Mr. Wallace said
the real estate market is not experiencing a bubble.
“People are putting more money down on homes and their debt service
is historically low,” Mr. Laney said.
Mr.
Wallace said this is the type of market that makes you “pinch
yourself and think ‘this is phenomenal growth.’ “It’s pretty
incredible.”
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