Myrtle Beach single-family home prices expected to rise

Money Magazine says Myrtle Beach area single-family home prices will jump 8.4 percent over the next year - an increase that puts the Grand Strand 31st in the United States for price increases.

Last year, Myrtle Beach area prices increased 18.7 percent, according to the magazine’s study of 380 markets.

Myrtle Beach is the only metro area in the Carolinas to make the top 40.

Tom Maeser, president of Fortune Academy of Real estate, said he agrees with the forecasted 8 percent increase in single-family homes.

“The first quarter showed about 8 percent, so it is tracking in that direction. The only variable to that is we are seeing an increase in upper-bracket [priced] homes, and you don’t have to build a lot of those to have an impact [on the median price],” he said.

Nationwide, single-family home prices will rise 3.5 percent between now and June 2007, according to the forecast. That’s under the 10 percent annual rate of the past five years.

The study says Myrtle Beach-area median price increased 51 percent in five years.

Maeser said the past two years of that were a “catching-up period” that has brought Strand prices to a more competitive range to other areas.

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