Experts who have been involved in the Myrtle Beach real estate market for a few years have all predicted a turnaround in the next twelve months or so. But nobody has been willing to go out on a limb and be more specific on their time frame, or even what we should be looking for to prove or disprove their theories.

Well, hang onto your hats, because Price & Company Realty is ready to call the winner. Are you ready? Here it is: Price & Company Realty believes that the bottom of the market has come and gone already, and that we are now a month into a new appreciating market that may continue for years to come.

I imagine that some folks reading this will be jumping up and down with excitement right now. Others of you will fold your arms, look at us sideways, and say, “Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

Well, okay. Here are the top three reasons why we think that our market is on the move again:

• The Grand Strand is first and foremost a vacation destination (so short term rentals should be just fine). Some of these vacationers will purchase second homes here as well. The folks who can afford upscale vacations – and second homes – are predominantly not affected by the current economic bluster, nor are they affected by the subprime mortgage mess. Once the media chooses its next target, these buyers will get back to buying.
• The Grand Strand is secondly a retirement destination. The desirability of our area hasn’t changed, but the northern retirees have to sell their current property before they will purchase here. Here’s the good news. Activity here at Price & Company has picked up significantly in January and February. We had a conversation earlier this week with a broker from New York who confirmed that their January was “better than their November and December - combined!” Also, in the Detroit (the heart of the rust belt) newspaper on Friday, came the report that sales of homes and condos doubled last month over a year ago. In Detroit!! (No offense. Love ya. Mean it.) We have been waiting patiently for this dam of pent-up demand to burst. Water is now gushing through the cracks, and anyone with an ounce of foresight knows what this means.
• The wobbly leg of our local real estate tripod is investment. Many real estate investors dropped Myrtle Beach like a hot potato over the last 24 months, but are now back snooping around, looking for good deals… and they are finding them and picking off what we call the “low-hanging fruit.” Many investors are also getting involved with local investment experts who can guide them through the new Myrtle Beach marketplace. Once the low hanging fruit is gone, investor demand will continue to edge prices upward again, although the stratospheric price appreciation of 2005 is long gone.
• Nationwide, mortgage applications were up 12% last week. This may be an anomaly, or it may be a sign. How long will you wait to find out?

And, although we’ve said it over and over again, if you can ignore the media long enough to look at the facts, reports of disaster have been blown out of proportion here on the Grand Strand:

• Over the last 30 years, existing home prices have increased an average of more than 6 percent every year. This means that home values have doubled every 10 years. Try plugging those numbers into your stock portfolio.
• Total housing sales for 2007, while down from 2006, are expected to be the fifth best on record. Ever.
• The National Asociation of Realtors expects to show a 1.9 percent decrease for the year nationwide. The press might call that a “plunge,” but on a home that’s priced at the national median of $217,000, this decrease amounts to just over $4,000, or the same annual hit you took on your SUV last year.
• If you purchased your home last year, you might be upset at this slight decrease. But if you’ve owned your home for at least five years, as most folks have, you still have significant gains in value that are not in danger. Relax!

If your Chevy Suburban doesn’t have your knickers in a knot, housing shouldn’t either. Especially when it’s expected to go up 3.1 percent next year, which I promise, the value of your SUV won’t.

Think about it. Will 2008 be the “I Told You So” year where you took action, or where you wish you did?

(Thanks to www.housingmarketfacts.com for the statistics shown in the second list.)

In the national media these days, real estate is like Jennifer Lopez. It’s all about the bottom.

In the Wall Street Journal Blog “Real Time Economics,”James Glassman, economist at J.P. Morgan Chase, argues most of the necessary decline in home prices has already occurred. “Given the present trends in income and house prices, real estate excesses of the past five years will have vanished by spring 2008,” he argues in a new report.

Thanks, James. Spring of ‘08 you say? Right around the corner. Great, but …

“There is no sign of a bottom in any of these data,” Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, says in his article “Is now the time to purchase a house?”

Robert Shiller, the oft-quoted Yale University economist, says the bottom is not imminent and “could be in five or 10 years.”

Lehman Brothers says we’ll see the bottom in 2009. The personal finance magazine Kiplinger agrees with 2009. Depending on your “news source” you could find the bottom answer in any year between 2008 and 2012.

But right now, you’re reading this blog. So I will give you my own best answer to the J-Lo real estate market question. My answer is: Does it really matter?

I’m actually stealing that answer from a man who once provided it to me. I think the story applies here. In September of 2001, I was working with the guy who is my closest thing to a financial planner. I had been talking to him for several days about various topics when the 11th of that month rolled around and the world changed forever. The stock market, obviously, was affected by the 9/11 attacks. I saw opportunity in the market, but NEVER having success with stocks, asked my financial planner guy what I should look at.

