Looks like Punxsutawney Phil, the famous weather-predicting groundhog, has predicted an early spring so here’s hoping he’s right this time! It sure would be nice to have some warmer temperatures soon.
In local news, the Town of Duck started phase 2 of their sidewalk project which will encompass the west side of Duck Road from Aqua S restaurant north until Resort Realty. In addition to the sidewalk, Duck has planned to add lighted crosswalks at the Waterfront Shops and Dune Road, a dedicated bike path, and landscaping to help with curb appeal and soil retention. This project has a target completion date for May of 2019 and may affect your travel if you live in Duck or plan to visit. Let’s hope the weather cooperates, and keeps the construction moving as planned to prevent any further traffic issues for the upcoming season.
In real estate news, pending home sales (homes/lots under contract) in the country were the lowest in five years for December. In general, the South had a 5% drop in properties going under contract at the end of last year. This is important to point out since contracts typically take about 45 days to turn into a completed home/land sale. This will impact sales for late January into early March. We often mention how our market is seasonal and usually isn’t parallel with the rest of the normal real estate markets, but unfortunately our market appears to be on the same page with this trend for the time being. The biggest culprit was the government shutdown along with its uncertainties. This was exacerbated by higher mortgage rates, and aggressively priced inventory. We anticipate the market’s getting back on track in the upcoming weeks with the government opening back up. The OBX Homes Team had sales over 4 million in January, and we have numerous requests to show properties in February, so we hope this activity will continue for the remainder of our “busy” season.
We’ve included the OBAR statistics for January for your review, but if you would like a more tailored report with specific figures for your neighborhood, please let us know.
If you’ve been thinking about selling, we are happy to assist you with a free market analysis of your property. If you or anyone you know is interested in buying a property, we would love to help find the perfect home on the Outer Banks.
The OBX Homes Team is making an effort to help the environment and decrease our paper output, so if you’d like to help with reducing our paper use, please send us a current email. We will send you a notification each month to look on our website for the updated owner note and statistics report. We appreciate your effort to help with this and thank you. We will continue with owner mailings to those who wish to receive them by mail.
Please don’t hesitate to call or email with any questions, or if you need anything.
The OBX Homes Team
