Buying a home in Charleston, SC.

Photo Credit: EarthCraftHouse.comAn EarthCraft Home is the idea that a healthy, comfortable home can be built that reduces utility bills, while protecting the environment.  The idea is to minimize environmental impacts, and to follow a systematic approach to homebuilding that utilizes the importance of understanding how the different components of a home work together.  This means that the home performs better, is more economical for the homeowner, but it costs a little more than your normal construction costs.

This can be achieved by using certain qualifying materials, addressing energy efficiency, indoor air quality, waste management, resource efficiency, durability, and water conversation.  While EarthCraft Homes may be a little more expensive up front, the idea is that it should…

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save_money_247Yes, good news amid a slurry of seemingly bad news over the last year.  It seems that banks were tightening more and more as the year went on, but now we have a some great news.

Here in Charleston SC, Carolina One Mortgage is offering some changes to mix things up.  Condos and second homes now seem to be a little more affordable:

Condos:  Up until now, you had to put down 10% towards a condo purchase.  This has been shortened to 5%.  If you’re buying a $200K condo, that’s $10,000 less that you’d have to put down!  This is great news for first-time homebuyers who can still take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit.

Second Homes:  Here again, up until now you had to put down 20% towards the purchase of a second home.  Now you only need to put down 10%.  So…

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We are excited to announce that we have now added Virtual Tours to the functionality of our Charleston real estate website.  This means that if any Realtor in the Charleston MLS adds a virtual tour of any kind to their listing, our website will pull that data from the Charleston MLS and display the Virtual Tour for everyone to view.

So now you have one place to view all of the virtual tours, without having to go to other companies’ websites to view only their virtual tours.  You can see them all here- from every company, and every agent.

In the past, we have added Microsoft’s Birds Eye View and Google’s Street View, and now virtual tours.  We believe this will give you, the buyer, the best opportunity to view the home and surrounding area without actually…

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bayview_farmsI haven't written about any of the neighborhoods in the Charleston, SC area so far on this blog, so I thought I'd tell you a little bit about Bayview Farms located on James Island.  This is one of the top neighborhoods in all of James Island, and for a number of good reasons.  First of all, the homes are of newer construction.  Having newer materials and great floor plans makes it a little more modern for the average buyer looking at something other than the typical 60's style brick ranch found on James Island.  They have open floor plans, high ceilings, more closet space, larger master bedrooms, and just seem to be more bright with many windows.

Homes for sale in Bayview Farms typically begin in the 250's, and can go up into the 400's.  There are two…

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dollarsignsDon't forget that the $8,000 Home Buyer Tax Credit expires on December 1st, 2009!  This means that you will have to have closed on your property by that November 30th, NO EXCEPTIONS.  I would not wait until the last minute.  Closings are often delayed, and especially short sales (which I am hesitant to even recommend at this point- you may not have enough time) will be delayed.

Once again, here is a breakdown of the $8,000 First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit:

  1. You must be a first-time home buyer.  This means you must not have owned a principal residence within the last 3 years.  What if I've never purchased a home, but my wife has?  For married tax payers, both you and your spouse must be first-time homebuyers.  For those that are unmarried joint purchases

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caravanI was at our weekly office meeting with Carolina One Real Estate, where we talk about current events and trends in real estate, the latest mortgage and financing issues, and a lot of the pitfalls that some buyers and sellers are experiencing in this difficult market.  I have to say, a lot of agents or people in general can complain about mandatory meetings, but I tend to get a whole lot out of the discussions we have.  If you have about 120 agents (in our office alone) talking about what’s happening in the real estate market- it’s a great way to bounce ideas off one another for our buyers, sellers, or to take advantage of a great listing that one agent has, that we can show one of our buyers before it hits the market.

Which brings me to my next point…Agent…

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For all of you buyers out there that are out of state, this blog is for you.  It seems the two most popular places to live outside of historic downtown Charleston are Mt. Pleasant and James Island.  Basically, the two areas are similar in distance to downtown and the beaches, with each having similarities and each having their own differences.

One of the big questions I get as a Realtor is: Which is better, Mt. Pleasant or James Island?  Well, that answer is easy…There is no right answer.  It all depends on your lifestyle, standard of living, interests, extracurricular activities, school interests…the list goes on.  It all depends on what you strive to get from each community.  What I’d like to do is break down each area from a local’s perspective, which…

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beware_of_short_salesJust a quick reminder to all of you buyers out there trying to get a steal on the next short sale deal in Charleston.  A lot of the time, there are wonderful deals (read in: steals) that can be made when purchasing real estate via short sales in Charleston.  Most of the buyers I’ve encountered fully understand that a short sale is basically a seller that is behind on mortgage payments.  They can be 2 months behind, or 7 or more months behind in their monthly mortgage payments.  A short sale is when a seller is trying to get the bank to accept a loss on the property, or for the bank to accept a contract for an amount that is less than what the seller owes on the note.  The seller basically owes more than the property is worth, or is in financial trouble and…

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We wanted to remind all of our readers of the capabilities that our Charleston, SC MLS search has.  When searching for a home online in Charleston and the surrounding areas from your own computer- we’d like to give you the best virtual experience possible.  The way we accomplish this is by our implementation of the features and functionality of Google StreetView and Microsoft’s Bird’s Eye View.  We’d like to explain a little of both of these, below.

First, Google StreetView.  One of the unique characteristics this application has is the ability to get a 360 degree view of the surrounding street outside of the house.  It is an eye-level view from the street, and you can virtually “walk” down the street and take a look at the surrounding area.  With the…

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Let’s take a look at the “solds” for the different areas around Charleston for May.  These are all single-family homes sold from May 1st through May 31st, 2009.  I’ve taken this data directly from the Charleston MLS, so here they are:

5/1/09-5/31/09
Summerville (and rural):  133
West Ashley (and rural):  66
Goose Creek:  60
Mt. Pleasant:  57
North Charleston:  44
James Island:  34
Hanahan:  17
Downtown Charleston:  14
Johns Island:  14
Kiawah & Seabrook:  8
Isle of Palms:  6
Daniel Island:  5
Edisto Beach:  3
Folly Beach:  2
Sullivans Island:  0


Summerville and Goose Creek basically topped out all of the areas around Charleston.  Those 3 areas have some really great homes for the dollar, and your money will go far since it is a little farther from downtown and the…

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