In North Carolina, the month of March is almost considered an official holiday for many basketball fans. Henry V. Porter said it best “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.” If only something as simple as watching basketball could be the panacea for the Coronavirus epidemic, the stock market crumbling, and the endless political drama, many of us would be ok. It’s still very early in the year, but 2020 has already been one for the books.
In the last newsletter, we mentioned Dare County will be sending out new property valuations, and at the end of February, most of you should have received that letter. It appears a good number of the properties have increased in value, which should have been expected, since the last countywide assessment was in 2013. The increase in value is beneficial for those planning on selling in the near future, and though your taxes might go up a little bit, keep in mind that North Carolina’s property taxes are on the lower end compared to the rest of the country. If you feel your property has been assessed unreasonably and wish to appeal, go to the Dare County website at https://www.darenc.com/departments/tax-department/appraisal.
You might recall from last year, a local Duck homeowner was charged with trespassing at the Sea Breeze access in the Sand Dollar Shores subdivision while trying to get to the beach on a skateboard. He argued the owners’ association did not have the right to take control of what was deeded to the public by the town in the early ’80s, and the access could not be considered private. In late February, the judge ruled in favor of the local homeowner and determined that the walkway and the access is, in fact, public. This was a surprise to many Sand Dollar Shores owners, and as expected, the owners’ association filed an appeal on the decision in early March. The ongoing issues of this case will potentially last several years; however, we do hope the town and the owners can come to an agreement at some point.
In real estate news, our local market does not indicate any signs of a slowdown. In fact, the OBX Homes Team is on pace to record one of their highest number of home sales in many years! With the interest-rate cut at the beginning of the month, more buyers will benefit from one of the lowest mortgage rates in 50 years. We believe this alone may entice some potential home buyers to pull the trigger instead of waiting until the economy recovers from the recent decline. In addition to those prospects, many stockholders may change their minds about the volatile market and choose to buy a more tangible asset such as a rental property or second home. The number of under-contract listings from February is a strong indicator of the market’s continuing at a record-breaking pace. It is too soon to say we will not have a negative impact from the issues mentioned above; however, if nothing changes the Outer Banks will have another banner year for real estate.
Just a friendly reminder to all property owners with homes in the Twiddy Rental program that Homeowner Day will be at Duck Woods Country Club on Saturday, April 11th, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm.
We’ve included the OBAR statistics for February for your review. 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. If you’d like to help in reducing our paper use, please send us a current email so we can add you to our paperless mailing list. We will send you an email each month with a copy of our 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 us if you have any questions or should you need anything at all.
The OBX Homes Team
