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Hello. I have yet another moving to SC question to post. It's hard to gather the information I need in my particular case from the other threads posted.
We currently live in Central Pennsylvania and are ready for a change. We have chosen the Myrtle Beach (or surrounding area) to move to. We have two children - our son is just about 10 and daughter is 16. We are planning to rent, at least for a year or two before deciding if/where/when to purchase. There are many options for rentals in our price range (3+beds, $1500/mo or less), but I could use some advice from those with knowledge of the area.
Our main priority is proximity to the beach. Walking distance to the beach is a must - the shorter the better. I'd prefer an area where my son can walk back and forth on his own. (eg. we are at the beach and he wants to run home for toys). I also need to feel like he will be safe if he goes outside to play by himself or with friends. Schools are less important. My daughter plans to do cyber school to finish out high school and I am considering the same for my son.
We are open to houses, condos, apartments, etc. Anything goes. Also we aren't set on one area so we are flexible. I'm liking many of the luxury condo places I've seen, but my husband is drawn to the houses for rent. I've noticed that some we like are east of the highway and some are just west. But the highway doesn't seem to have walking bridges so it looks like west is out of the question (unless I'm missing something?)
Please help. Could use any advice anyone is willing to share - things to look for, areas that might be best, any place to stay away from, etc.
Hi, hoping to help....you can definitely rent a home or condo with beach access but direct access as you are talking about is definitely going to cost you way more than the $1500 a month.....it will be more like $1500 a week.....Where, may I ask, will you and your husband possibly be working in the area or is that not a concern as well?
I need an idea of home price you are looking for to better tell if renting or buying is better....you may be able to buy something a lot cheaper than renting with beach access! The Grand Strand is a large area and prices of homes vary a lot by area...
We are from the Pittsburgh area and moved 11 years ago now...wow how time flies and it was quite an eye opener.....if coming down with money and not worried at all about prices of anything, daily expenses, groceries, etc.....is one thing but if you have any kind of budget......you may to be just a tad more flexible........if you let us know a few of the questions above.....I can hopefully help more.........
By the way, what areas have the $1500 per month rentals?
Thank you for the response. We have found a bunch in Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, and Surfside Beach. Some are within a few blocks and others are a little further - all within walking distance, but some you have to cross that major road. There is one I keep coming back to in Surfside beach. It's across the street from the beach (closest I've found) for $1350/mo. You say "with beach access" - does that mean right at the beach? We just would like to be within walking distance. A few blocks or so.
As for work - I will be staying with my current company and working remotely so that's not an issue. My husband will need to find new work down there. He'll likely have to commute to wherever he finds as he works in manufacturing and I can't imagine he'll find much right in Myrtle Beach.
I actually have no idea what our budget for purchasing a home would be. Probably would be looking at 250,000 or so. That's the price we used when we first started our search in SC - before we decided to rent. The reason we want to rent isn't money - it's just that it's more convenient. We'd like to learn the area first, plus we don't want to have to time the sale of our current home with the purchase of another. Besides all that, buying a house is a huge pain. And to do that while living 10 hours away would be more than we want to deal with right now.
Once we figure out which areas might be worth looking at, we'll take a trip down and check some places out in person.
If you are referring to this location: 506 Lake Shore Dr, Surfside Beach, SC 29575 - I can tell you that this is a very nice area and would be within easy walking distance to the beach and you would not have to cross business 17. You definitely don't want to have your son walking across that road - too dangerous! But if this is the place you are talking about and I'm not sure, because it's not "across the street from the beach" but it is very close, it's a nice safe neighborhood and no dangerous roads to cross. It also has a community pool and is next to a large and very pretty lake.
That's not the one I meant, but it is one we were very interested in. Thanks for that info!!! It helps a lot! The one that is across the street is 914 N Ocean Blvd, Surfside Beach, SC. After your comment though I think I am much more interested in the one you mentioned. A nice, safe neighborhood is exactly what we would want. The lake sounds great too
When I go out later on, I will run by 914 N. Ocean and take a look at it in person for you. It's very close to where I live. I could walk there! The problem with living THAT close to the beach on Ocean Blvd. is that you are going to be surrounded by tourists almost all the time, because most of those places are short term rentals. I would not want to live on Ocean Blvd. for that reason. I'll let you know what it looks like from my opinion. If I can, I'll try to get some pictures for you. Not sure if I can do that today, because it's raining and pretty yucky out today.
I think that all along Ocean Blvd. both N. and S. in SSB is a nice area. The problem is that most, if not all, of that area is zoned to allow for short-term rentals, which means that most of your neighbors, if you rent on Ocean Blvd., are going to be tourists. Tourists come here to party and have a vacation. I have no issues with that. We all do that when we're on vacation. People want to have fun, which, as I'm sure you know, is one of the main reasons why they go on vacation in the first place. But very few people want to live next door to or very close to people who are playing loud music and partying at all hours, etc. And the other problem is that although the majority of the people who come here on vacation seem like very nice people, many of the tourists don't care about the town or the environment in general, so they litter a LOT and set off fireworks at all hours of the day and night and get drunk and LOUD.
Anyway, that's why I doubt that you would want to commit to living right on or across the street from the ocean for a whole year. I live about a half a mile from the beach and my neighbors are all people who live here full time/year round, so it's a nice and fairly quiet place to live, but I can still walk to the beach if I want to. I never do that, because who wants to carry chairs, umbrellas and coolers when we can pack up and ride our golf cart, which is a ton of fun! SSB is the perfect area to ride around on your golf cart or bicycle, because except for a few streets, there is very little traffic at all.
The other thing is that based on what I'm seeing online, it looks like that place on Lakeshore Dr. is quite a bit larger than the place on Ocean Blvd. Also, the Ocean Blvd. place looks like it's an apartment building with the porches right next to each other, so that would also limit your privacy. The Lakeshore drive place is it's own separate building, but I must tell you that those houses on Lakeshore are VERY close together and have basically no yard at all. I had a friend who lived there and I think they really liked it. Her place and I think all of them, have fenced in porch areas in the back - but no back yard at all. They have a very small piece of yard in the front. That road is a cul-de-sac type road that ends in the back by where the pool is, so again, not too much traffic there.
If you live in SSB, you can get parking stickers for your cars that allow you to park for free and not have to pay the meters, which is a really nice perk. What not too many people seem to know is that SSB is only 2 miles long north to south - from 17th Ave. N. to Melody Lane, and 1 mile wide - from the ocean to the east side of business 17. If you would rent or buy in any other area outside of these small boundaries, you don't really live in SSB, no matter what they call it. There is even a community called, The Surfside Beach Club, and it is not actually in SSB and people who live there are not eligible for the free parking or allowed to vote in our town.
And one more thing, you can't always trust those online pictures to be even the right location, which is why I offered to take pictures for you. For example, I noticed on the ad for the Lakeshore Dr. house, it says the address is 506, but if you take a close look at the first picture of the outside of the house, the address tag by the front door says 518! So you're not really even seeing the right house! Not sure about the inside pictures, because there's no way to tell without actually going inside.
One comment about the rent. It might be $1500 a month now but given proximity to the ocean te landlord might be bale to charge $1500 per week during the high summer season. Something to conside runless you get a lease that clearly states your rent won't be raised.
Thank you so much vrexy! I'm so glad to hear the point of view from someone who lives in the area
mkaz01 - Is it common in the MB area to sign an annual rental lease w/o it protecting you from having your rent changed during that lease period? Where I'm from that can't happen. If you sign a rental lease for a year - your rent cannot change during that year. Sounds shady that they'd let you believe your rent will be one thing then sneak it up a whole bunch part way thru the year.
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