I have read all of the press stories and predictions about the housing market coming back, but the website builderonline.com really takes them all. Of course, not one Florida city is on it's top 20 recovery list, but three South Carolina cities are. Now, I grew up and spent 30 years in SC and can tell you from my current and past experience in real estate there that the market is nowhere near what Boyce Thompson calls a, "full-fledged recovery to begin this year."
Most of what he bases his recovery plan on is simply increases in the job market and building permits. I can tell you that there are plenty of builders in Florida pulling building permits and the market here is nowhere near a recovery. It's more what Steve Bergsman of Inman News calls a market "dominated by investors," AKA absentee buyers. They are everywhere in South Florida and they are really not helping the market in it's comeback very much because they are buying at rock bottom prices and holding out for the recovery. In the meantime, they rent to people like Section 8 housing, thus hurting the local real estate market even more. These are the same people that burst the balloon a few years ago with all of their buying and flipping.
But in Myrtle Beach the numbers are ridiculous. Home prices have dropped by over 7%, unemployment is over 12%, and tourism is down by 25%. That's the city's lifeline. Other than tourism there is no industry in Myrtle Beach. Ah, but there is light at the end of the tunnel because building is up a whopping 47%, and guess for whom? The investors! Myrlte Beach is slowly becoming a retirement community. Where the numbers tell a true story are more in places like the Raleigh/Charlotte area where both cities are ranked 2 and 3, respectively, and not just because of building permits, but because of industry. So when people there buy they are actually staying. That is where I believe a housing market makes a full recovery, with primaries.
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