From Tim Milam’s point of view, the Wilmington area’s residential real estate market is not just healthy – it’s also a "very, very happy" place to work these days.
“We closed $130 million last month,” Milam, president and CEO of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage, said Monday.
“The market’s really doing very well. Our agents are getting more listings . . . and the contracts are absolutely through the roof. We’re writing approximately $35 million to $45 million in contracts every week.”
Milam characterized the July accomplishment, a total for his company’s four-county region, as the best showing in a month for Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage since around the summer of 2005.
Across the board, the number of homes sold in July this year reached a 10-year high, at 754 single-family units compared to 650 in July 2014, according to MLS data from the Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors.
“This is a very strong, healthy market that looks like it’s being built on a solid foundation,” said Sherri Pickard, WRAR president, while discussing the MLS numbers WRAR released Monday.
Along with an ongoing increase in demand for homes in the Wilmington area has come additional benefits for sellers, Realtors said.
“We’re definitely seeing multiple offers for well-priced homes, more so than we have in a long time,” Pickard said.
Evidence of the market’s steady growth can also be found in some of the new home construction under way in Wilmington this summer. The Forks at Barclay, a new neighborhood rising along Independence Boulevard and S. 17th Street, is one example. More than 15 percent of the total lots, 52 townhomes and 72 detached single family homes, were sold in the 90 days that followed the opening of the community's first model home, said Shawn Horton, a broker and owner of Trusst Builder Group, which partnered with Cameron Management to develop The Forks.
“Sales have been very good early on,” Horton said Monday, adding that the second of two townhome models in the community opened Monday, and three single-family detached model homes are expected to be open in early September.
Realtors and homebuilders expect local growth to continue this year.
“Rates are still historically low. There’s a lot of positive factors in the real estate and building businesses right now,” Milam said.
July home sales in the Wilmington area
| Units sold |
Avg. sales price |
Median price |
Total dollars |
DOM |
New list. |
| 2014: 650 |
$254,455 |
$195,000 |
$165.4M |
126 |
942 |
| 2015: 754 |
$256,213 |
$219,950 |
$193.2M |
99 |
1006 |
| 16% |
.69% |
12.79% |
16.8% |
-21% |
6.79% |
