“The big problem with me
this year was having really quali-fied
buyers with nothing to sell
them. It is an inventory problem
in the luxury market,” says Sam
Crittendon.
“Homes that are updated and
staged, and move-in ready are
certainly more popular and will
sell quicker than those that are
in need of a facelift. Buyers still
do not want a project,” Michelle
Clark says.
And it was not just the
high end suffering for lack of
inventory.
“Anything under $350,000
was really difficult to find. Low
inventory. If you put a ranch-style
South Oleander/Forest Hills
house on the market, it was gone
within a few days,” says Carla
Lewis.
This may have something to do
with the proximity to nearby Live
Oak Bank and the cadre of pro-fessionals
being attracted to the
work there.
“It’s that, and also the hospital,
the medical community and the
legal community, and Live Oak,”
Lee Crouch says. “And then Cape
Fear Country Club is a driver,
too, the young families that are
members.”
Describing the area known as
midtown, Forest Hills all the way to
Barclay — Market Street all the way
to the 17th extension — he notes a
number of seniors live there.
“In midtown, there’s an aging
community that when they
opened up Carolina Bay a num-ber
of those folks would go to
Carolina Bay. The ones that didn’t
want to go would talk to their
friends that went and they would
say, ‘oh, how wonderful it was.’
And they’d say, ‘Maybe I should
go and look at it.’ That kinda gets
the ball rolling,” Crouch says.
WRIGHTSVILLE
SOUND
1323 Airlie Road
87
WBM
PHOTOS COURTESY THE CAROLINAS FINEST
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com