April reminded us of why the Wright Brothers came to the Outer Banks to test their aircraft invention. The winds were strong and consistent, but the sun did come out to warm things up! The OBX Homes Team was booked the entire month with showing properties to prospective buyers, helping several clients get their properties under contract, lining up showings with other agents on our listings, and successfully getting seven new houses up and running on the MLS. The real estate market is flourishing along with the tulips and daffodils this year.
Our annual Twiddy Homeowner’s Day was a great success! Despite the unfavorable weather, many homeowners and the Twiddy gang enjoyed a great day together!
Phase 2 of the Duck sidewalk project has been moving along. The target completion date for this is for the end of May, which is great news for the summer season!
The town of Nags Head has started their second round of beach nourishment program. The first nourishment was completed in 2011, and was extremely helpful in saving the beaches and properties close by from many nor’easters and hurricanes that came through in the last few years. We are thankful for our state’s recognizing the need for this as means of protecting our little piece of paradise.
A hot topic along the Outer Banks is occupancy control for rental homes. For some quick background information, in 2015, North Carolina passed a statewide law that prohibits towns from restricting the number of bedrooms that can be included in a house being built or remodeled. This kept local authorities from being able to control the occupancy levels to some extent. Towns are now resorting to other ways to prevent people from building rental machines. Duck recently placed a limit for the square feet of the structure that can be built according to the lot size. Last month Southern Shores hopped on the train to fight the “no mini hotels” issue, and “settled” on a temporary agreement that limits the septic capacity to 14 people under a new term they refer to as “vacation cottage.” Placing limitations on how people use properties is a tough subject, one we are paying close attention to since it impacts our real estate clients on all ends. We will try to keep our clients informed on any upcoming policy changes that could significantly impact property values.
In real estate news, properties for sale continue to come onto the market in greater numbers compared to the past few years causing current asking prices to be lower. In previous years the sellers had the advantage of aggressively pricing their homes, and not having much competition. Recently, however, we’ve noticed that though properties priced to sell have been moving rather quickly, sellers wanting to “test the waters” and start higher usually results in having to lower prices. A unique consideration for sellers in our market is the rental income produced by their properties. As we enter the rental season sellers hold more strongly to their asking prices because that rental income belongs to the buyer after settlement takes place.
We’ve included the OBAR statistics for April 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
