Myrtle Beach begins the New Year as a “Buyer’s Market” for the first time since1990.

• Buyers have more to choose from, can take their time choosing a condo and can find price cuts.

• Sellers are finally giving in to prices much lower than listed price.

In 2006, condo sales declined 30% while homes sales dropped 4% from the previous year. Analysts attribute slowing sales to the departure of short term investors and skyrocketing insurance rates.

• Tremendous price appreciation in 2004 and 2005 cut some buyers out of the market in 2006 and hurt rental investors who found they couldn’t cover their mortgage payments with rental income.

• As homes flooded the market and prices slowed down in early summer, house flippers started to back out.

• Skyrocketing insurance premiums added to the slowdown with condominium associations seeing increases as high as seven times the amount they were paying.

The average price of homes and condos increased 5 percent and 18 percent, respectively, but analysts say the increase is more likely because of the addition of higher-end homes to the mix than a reflection of the year’s appreciation.

Current condo inventories will take a year to clear out if the MLS got no more listings, said Tom Maeser, president of the Fortune Academy of Real Estate.

• The local market must attract permanent second home buyers because the short-term rental investor isn’t likely to return soon, he said.

• Those second home buyers will come in the nation’s 77 million retiring baby boomers. Most real estate agents and industry experts say this will be the saving grace for the Grand Strand real estate market.

• “The baby boomer is a definite positive thrust in this market. We got what they want, and we just need to be marketing to them,” Maeser said.

Economist Al Parish at Charleston Southern University says while boomers will keep the market pumping, the insurance problem needs to be resolved to keep them coming.

• “The rental income investor has been lost and the [flipper] has been lost. It’s the retirees that will keep our market going,” he said.

• Parish said the condo market won’t bounce back until the insurance problem is solved. He expects the single-family market to start showing strength in late spring.

Source: Jenny Burns, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, SC