Bluffton SC Real Estate blog

I recently had a conversation with my sister-in-law, a higher up at one of the local Bluffton/Savannah surveying and land planning companies, about how it is possible to to construct “green” buildings using the smartest practices available in the Lowcountry, and of LEED standards, while still falling short of the highest levels of LEED certifications.  If that seems confusing, don’t feel alone.  I was scratching my head as well, until I came across this short article and POD cast explaining how the current LEED system does not take into account some of the regional variations of the nation.   

Bill Browning, one of the founding members of the U.S. Green Building Council, understands that the LEED standard is a growing and developing system which would, and will, need to be adjusted as the “Green” development increases.  The LEED system is currently being revised to offer lessor paper work and clearly defined standards which are adaptable to various regions.

For Bluffton and other Lowcountry homebuilders wishing to go “Green”, these improvements in standards and simplification of paperwork will, hopefully, further stimulate eco-friendly construction.  And with the recent national exposure brought to the area by the HGTV “Green” home in Tradition HH, it looks as if Bluffon real estate is well on its way to becoming the “Greenest” in the South.  

A number of financial experts are stating that the worst is over for the credit crisis, and that we are nearing the shallows of decline in the housing market.  Today, the folks at Yahoo Finance have offered a post about the recent article in the Wall Street Journal, a few comments by John Thain and Henry Blodget as well as a rather transparent video concerning the recent news, including the release of the national housing data for March.

A breakdown of the post:

• Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson feels “the worst is likely to be behind us,” in regards to the credit crunch.  Though he still predicts that there will likely be a few more “bumps in the road.”
• John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch, said, “The U.S. credit crisis is easing and the risk in its housing market is dramatically lower now, but economic growth will remain under pressure over the next year.”
• An article in the WSJ by Cyril Moulle-Berteaux titled The Housing Crisis is Over.  The information in the article regarding decreased inventory is supported by the statistics I have presented in the “Other Comments” portion at the Marker Conditions page of this very site.

With this barrage of optimism coming after so much negative press about credit and housing, one thing can still be clear: the best time to buy a home is when the time is right for the individual.   If one’s credit offers an attainable loan at a reasonable rate and home inventory offers a great selections, as well as potential for an increase in equity, then that would be considered a great time to buy real estate.

Scheduled for this Saturday is a public vote for Beaufort County’s proposed school referendum.  The goal of the referendum is to raise funds to provide both new schools in Bluffton and Beaufort as well as repairs and improvements in technology to existing schools.  This will be the second referendum put to vote in the past two and a half years in Beaufort County. 

The 2006 referendum was passed and the money was, and still is, being used to purchase land, build two new Bluffton area schools and to fund studies for future building projects.  The 2008 referendum up for vote this Saturday is seeking funding for: an additional elementary school in Bluffton and the expansion of two existing Bluffton elementary schools to make room for early learning child centers as well as kindergarten and first grade students, upgrades in technology for many of Beaufort area schools and major renovation to existing schools. 

Needless to say, offering two school referendum in such a short time span has brought about numerous criticisms.  The greatest concern for those who oppose the newest referendum is the suggestion of needless “pork” included in the current proposal.  A number of persons have made mention that a few of the projects slated for northern Beaufort County are unnecessary, including: a new high school, wrestling facility and a performing arts center.  While the school board argues that, in order to provide contemporary learning environments, these facilities are, in deed, not wants but needs.

Two links to information about the 2008 referendum:

• The Island Packet
• The Beaufort County Voice

To offer my opinion;  after much consideration, I’m now in support of the 2008 referendum.  I feel, in order to provide competitive opportunities for learning to the Bluffton area children and young adults, these improvements are necessary.  While it may be difficult to argue the fact that a few of the inclusions of the referendum may appear as luxuries, in a time of advanced technology and international competition for future jobs, these improvements are vital. 

To all area Beaufort County residents, please vote yes to the 2008 school referendum.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - HUD, for short – is in the process of reforming the Real Estate Settlement Procedures ACT – RESPA.  Since it’s inception in 1974, the goal of RESPA was to protect real estate buyers in a number of aspects during the mortgage process including:

1. to help consumers become better shoppers for settlement services and
2. to eliminate kickbacks and referral fees that unnecessarily increase the costs of certain settlement services.

More specifically, RESPA requires lenders to disclose detailed terms of the loan during certain times of the process, provide a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) of settlement costs (currently just an estimate, proposed rules would requires a guarantee within a specified percentage),  provide a HUD-1 Settlement Statement with the ACTUAL cost one day prior to the closing, limits escrow costs and offering the buyer a choice in title companies.