He told me to look for companies who would take a huge immediate hit after 9/11 but that were certain to survive. The crisis might have crippled them short-term, but they were never going to go away. For me, that was Boeing, which, when the markets re-opened, was trading at nearly $25 per share (about 43 percent) off its 52-week high. It was a value. So I called my guy and asked him “Should I buy now? What if it drops a little bit more?”

His answer was simple: “Does it really matter?”

It didn’t. A value buy is a value buy. I bought as many shares of Boeing stock as I could afford, at $33 per share. In a few days, the stock dropped to about $29 but never went lower. Like I guessed, people DID NOT stop flying after 9/11. Boeing did not stop making airplanes, and in a little over two years, when Boeing shares reached $66, I sold half of my stock, taking my principal back. I let the rest, “house money,” ride for a while.

When Boeing stock kept hovering between $85 and $95, I decided to start thinking about selling, not wanting to be too greedy. I started watching the stock price hourly, thinking “OK, is now when to pull the trigger?” What if I sold at $90, and it rose to $91? What if I don’t sell, and it drops to $85? Then I thought “Does it really matter?’

I sold at $88 a share. My overall return on investment was 233 percent. My guy was right — the $4 per share I didn’t wait for at the beginning really didn’t matter.

I still am happy with my only victory ever in the stock market. And the story reminds me of today’s real estate market. Are prices going lower? When do I buy? Where is the bottom? When is the bottom coming? What if I can get an even better deal tomorrow?

Does it really matter?

Real estate all over the country right now is the Boeing of Sept. 11. In short-term crisis, yes, prices have dropped significantly, making it a value. And, like Boeing, it’s not going anywhere. It will survive. Just as people kept flying after 9/11, people will keep living in houses after this housing slump. And in apartments. And condos. I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure of that.

Here in Myrtle Beach, the challenges of our current real estate hasn’t quite reached the dismal, epidemic proportions we read and hear about in the national media. If you can find a great property in a great area of Myrtle Beach for a great price, do you really need to know exactly where the bottom is, or if it has already been hit? If you can make returns on investment that far eclipse my return on Boeing stock by getting involved right now, why would you care about where the “bottom” is? Are you so slick, sophisticated or successful an investor that you need a 250-percent return instead of a 200-percent return? If you can double or even triple your money now, is it worth waiting to see if you can do a little better?

Go ahead, ask yourself the question.

Does it really matter?

Thanks to Mark Koestner of www.QuitWorkSomeDay.com, on whose blog post this is based.

If you believe in the concept of “Paying It Forward” - doing good works for others to repay the good that has happened to you - then last weekend’s Parade of Homes at The Bluffs on the Waterway in Carolina Forest is a perfect example of how this works.

Look, we’re lucky that Myrtle Beach real estate hasn’t been hit by the slowdown as badly as many areas, and we are grateful for the successes we have enjoyed recently. The Parade of Homes brought more than 150 people out to look at some beautiful custom homes (good for our clients) and at the same time, raised over $668.00 in donations plus food and paper items for the Horry County Children’s Shelter (good for the kids).

“The Shelter receives a surge of donations around the holidays,” said Chris Price, organizer of the event and Broker-In-Charge of Price & Company Realty, “but they have needs year round and we can’t forget about them in January and February.”

Realtors from nine local agencies worked together to showcase seventeen custom-built homes in The Bluffs on the Waterway, an Intracoastal Waterway community. Admission to the event was free, but the donation of kid-friendly canned food items or $10.00 cash donation per person was suggested, with 100% of all donations benefitting the Horry County Children’s Shelter. Cash donations were aggregated and used to purchase items on the Shelter staff’s wish list, including nonperishable food, paper goods and other staples that the Shelter uses regularly. Our website has all of the details of this event.

The media’s focus on real estate has continued into the new year, but as the good news grows, they have no choice but to report the good news before they spin it. Let me show you how to read between the lines and get at the truth.

In the Myrtle Beach Sun News recently, the lead real estate article goes into some detail of local numbers, national numbers, local interviews and national generalizations. If you can read between the lines and focus on what is important in our local market, and what local experts say, you are sure to come up with something closely resembling the truth. I’ve taken that article and done this for you.

First, here is the article as it appeared in the newspaper. Note that the author switches back and forth between generalities, national hype and local news.

Once you strip out the generalities and hype, what’s left are only those parts of the article that are (a) local, (b) fact-based and (c) direct quotes from local experts. Click here to see how the story changes.

When you can read between the lines, and focus on what is true and local, the news is much better for us here on the Grand Strand, and we have every reason to expect that the good news will keep getting better.