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Thinking of relocating to the Murrells Inlet area in the hopes of being within 30 minutes of the beach but I'm concerned about insurance prices and housing prices as they've gone up substantially in the last couple of years.
I have looked on real estate sites but hard to know if those are accurate. Is it possible to buy something for $200,000 anymore? Please feel free to reply with any information you think could be helpful. Thanks so much for your time and any information you care to share.
Prices have certainly escalated in both housing and insurance over the past few years. The answer to your question is....it depends. If you want a 3 bed/2 bath single family standalone house...no, you'd be hard pressed to find something that doesn't need major renovation. Generally, if you want to stay around $200K, you'll need to consider a mobile home (some can be rather nice but have lot rental considerations), condos or townhomes. HOA fees for condos and townhomes have jumped significantly recently due to insurance costs. We were in the market to buy one for investment but were seeing $100/month jumps in dues and it caused us to switch to SFHs instead. What size home are you looking for? Are you absolutely set on Murrells Inlet or are you flexible? Are you wanting to stay around $200K or are you looking to stay in the $200-$290K range?
Realtor.com tends to be pretty accurate although there is some discounting going on given today's interest rates. Here's an example of what you could get around $200K but note that the HOA is $450/month: https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...m=srp-map-list
If you're willing to look a little further north but still south of MB, here's a brand new very nice, pretty spacious townhome with a garage in a development that we seriously considered buying. The community does not have a pool but the HOA is only $205/month. Very convenient to everything. https://www.realtor.com/realestatean...1?from=srp-map
Thank you for your reply. I don't know if the site will allow me to reply to your message and I'm having issues getting it to send and don't want to put too much personal information in the forum.
Apparently it looks like it's working. Thank you very much for your thoughtful and informative reply. The reason for my price range of $200k is because I plan to pay cash for home. I agree that realtor.com is a helpful site and I have searched it endlessly for both single-family homes and mobile homes.
I have been doing searches for a minimum two bedroom and two bath as that will suffice but a three bedroom, two bath would be more desirable for resale one day. I am open to ANY area to be honest but I will be operating a mobile business going to people's homes and or businesses, however I would ideally like to be able to get to the beach or to another body of water within an hour max. As I stated I live in phoenix. The traffic here is horrendous but being a South Carolina is continually growing and where I hope to move is near the water, I don't know if there's any way to escape that
The link you sent to the new build Are Much appreciated and meet the criteria I am looking for but I would prefer not to live in an HOA as I do now and I do have a senior pound puppy I am bringing along so some sort of yard is necessary. The other Townhomes are nice as well but the HOA is high and will potentially continue to rise.
I think it is wise to rent for a period before buying, however with the steady increase in prices in both rent and sales I am concerned that if I wait a year that I will be priced out of the market and I have no desire to be a long-term renter either especially at the high rental prices. What do you think?
Did you visit over the years and we're familiar with the area prior to your move? I have to be honest and perhaps it sounds insane but I have not even visited MB or the area as of yet but I plan to come soon.
I am choosing the southeast due to the mild dish winter weather as we have no winter here to speak of and I imagine like here due to the excessive heat with the humidity you stay indoors during the day but it does cool off in the evenings I'll be it still humid? Here we are lucky to get down to 100° at night and Summer's last 6 months and no seasons. Thank you again for your time and helpfulness!
Glad to hear that the info was valuable. I'll start with a comment on the new build condo. The community has a dog park pretty much centered within the townhomes so a yard may not be necessary although they do have a very small yard.
We grew up vacationing in MB area so we were somewhat familiar with the main tourist area. However, we had not been here for many years when we decided to move to SC. We made 3 trips before moving. The first trip we explored the Grand Strand (all of the MB area from Little River to Murrells Inlet), the Charleston area and Greenville (the western side of the state). That trip convinced us that we wanted to be in the MB area because Greenville was to far from the ocean and the Charleston area's traffic was horrendous and would limit our ability to visit the beach within 15 minutes of where we wanted to live. Our second trip, we spent time exploring the individual areas within the GS (Little River, North MB, Conway, MB, Surfside, Garden City, and Murrells Inlet). We drove around different developments and stopped and talked to people who were out and about, looked for grocery store, malls/shopping, restaurants, churches, etc. Based on that trip, we determined that we wanted to live south of MB. We had already decided we wanted to rent the first year to make sure we liked the area that we selected and decided to rent in Surfside but that didn't work out and we ended up renting in the Arrowhead Golf Course community (just south of Rt 501). We liked it so much, we ended up building a home near there and a couple of years ago moved to Murrells Inlet near the Blackmoor Golf Course. Based on our experience, I highly recommend at least a couple of trips to explore before moving and renting makes sense. But, given that interest rates are probably going to come down over the next year, it will cause house prices to go up even more so it's difficult to say if renting makes sense at this time. The rental market is pretty crazy as well. We own 5 rentals and the rent prices have gone up considerably due to an explosion of insurance rates and general repair costs.
As far as weather, it is very hot and humid from the beginning of June through the end of August (and sometimes beyond). While it does cool down somewhat at night, the humidity remains and it will be especially noticeable to someone coming from AZ where there is little humidity. A/C is a necessity. But the nice thing is that the rest of the year it feels like fall or spring except for a few days here and there when it only gets into the 40's for highs and 20's at night...but that doesn't happen that often.
If you are going to be running a mobile business you probably aren't going to want to be in the country far from the places most people live. There are some rural areas where housing is cheaper but not that close to the beach or your clients. Additionally, some rural areas have issues with crime due to drug issues. So, you have to be careful when getting outside the population areas.
The other thing to consider if you live, say, within an hour of the beach is that you may be able to make it in an hour during the week but during the summer on the weekend, you can add at least 30 minutes to the trip due to tourist traffic.
Similar boat here but bought further south. We bought a condo four miles south of Georgetown in a community called Belle Isle Yacht Club, not as swanky as it sounds. We paid 189k fora 3/2 1500 ft condo. After Reno are in at 250kWe paid cash, but our hoa is $600 a month because of ample community amenities. For comparison, look at properties in BelleIsle and Wedgefield Plantation. Wedgefield might just be the cheapest golf community in the greater area. We chose our spot for lack of traffic, value and a real functioning small town four miles to the north. Our community is about 18 miles from the very congested MI area. Not trying to muddy the water, just something to compare to MI area.
Just to add...if you want to avoid an HOA, it will be difficult. The majority of houses, condos, mobile homes are in HOA's.
We also noticed that homes not in an HOA tend to be pricier because they typically come with more land.
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