This is not the first attempt at RESPA reform.  The attempt at reform in 2002 meet with strong opposition, and it will be assured that the same opposition will resurface during this attempt.  However, the recent tightening on credit and the resignation of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson may produce a stimulus to affect change.

The goal for HUD in reforming RESPA is to simplify the mortgage process and to provide certainty to borrowers about their loans and costs.  The proposed form(s) would be a simplified (less than pages including instructions and definitions) document explaining both the terms and fees of the loan drafted in the appropriate vernacular.  The proposed rule would also allow for either a Good Faith Estimate with a 10% tolerance limit or a Guaranteed Mortgage Package.  Although, the GMP would offer limits on which provider/lender the borrower would use.

For more information about RESPA reform, HUD offers a number of pdfs and links on the topic.

The inaugural Bluff Fest will take place June 28^th at the Bluffton High School stadium.  The event will be a combination of the Independence Day celebration and a wing cook-off.  There will also be Live entertainment, Booster Club concessions and a pie bake-off at this first ever Bluff Fest.

Last year, there were cries from local Bluffton residence to have an Independence Day celebration and a fire works display we could call our very own.  With more than ten licensed fireworks shows both in Beaufort and on Hilton Head Island, there never seems to be a need for a fireworks display in Bluffton.  Now, with the growing population in Bluffton, many area residence would not only enjoy not having to contend with the traffic associated with the peak of tourist season, but to also be able to participate in an Independence Day festival all Blufftonians can be proud of.  A contest is underway where children grades K-12 are offered the opportunity to design this years Bluff Fest logo.  Bluff Fest seems to have been be planed with a retro style of days-gone-by with a few contemporary features, pretty much summing up life in Bluffton, SC.

We’ve come a long way, baby.  Bluff Fest is just one more sign supporting the fact that Beaufort County is the fasted growing county in South Carolina.

For additional information about Bluff Fest, contact Shannon Loper at 843–757–1503.  The web page for the event is www.bluffFest.com.

Realty Times, a real estate news network, recently released a video on the market conditions in Beaufort County. Bluffton, Hilton Head Island, Palmetto Bluff and numerous other luxury home and golf communities are located in southern Beaufort County.

This is some rather interesting information for anyone looking to purchase a home in the Bluffton and Hilton Head Island area.

Here’s the link to the site: Beaufort County, South Carolina

Even with two SPAM filters at this site I find that computer geniuses will still find ways to post comments.  Obviously, this SPAM is coming from web site designers offering promises of gaining better page ranks for their clients at unsuspecting owners/writers of high ranking blogs.  In some cases, I find almost impossible to differentiate from a comment left by an actual person and one left by computer generated program.  Still, over time, I have realized a few of the tell tale signs:

• Very generic comments, “Hey, great stuff keep up the good work.”
• They come from sleazy lawyer and property investment sights. 
• They are very short

I think what bothers me the greatest about these comments, besides the fact that I may be communication with a machine, is that web site designers have promised their clients all of benefits associated with a blog with none of the work.  I’ve begun to see this trend within my own market.  Heck, I’ve seen it within my own office.  Never mind the fact that the whole point of a blog is to offer clients and like-minded thinkers insight and information not only to just a product or service but also to one’s own personality, it just seems cheap and contrived.  Honestly, I knew the day would come when businesses and business people would look for short cuts to blog writing once they found the value of starting one of “their own”.  But it still leaves me shaking my head that these people regard the general population as being so naive to think that similar results will be obtained by having someone else do all the work. 

I may change my SPAM filter some day but for now I think I’ll just comment to the folks I know are working hard to achieve the same goals as mine (offering honest and timely information) and those looking to buy or sell real estate in the Bluffton/Hilton Head Island area.  Feel free to click on the links provided by those who left comments that are short and sweet.  If inclined, you may want to leave a comment of your own while there.   

The HGTV Green Home was finally reveled to the world last night on the HGTV special. If the recent hits to this site are any indication, the home appears to be a huge success. So far this morning, I have had inquiries about the Tradition Hilton Head Development from as far away as Slovenia. It seems as if I have become the unintended expert about the Tradition community and the HGTV Green Home.

It’s wonderful that the area is gaining world-wide attention for not only the Green Home itself, but also for the overall eco-friendly mind set in the Blufton area.

It looks as if I’ll be rather busy today responding to questions about the Green Home, but feel free to contact me if you need have any questions about the Tradition development, or any other community in the Bluffton and Hilton Head area.

