Charleston waterfront homes
Someone asked me to find them a beach house yesterday to use as both a second home and vacation rental. They were interested in a minimum 3 bedroom, 2 bath with a view of the ocean or at least a water view. They also wanted the property to be a foreclosure or distress sale and wanted to spend up to $450,000.
There were none available and that should be the end of the story.
But ...
I sent them listings of all available 3 bedroom, 2 bath properties at the beach under $450k. There were only 16 properties in the MLS meeting that criteria. I also sent them the half dozen foreclosures and even the several short sales available at the beach regardless of price just to emphasize that very little was available. I didn't expect to hear back from them but hear back I did and their response was surprisingly angry.
They didn't want a condominium (that basically ruled out everything under $450,000), what they wanted was a single family home. They insisted that there were available homes that I didn't send them and could I provide the names of other Charleston real estate agents who could treat them right and find them the home they were interested in buying.
As if I didn't send them every available listing in the Charleston MLS and that another agent would be able to find listings that met their criteria.
There is only one MLS in Charleston and the MLS has every available home for sale in the Charleston area. All Charleston real estate agents have access to every single property so you don't have to call 10 different agents to see 9 different homes. There isn't a secret supply of homes that real estate agents are hiding from the public while waiting to be contacted privately. There might be several homes that agents know are going to be coming on the market but haven't been formally listed yet but even if that was the case, I'm fairly certain that there were no Million Dollar beach houses that would have been available for $450,000.
With all the media reports of increasing foreclosures and how bad the housing market is, some people seem to think that whatever they feel like paying will be available for them to buy. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. There are bargains, there are motivated sellers, there are homeowners who are in trouble financially and need to sell. But don't mistake any of that with an opportunity to steal a property, it just isn't going to happen. Beach and waterfront properties are some of the most desirable real estate in the country and the prices reflect that. A bad real estate market won't devalue Charleston luxury real estate by all that much.
For available listings and more information on Charleston waterfront homes, click here.