The home of the Brunswick County Association of Realtors is facing foreclosure, officials announced Thursday.

As a result, BCAR will leave its office at 101 Stone Chimney Road in Supply, a property the association purchased and developed 10 years ago, and move to new office space in Shallotte, said Jim Goodman, BCAR president, in a news release.

In addition to housing BCAR, 101 Stone Chimney Road is an event center that has been used for meetings, weddings and other gatherings. It includes a 5,600-square-foot ballroom, an education classroom, a boardroom that can seat 20, and 300 parking spaces.

A Notice of Hearing on the foreclosure of the building is imminent, Thursday's release said, and BCAR officials believe the sale could take place during the summer or early fall. 

“Unfortunately, the debt service on the building has proven to be unsustainable, and the revenues from facility rentals do not come close to covering the debt payments. Over the past year alone, our association covered $90,000 in debt service that was not covered by facility income. Our association simply cannot sustain that type of shortfall year after year, and continuing down that path would have been fiscally irresponsible,” Goodman said. "Our board of directors, in consultation with our CPA, reviewed all available options and concluded that it was best to find a smaller facility, shed this unsustainable debt, and return the facility to the bank [First Community Bank].”

When the association developed the facility in 2006, the real estate market in Brunswick County was expected to skyrocket and the association predicted a future membership of 3,000 Realtors, said Goodman, who is also a Realtor with Margaret Rudd Realty. The economic downturn in the years that followed erased that prediction, though home sales have remained on the rise in recent months.

Goodman said the association currently has about 850 members. BCAR’s new office will be in about 2,500 square feet in Unit 102 at the Red Apple Professional Building, 712 Village Road SW, Shallotte. Goodman anticipates that the move will be completed in June, the release said.

He said the BCAR staff will work with those who had reserved the facility and tenants in some of the other offices in the building to help them find different locations.

“While this situation is unfortunate, every cloud has a silver lining. The silver lining in this case is that, moving forward, our board will be free of a distraction that has hung over our leadership’s heads for several years,” Goodman said in the release. “BCAR’s core mission is not managing a facility, it is serving our members, preserving and promoting private property rights and strengthening the real estate community. Moving forward, our association will be able to focus on our core mission.”