Edit: I’m getting a lot of e-mails about the taxes and association fees for the Tradition development. I’m making sure of the legalities on posting that information at this site before I make it public. If this is one of your questions, please check back soon, my e-mail is overflowing.

Also, the future scheduled dates for the airing of the HGTV Green House special is Friday, April 4th and Sunday, April 6th.

Update:  The property tax structure in SC had changed around 18 months ago.  If the winner of the HGTV Green home were to be a permanent resident of the home, the taxes would be around $3,000.00/yr.
If the home was used as a second residence by a nonresident of SC, the taxes would increase to around $9,000.00/yr.

I’m calculating these figures by assuming the HGTV Green Home has a value of around $650,000.00, rather than the $850,000.00 prize value estimate, since the home comes furnished and includes the GMC hybrid SUV.

The POA fees are $450.00/mo.  But, these fees include: phone, digital cable, lawn care, irrigation up-keep and clubhouse dues.

I recently noticed the two signs in front of Rose Hill Plantation announcing the reopening of the golf course this September. This should offer a huge sigh of relief to the homeowners of Rose Hill. For over two years, the courses have been closed and the Texas company which purchased the course from the Rose Hill POA filled for Bankruptcy in 2006. In December of 2007 the Rose Hill POA bought back the course and have recently leased the course to a management company based in Myrtle Beach. There are three 9 hole courses at Rose Hill and all are expected to reopen under the new management.

Details of Rose Hill Plantation:

• There are currently 63 listings available in Rose Hill.
• Homes range in price from $259,000 (golf) to $2,495,000 (equestrian).
• The History of Rose Hill dates back to the 1750s.
• The Rose Hill Mansion was recently renovated by a private owner.
• The largest area Equestrian Expo and regular Polo matches are held at the equestrian paddocks.
• There is community access and docks available for boating on the Colleton River.

The two sides of Rose Hill differ greatly. The golf course side offers patio sized lots and homes in the $260,000 to $500,000 price range. The Equestrian side offers estate sized lots with marsh, water, wooded and equestrian views. The price range on the Equestrian side ranges from $499,000 to over $2.4 million.

While most of Hilton Head is broken-up into developments - commonly called plantations in the Lowcountry - loaded with amenities such as golf, tennis, a yacht basin and a clubhouse, there are a few of the traditional vacation home neighborhoods left.  Two of the best known areas to fit the description of off-plantation Hilton Head are North and South Forest Beach.

A few key facts about North and South Forest Beach:

• There are currently 66 listings in the Forest beach area
• The prices range from $549,000 to over $5 million
• The properties range from Beachfront to 12th row
• Most of the lots are less than a 1/4 acre, although some are large enough for a pool and a detached garage
• A number of properties have be recently purchased by large development and rental companies, and have been either renovated or leveled and rebuilt.
• North Forest beach is close to Coligny Plaza, dining and shopping
• South Forest Beach is close to the secondary entrance to Sea Pines
• Both areas have great beach access

When I started selling real estate, I knew it would best if I chose a niche segment of the the market and concentrated all of my marketing research efforts in that one area.  I choose private luxury and golf communities (Colleton River, Belfair, Hampton Hall, Wexford Plantation…) since that was from where I came in my previous career in Food and Beverage management.  Yet, I still receive calls and e-mails from prospective buyers about off-plantation properties both on Hilton Head and in Bluffton, most recently being North and South Forest Beach.  The North and South Forest Beach area are so named simply due to the fact that Forest Beach Drive is the main road leading to these neighborhoods.  The area still offers a little of what many would remember of vacation cottage homes of the 1950s to 1970s era.  But most of the area has been redevelops and revitalized.   There are no common amenities, POAs or POA fees, the lots are usually rather small, and until recently, the streets were not paved in in both of the areas.  Personally, I find a great deal of charm in, especially, North Forest, and I was a little saddened when the town decided to pave select roads.  These areas are great rental properties, or even a secondary or primary home for someone not interested in the activates and fees associated with private communities.

The Bluffton, SC Real Estate blog has reached the number one page rank on Google, using the keywords Bluffton SC real estate.  I’m proud to say, this is quite an achievement.   In the Web 2.0 era, it has been proved that nearly 80 percent of all home buyers will use the Internet as their first source for information when searching for property.  It also proves that a blog can provide great exposure without having to pay search engine providers for top page ranks.

A quick search through the other search engines such as MSN, Yahoo and Dogpile (a compilation of all search engines) has the Bluffton SC Real Estate blog ranked at a minimum of 14^th (MSN).  The search on Dogpile places the Bluffton SC real estate blog as 10th.  But the Bluffton SC real estate site is only one of two site that had placed in the top ten which are NOT sponsored sites; meaning all of the other sites had paid for their placement.

