Brunswick County construction permits reach highest level since 2007

The number of construction permits issued in Brunswick County in fiscal year 2016 was the highest since fiscal year 2007, and year-to-date numbers for the current year are on track to be even higher.
In fiscal year 2015-16, there were 318 commercial construction and 2,077 residential construction permits, for a total of 2,395 construction permits, issued in Brunswick County. The number is the highest since fiscal year 2006-07, when there were 516 commercial and 2,841 residential permits issued, for a total of 3,357 construction permits. These numbers include permits issued by Brunswick County and by municipalities within Brunswick County.

And the number of permits issued in the current fiscal year is on track to be even higher. There were 740 construction permits issued July – October 2015; in the same time period in 2016, 786 permits have been issued. The value of the construction being permitted is also increasing. In fiscal year 2015-16, the total value of construction permitted was $713,916,000, the highest it has been since fiscal year 2006. And the current fiscal year is set to outpace this measure as well; the value of construction permitted in July – October 2015 was $216,965,000, while the value of construction permitted during the same time in 2016 was $278,216,000.

New Hanover County Shopping Center Sold

A New York-based real estate investment and property management company recently bought The Village at Myrtle Grove on Carolina Beach Road for $9.5 million, according to a news release and a New Hanover County deed. The Staples-anchored shopping center was one of three purchased by a limited liability company from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.  The Village at Myrtle Grove, a 74,370-square-foot center in the 5500 and 5600 blocks of Carolina Beach Road, includes local businesses in addition to national tenants. The center was about 87 percent occupied at the time of the sale. Home Depot owns its portion of the property, a more than 100,000-square-foot building and about 10 acres, according to property tax records.

Franchise Motel Sold in North Myrtle Beach, SC

The 60-Unit, two-story Comfort Inn North Myrtle Beach is very well located within a short distance of major area attractions and had several re-branding opportunities. The motel sold for the $2,750,000 asking price. The new ownership group has plans to re-position the property to a Country Inn & Suites in the fall of this year.

Walmart Ground Lease Sold in Myrtle Beach, SC

 

Myrtle Beach, SC - The sale of a Walmart Neighborhood Market Ground Lease for $7.86MM. Located at 3650 Walton Heath Drive, the site had 20 years remaining on the lease at time of sale. The asking cap rate was 4.5%.

Carolinas communities among the nation's fastest-growing

 

Charlotteobserver.com -- Four communities in the Carolinas, including three on South Carolina's 190-mile coast, remain among the 20 fastest-growing in the United States, according to new numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.  The Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach metropolitan area, which includes Brunswick County in North Carolina, was the second-fastest growing metro area in the nation for the second year in a row.  "The warm climate, the beautiful scenery, the quality of life and the low taxes and cost of living — when we went out and surveyed people those were the reasons we found that people were attracted to the area," said Brad Dean, the president and CEO of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.  From July of 2014 through July 1 of last year the population of the area increased 3.5 percent to just over 430,000.

The Villages, Florida, was the nation's fastest-growing metro area.  Myrtle Beach is the heart of South Carolina's booming $19 billion tourism industry, which has helped fuel the growth of the area's permanent population.  "Tourism is a first date for relocation, retirement and economic development," Dean said. "Most of the individuals and businesses relocating here were first introduced to the area as a visitor."  The Beaufort-Hilton Head metro area was the 11th-fastest growing in the nation, posting 2.6 percent growth while the Raleigh area in North Carolina grew about 2.5 percent during the period and was No. 16 on the list. The Charleston-North Charleston metro area grew at about 2.4 percent and was 19th on the list.  It was the second straight year that all four areas made the list of the fastest growing metro areas in the United States.  

The Charlotte metro area, which includes parts of South Carolina, made the list of the top twenty metro areas, posting the largest numerical population gains. The area added more than 47,000 residents during the period.  Wake County in North Carolina, where the population grew by almost 25,000 and now is more than 1 million, was on the list of the top 20 counties nationwide with the largest numerical population gains.  In North Carolina, Mecklenburg County now has 1.03 million residents, about 10,000 more than Wake County.  Greenville County remains the largest county in South Carolina with about 492,000 residents, followed by Richland County with 407,000 and Charleston County with almost 390,000.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article67950252.html#storylink=cpy

Lowes Foods Grocery Anchored Center Sold

Slate Retail REIT has acquired a grocery anchored center known as the Little River Pavilion in the Little River area of South Carolina (within the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach Metropolitan Statistical Area). It is located just south of the NC/SC state line between Little River and Calabash, NC. The 72,520 square foot center was 91% occupied at time of sale and is anchored by a Lowes Foods grocery store and Dollar Tree. It was acquired for $10.1 million or $158 per square foot in November of 2015.

Clemson Economist Predicts Slight Increase in Interest Rate

www.gsabusiness.com --  Bruce Yandle, Clemson University alumni distinguished professor emeritus of economics, expects the Federal Reserve to “nudge up the interest rate just a bit at its December meeting.” He said that between now and 2018, the nation will see real gross domestic product growth between 2.2% and 3.0% followed by “a slowing economy, an old-fashioned credit crunch,” in late 2018. Yandle anticipates the interest rate will increase slightly because of a strong employment report in the Southeastern region, specifically in what he called Charlanta, the area between Charlotte and Atlanta. Yandle gave his remarks at the fourth annual Dixon Hughes Goodman Greenville Executive Briefing Series at the Marriott on Tuesday. “If the Fed raises the federal funds rate, over which they have some control, they will, in a sense, be endorsing what the market already has done,” Yandle said. “But of course intervening events, such as the Paris tragedy, could affect what the market sees in the way of interest rates, but I’m sort of betting that this time we will see that move up for the first time since the great recession.” Yandle expects real GDP growth of 2.2% to 3% in 2016.

