This spring brought with it a very active time for real estate in the Bulls Bay area. For the first half of the year, MCVL Realty, once again, held the top position claiming over one quarter of the sales in McClellanville and Awendaw. In fact, at the half way point in 2016, we have surpassed the total number of sold properties for the entire year of 2015!
When we compare sales in the area for the first two quarters (Q1 and Q2) to historical data, we see that the real estate market continues to rally. As a whole, the market is only slightly behind pace of the stellar performance put up last year. While Awendaw has been producing a larger and larger portion of the sales in the area the past few years spurred by people escaping the growth of Mount Pleasant, a dip in Awendaw’s inventory of low- to mid-priced homes and land led to fewer sales so far in 2016. We are expecting this to change as more properties come to market and more and more people take an interest in the area. The luxury end of the market is also starting to pick up pace, which will mean lots of waterfront sales along the Intracoastal Waterway and Awendaw Creek.
McClellanville, on the other hand, is seeing its strongest sales numbers ever. When we break sales in McClellanville down into homes vs. vacant land sales, we can see that while the number of homes sold in the area during the first half of the last 3 years has remained approximately the same, vacant land sales nearly doubled over the last year. MCVL Realty was especially busy in this part of the mar- ket, involved in over half of the McClellanville land sales in Q1 and Q2.
Although the number of sales has returned to pre-recession levels, we are still not seeing sale prices of properties back at their 2006 heights. I attribute this largely to the backlog of inventory of properties which grew for most of the last decade and can’t be expected to disappear over- night. This spring, we did however begin to see a decline in new listings. When coupled with these high sales rates, we should start to see the inventory of properties for sale finally begin to diminish. It is only after this decline that we will start to see a transition from the buyer’s market that we are still in and the seller’s market that many other parts of the country are experiencing. That being said, some segments of the local market, such as interior (non-waterfront) land in Awendaw and homes under $300K in Awendaw and Mc- Clellanville are experiencing scarcity causing a high demand for such properties. 
We are also beginning to see an increase in investors looking in the area for opportunities, especially long-term rental properties, for which the prices have simply exploded in the past years under extremely high demand and nearly non-existent supply. With fewer options of existing housing and great land prices, I am expecting to see more investors turn toward building new rental properties in the area, which would be a completely new movement for this area, but one that seems to have a lot of great potential. This would also have a positive effect on home sales in the long run, because there is a segment of home buyers who like to rent in an area before buying who have not been able to do so. There are also a lot of people purchasing land in the area with the goal of building a home, however with no rentals, some find it is more difficult to transition from a home owned outside of the area to a finished new construc- tion home in this area without renting locally during the construction period.
Whether you are looking to buy, sell, or rent, you can trust the agents of MCVL Realty to listen to your concerns and issues and de- velop a plan that is custom tailored to your needs. Call us today for a free, no-pressure consultation to discuss your situation and how we can best help you navigate the real estate world.