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You can get an even nicer house on an even bigger lot in Monks Corner but "location, location, location" is not just an empty adage. I'm sure there are reasons you're looking in Riverside as opposed to DI and enough other folks must share similar reasons to keep the Riverside prices up where they are. Make a pros and cons checklist for neighborhoods you're interested in and it might be easier to see why some are more valuable than others and which one works best for you.
The "rationale" if it can be called that, is that they feel they can get that for the house (and in this market, they're probably right).
School preferences play a big part of it. Also, the lots in Riverside are larger and more private. The homes there are completely custom and customers are willing to pay those prices. Carolina Park has had several price increases as demand stays high and folks are willing to pay those prices. You don't see the same fervor for homes on DI as you do in communities such as Carolina Park.
I don't think prices are going to level out too soon.
Did you see those townhouses across from Town Center, they start over $400K. Most people are adding on so those TOWNHOUSES are sellilng in the +500K....that's is crazy.
I think there will not be as drastic an increase as there was from 2011 to 2014 -- but prices will continue to rise steadily.
I would hardly compare - no offense intended - Monks Corner to Daniel Island. And it's decidedly personal preference, but I find Daniel Island more convenient (closer to downtown Charleston, the airport, and a number of other things) and quieter and more peaceful that North MP. I think Daniel Island is a very attractive community with a lot going for it.
No offense, but you haven't lived in North MP, so you can't really speak to anything yet. I think it's plenty quiet and peaceful here (when there's no construction noise ;-).
It almost sounds to me like you keep trying to talk yourself out of buying here. I think you should try to make DI work, as clearly that town resonates with you. But as far as North Mt P, I don't find it far to anything....30 minutes or less to anything in the Charleston area. I know for me, I was attracted to what CP will become and what this side of town will look like in 5 years. That is what people are buying. That, and easy access to the best schools in the area.
Also, the quality of homes here is way way better than what you're getting with some of the other builders in the area. I personally don't understand why the Riverside premium is SO much greater, but some of those houses are really, really nice, with very upgraded amenities. If you haven't walked through some of them, you can't really appreciate it from the outside.
I think the fact that Carolina Park is so far north is part of the appeal. It's quite and more insulated. It's away from beach traffic and close to the schools and hospital. And as MP continues to push north, it won't be 'so far' north for long.
I don't think townhouses are what CharlestonNative is referring to as 'low end' homes near the entrance of developments.
We are not looking in Riverside, LOL - too pricey for us. But it is beautiful.
I would hardly compare - no offense intended - Monks Corner to Daniel Island. And it's decidedly personal preference, but I find Daniel Island more convenient (closer to downtown Charleston, the airport, and a number of other things) and quieter and more peaceful that North MP. I think Daniel Island is a very attractive community with a lot going for it.
I think Moneill hit the nail on the head, where at this point, a new build on DI is still higher - than Riverside - I think.
In any case, all of this "they are getting the price because they can" makes me worry we are at the tip of a RE bubble. Perhaps no realtor is going to admit that, but when housing prices aren't based on comps, but are based on builders getting what they can while the going is good, doesn't seem to be a good sign.
I'm a financial adviser by trade and I saw this clearly before the crash in 2000 when prices for stocks made NO sense based on valuation and it was simply pent up demand which was based on following the herd mentality - i.e., if other people are paying these prices, must be worth it. Not.
Logically, and historically, no matter how attractive an area of the country, the RE market has cycles just like the stock market. What goes up has to come down, and will at some point - and then go back up again. I have to believe that when interest rates start to trend up, then that will put a squeeze on the RE market, and things will start to cool off. May not happen for awhile, but it's inevitable, IMHO.
For all of you honest realtors out there - where are we in the RE cycle at this point?
The point I was trying to make is just that... Monks Corner is not as valuable a location as DI or Riverside for most people. That's the case due to a host of reasons including schools, Proximity to downtown Charleston and the beaches, etc, etc. And so to a lesser degree, DI is not as valuable as Riverside is to more buyers and so the prices are high in Riverside. Is it justified? That's your call.
I think we all agree that prices can't continue to rise at the rate they are without a collapse at some point. What point? Who knows... I remember people saying "this can't continue" in 2003 and prices went up for another 4-5 years before that bubble burst. At the risk of being repetitive, I posted in another thread that there is a popular school of thought that real estate prices are cyclical and follow an 18.3 year cycle. By that logic, we should see rising prices til sometime between 2023-2026. I don't have a functioning crystal ball to be able to confirm that theory so you'll just have to ascribe your own value. https://www.google.com/search?q=18.3...utf-8&oe=utf-8
I guess it's also possible that things will cool off and we'll start to rise at a nice sustainable 2-3% annually but we humans are traditionally slow learners and I'm not so optimistic. If you need a place to live, then buy when you find what you like and just don't pay more than you can continue to afford. If you're buying for an investment or just short term living situation, then I always advocate buying with value in mind so that if things go south you'll likely have some buffer to mitigate the damages.
I have two friends who want to sell their homes now that the kids are gone and downsize. They can sell their current homes in absurdly little time. Their problem is the demand for what they want is ridiculous.
The rate of rise has perhaps leveled off some but the test is the spring season which we're just entering. There's few properties on the market relative to the number of buyers and that might be actually slowing down the market some.
On a side note, do a search on Vancouver's real estate prices. Now that's a serious bubble!
I have two friends who want to sell their homes now that the kids are gone and downsize. They can sell their current homes in absurdly little time. Their problem is the demand for what they want is ridiculous.
Two edged sword...
There are ways to maximize the value for the house you're selling and then shopping carefully for the downsized home should leave them coming out ahead. It may not be easy to find something to purchase at any price though as there's so little inventory.
I just looked at CP's website, and it appears there's a few Riverside homes that start in the high $500's. There are a lot of homes in the $700's but if one really wanted to it's still possible to get in for under $600k.
I agree a lot of the higher premiums are because it's brand new. I looked at buying a slightly older home, but most of the homes I looked at had never been updated. Most of DI still looked like the 90's on the inside. So once you consider updating kitchens, baths, roofs and HVAC, it still seemed cheaper to pay the higher premium for a new home plus skip out on living in a construction zone while updating everything.
The prices may drop a bit once the newness wears off a bit, but that all depends on how nice the neighborhood shapes up. It's still going to be walking distance to good schools, hospitals, and close to the beach and Downtown, it's not in a flood zone and there's no paper mill in sight so the location factor is better than average. Mount Pleasant as a whole recovered pretty quick after the last housing bust due to some strong fundamentals.
During the last building boom loans were available to anybody, now they're actually checking credit and income and such. The neighborhoods that fared the worst were more in the $100-$300K range which were in a more speculation friendly price range that encouraged people building them with the sole purpose of renting them for a year than flipping them for a huge profit. The houses I've seen in CP so far appear to be built more for people who actually intend to live in them for awhile. There's a lot of custom stuff people are adding to them and very few if any are for rent. The building boom neighborhoods I've lived in consisted of a high percentage of rentals and homes built strictly to be rentals, with features such as low end flooring, vinyl siding, no garage, and cheap nonexistent landscaping. Mount Pleasant was one of the areas quickest to recover from the boom which is a good sign in how it should fare after another one.
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