“I still think we will see a slowing of the economy, an old fashioned credit crunch, not a 2008 recession … long about 2018, maybe 2019 when the Fed becomes worried about inflation,” Yandle said. :ast year there were five GDP forecasts for 2015, according to Yandle. The lowest forecast was 2.6% from the International Monetary Fund, and the second lowest was from Wells Fargo at 2.9%. The other forecasts were around 3.0%. “Today we will be lucky if we hit 2.4% this year,” Yandle said, “and that immediately raises the questions ‘Why?’ ‘What happened?’ ”Yandle attributes the slowdown to the European Central Bank printing more money and the slowing Chinese economy. “Europe began to run their printing presses at high speed and started printing money faster than we print money, which led to a strong U.S. dollar,” he said. “When our dollar is stronger relative to other countries, we can buy more of their goods, but they buy less of ours. So our imports go up and exports go down, and down goes GDP growth.” China is the largest buyer of all raw materials and minerals, other than oil, Yandle said. So when an economy as large as China slows down, it slows down production and purchases and brought a sharp reduction in prices.

3rd Quarter 2015 Quarterly Market Trends released by CCIM

The Quarterly Market Trends produced by CCIM Institute (affiliate of NAR) provides timely insight into major real estate indicators for core income-producing properties. It is produced by the National Association of Realtors® for members of the CCIM Institute, the commercial real estate industry’s global standard for professional achievement. The report is a free benefit of CCIM membership and features respected narrative from Lawrence Yun, PhD, NAR chief economist, and George Ratiu, manager of NAR’s quantitative and commercial research. 

 
 http://www.ccim.com/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=30718

Higher-priced home sales surge in the Myrtle Beach area

Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC) -- The Grand Strand’s real estate year has started just the way you’d want in a healthy market, with a modest rebound in numbers of sales – up 2.6 percent in January over December for single-family homes – and a median price up 8.2 percent to more than $196,000, according to a monthly report from SiteTech Systems, which tracks the local real estate market. Condo sales were down 3.9 percent during the month after a year of modest growth, the report said, but the median price rose 18.6 percent to $116,500 in January.  While homes priced between $121,000 and $500,000 all hit historic peaks for numbers of sales in 2015, at least some of the area’s real estate watchers are watching as well the strength of sales for homes priced at more than $500,000.  The numbers of upper-end homes sold are modest compared with lower-priced homes, but the annual percentage increase for sales of homes at $500,000 and above harkens back to the Wild West days of the last decade.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article61176647.html#storylink=cpy

SiteTech figured that the $1 million-plus market grew by 105 percent in 2015 over what it had been in 2014. The increase in numbers of homes was just 20 sales, but the percent jump eclipses the previous high mark set during the boom days of 2005. “I was a little bit surprised to see it up that much,” said Todd Woodard, SiteTech president. “It’s been gaining strength, obviously, but that’s a little bit more than I would expect.” The trend continued in January, at least for homes selling from $500,000 to $1 million, which were up 23 percent from January 2015. Homes priced at more than $1 million declined from six sales a year ago to four sales in January 2016, a minor blip that represented a 33 percent drop in monthly sales for the price range from January 2015. A local broker for Berkshire Hathaway Homes Services, said he began to notice increased activity at the high end during 2015, a trend that he said picked up speed last month. “In December,” he said, “the whole spigot got turned on.”  He attributed at least some of the upper-end growth to banks easing off on the interest rate for what’s known as jumbo loans, homes priced at $417,450 and up. While conventional home loans now see interest rates of about 3.38 percent, broker said, the jumbo loan rate has dropped below 4 percent.  “Anytime you come down, that’s quite a saving (for buyers of high-priced homes),” he said. “Anything below 4 percent will stimulate sales.”  Broker said the people who can afford the upper end had been buying $300,000 to $400,000 homes until recently, opting for square feet over high-end finishes. Now they’re back to wanting stone countertops, custom cabinets and better windows in their new homes.

Woodard said the increase sales at the upper end likely reflect increased confidence and a stabilized stock market.He isn’t sure how many of the high-priced buyers are locals and how many are out-of-towners, but his guess is that most are coming from outside the area. He talked recently with a local builder who told him that 80 percent of the company’s buyers are coming from outside the market. While the high-end market is surging, sales of homes priced at $120,000 and less are sinking. Such home sales sustained Grand Strand Realtors during the Great Recession, but in 2015 it was the only price segment that declined in number of sales. The segment reached a historic high with more than 900 sales as recently as 2012, but last year the number dropped to 673, a 15.2 percent drop from 2014. “For such a long time, everybody was pushing $150,000 (homes),” the local broker said.

Now, the real activity is for homes $300,000 and above. The local broker said his company’s sales this month are better than last and he sees good days for the area’s real estate during 2016. Woodard is expecting modest growth in both price and numbers, just what you’d expect from a healthy, mature real estate market.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article61176647.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article61176647.html#storylink=cpy

*Sales of homes between $500,000 and $1 million up 23 percent in January compared to January 2015
*Sales of homes priced at $120,000 and less are sinking
*Overall market off to solid start in 2016

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article61176647.html

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article61176647.html#storylink=cpy

Coastal Grand Restaurant Sold

The 6,411 square foot Sticky Fingers Restaurant in Myrtle Beach, SC, at the Coastal Grand Mall, recently sold to a 1031 Buyer.  The sales price was $3,241,000 with the NOI reported at $235,000 indicating a cap rate of 7.25%. There are 10.25 years remaining on this absolute NNN lease. The area is experiencing tremendous growth and the MSA is one of the fastest growing in the nation.