What does this all mean for buyers and sellers?  Mostly, it means I’ve done my homework, and I’ve worked hard to find the most cost effective resource to gain market exposure.  It would, hopefully, also prove that I would provide just as much effort into listing and marketing a property for a seller, and work equally hard to satisfy the needs of a buyer.

Where does your agent rank?

Chris Crowe, Mortgage Planner for BB&T, has just posted information relating to the new conforming loan limits at his blog site, Hilton Head Island Mortgage Report.  The basic jist of the post is that those who have financed their homes with a Jumbo Loan in the Hilton Head Island area, and the entire state of South Carolina, will not be able to benefit from the increased temporary limits of conforming loans. 

The link to Crowe’s post  New Conforming Loan Limits…Much Ado About Nothing…At Least In My Area.  

The post also contains links to the HUD site; offering details for the areas which ARE being granted increased loan limits. 

Revenue Procedure 2008-16, which goes into effect March 10, 2008, officially allows limited personal use of an investment property and will not prevent a dwelling unit from qualifying as property held for trade or business or investment use for purposes of the 1031 tax-free-exchange rules.

Strict personal-use rules of the investment property as a “second home” still apply. The period of the taxpayer’s personal use of the dwelling unit cannot exceed the greater of 14 days or 10 percent of the number of days during the 12-month period that the dwelling unit is rented at a fair market value.  Allowing the owner to utilize the unit for a vacation retreat and still “swap” the equity in the event of a sale and second purchase of like property. 

Will this help to stimulate the bleak Villa/Condo market in the Hilton Head Island area?  Maybe just a little.  But, none the less, this is valuable information for property investors who seek to utilize their purchase for limited vacation use. 

As always, I would suggest seeking the advice of a trusted tax advisor to answer any questions regarding a 1031 tax-free-exchange.

The HGTV Green home, part of the Tradition Hilton Head development in Hardeeville, SC, will be open for tours starting the day after the first airing of the special Green Home program on HGTV. On March 23 at 9:00 p.m. the Channel will air the Green Home Special. The tours will begin the following day and will be offered through May 18. The cost for the tour has not been officially announced but local media has recently reported a $20 entrance fee.

The home will eventually be given away via a sweepsteaks ending in mid May. Entry Dates are March 21 to May 9 and contestants may enter into the sweepstakes once per day. A link to the sweepstakes at the HGTV web site has not yet been made available. A GMC Yukon Hybrid will be included with the Green Home giveaway package. The HGTV Green Home, eco-friendly appliances and the Hybrid Yukon are estimated to be valued at over $850,000.

A few other bits of information about the HGTV Green Home:

• A link to frequent asked questions – includes every last detail of the home including color scheme of each room, architect and designers uses and a list of suppliers.
• The Message Board on the HGTV web site – from the first tease to the final reveal.

I wonder what the reaction will be once the Green Home is revealed on national TV.

There are often times when it appears that I may ignore this site for a few weeks.  Well, I really don’t ignore it.  I read and respond to any new comments on a daily basis, I check the viewer statistics and reply to any Market Condition sign-ups when they arrive in my e-mail, and, most recently, I’ve been working on setting-up HTML e-mails for the same Market Conditions.   I’ve also been researching the recent increase of activity within specific areas of the HHI and Bluffton real estate market, and inquiring about how Bush’s recent signing of the economic stimulus package (conforming loans) may affect our area – very little, most likely.  But, still, I’ll be honest to admit that I, sometimes, neglect my post writing duties.

I could, and will, offer a number of excuses – three kids, Girl Scout duties (it’s cookie season), Sunday School (actually, Wednesday night ?)…  But mostly I think it has more to do with the weather.  I still take the time to read other real estate blogs from around the country, and a few in Canada.  What I find most consistent is that the blog writers in the snow belt are usually the most active.  Jared Diamond’s theory of how much of the worlds industrialization and unique inventions stemmed from people living in areas of harsh weather may have some validity, after all.  With the exception of Teresa Boardman and Greg Swann (I’m confident these two bloggers could produce multiple posts a day while living on the Island of Bali), there seems to be a clear statistic developing for lesser blogging in warm weather states.  When the bloom of the Azaleas in February signals the start of yard duties and when dining alfresco is an option ten months out of the year, it can be a true challenge to force oneself behind a keyboard.  Oh, the struggles of living in a coastal community.  

I find that it’s usually post like this one which stimulate my blog writing desires.  So, pardon my rant, and expect a little more substance in days to follow.