Time to buy yet...or wait?

[poltergiest]

My Brother was renting an ocean front 3 bedroom condo. for 800$ a month. At the time he got it because they did not have any week to week renters and decided to just rent it by the month for a year. He has since moved to Conway and is paying 650$ a month for a double wide on Rush road. It is a glorified trailer park but not to bad. It is a bit out of the way though.

[lgavrich]

Originally Posted by poltergiest

My Brother was renting an ocean front 3 bedroom condo. for 800$ a month. At the time he got it because they did not have any week to week renters and decided to just rent it by the month for a year. He has since moved to Conway and is paying 650$ a month for a double wide on Rush road. It is a glorified trailer park but not to bad. It is a bit out of the way though.

For the $150 per month extra, I would have worked a few hours overtime each week and stayed on the ocean. What was he thinking, or did they terminate his lease?

[mayhurst]

Heard a report that home prices are expected to drop another 16% (for a total AVERAGE of 36%) off of their highs in 2006. Does anyone have an opinion on whether ocean front condos might drop even more because of the vast inventory. I believe North Beach Plantation units were sold at the market's peak, so I wonder if and how much they will drop before people who contracted to buy close on them. Have they begun delivering those units? I might be interested in looking at that project now; way too overpriced when it was first marketed. Thanks for any insight...

[T166ERR]

Interesting article out today.. with Myrtle Beach in 15th place in the national market..

The Healthiest Housing Markets for 2009 - Local Markets, Construction, Home Prices - EcoHome Magazine

And no - I am not a realtor, but I do follow economics.

MB will continue to drop a bit, but it is still way off from the national average due to a lot of reasons:

a. Continued immigration keeps pressure on housing requirements
b. House prices rose during the boom - but not by as much as many other places
c. Many of the developments would not build prior to securing 80% pre-sales.. so there is not as much of a glut due to over stock
d. continued beautification projects instigated by the City of MB increase desirability of areas, reducing the downward pressure on prices further

When looking at any investment (as opposed to looking for a family home) - remember - "the trend is your friend" and MB is still above the average trend line for property price values in terms of price/earning ratio - but not by a huge margin.

Condos are still over valued more so than family homes and IMHO will remain so for at the very least the next 6 months. Probably more.