The recent sale of a home in a Brunswick County city reached a milestone for the area’s real estate market and highlighted a trend seen regionally and nationally.
Bringing in a sale price of more than $1.3 million for the downtown Southport property, agents in the Southport office of Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage sold what was the most expensive home in the city in more than eight-and-a-half years, according to a company announcement in September.
Luxury home sales in Brunswick have grown as the economy has improved, Realtors said.
“In the last six months, we’ve had 30 home sales over $800,000 in Brunswick County. That’s about $38 million in the last six months just in luxury homes,” said Jim Goodman, 2016 president for the Brunswick County Association of Realtors and vice president of sales for Margaret Rudd Realty.
Goodman said about 17 homes priced at $800,000 and up sold in the same period last year, according to BCAR multiple listing service (MLS) statistics.
“I think in that high-end luxury market, people really see value. Homes that back in 2006 were listed at $3 million are now listed at $1.4 million. People that were interested back then are coming back to the market,” Goodman said, adding that buyers see the purchases as good deals involving properties that will continue to increase in value from now on.
The two hot spots for luxury home sales were Ocean Isle Beach and Bald Head Island, where the highest-price sale of the quarter, a $2.6 million transaction, occurred, Goodman said. Of the 30 sales with prices of $800,000 and up, 12 were of Bald Head properties and nine were in Ocean Isle Beach, according to BCAR’s MLS.
In Southport, Nolan Formalarie and Kate Ienna, the agents involved in the recent milestone sale, listed the 2,601-square-foot house at 302 E. Bay St. for $1.5 million and sold it to a Holden Beach resident for $1.33 million on Aug. 20, according to a news release from Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage. Built two years ago in a style in keeping with its location – downtown Southport’s historic district overlooking the Cape Fear River – the home has three bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms on six levels, according to the release.
“The original home on this property burnt down, and this magnificent home was built in its place in 2013,” said Formalarie, in the release. “It’s an extraordinary property with beautiful water views of Old Baldy and the Oak Island lighthouse from just about every level. We’re very proud that the owners chose Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage to list such an exceptional home and elated that we had the highest sale in Southport in 8.5 years.”
Formalarie said the closing price equates to $511 per heated square foot, which is extraordinarily high for Southport and the entire Cape Fear region. Other features of the home include seven patios and decks, a gourmet kitchen with a farm sink, extensive crown molding and trim work, a 120-foot pier with deep water access and a colonial seawall dating back to the late 1600s.
The home sale market in general in Brunswick County has improved, with the number of homes sold in the county increasing by 49 percent since last year, Goodman said.
“That market is basically people coming down from the North. You have an aging population in the United States, and they’re finally able to leave their homes in the north, sell them … and move to the South where there’s lower taxes and a better climate,” Goodman said, pointing out the widely reported statistic that every day 10,000 more people are turning 65. “And I don’t see it stopping any time soon.”
