Sophia Nicholson mostly knew what to expect when it came to apartment hunting.

“I had taken a financial class, so I had a pretty well-rounded idea of what bills would look like, what rent would look like,” said the 19-year-old, who moved to Wilmington from Utah to live with her girlfriend, Deetra Speck.

Nicholson and Speck wanted to find a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Wilmington that allowed dogs and cost under $1,500 a month.

But after months of searching:
“Nothing,” Speck said.

“Absolutely nothing,” Nicholson said. “Everything was over $1,800.”

Jenny DePuy was on a different housing search, but she too, was coming up with nothing suitable in her quest for a house to fix up and live in with more space than the one she’d had in Tampa, Florida.

“For a while, I wanted to be under $300,000, and then I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to be the house that I wanted,” DePuy said.

Ten years ago, DePuy might have had more luck; the median price of a house in the Wilmington area in 2015 was $210,000. The same goes for Nicholson and Speck – if they’d been adults in 2014 looking for a one-bedroom apartment, they could have found one that cost under $1,000 per month.

A lack of affordable housing options isn’t unique to Wilmington, and the area is far from the worst example in the U.S. But as affordable housing advocates in the area can explain, ignoring the problem could eventually make the Cape Fear region one of those worst-case scenarios.

Local governments and nonprofit organizations in the Wilmington area have been working to chip away at the problem, including efforts that have helped produce hundreds of units and directed millions of dollars to new developments and programs to help with residents with their housing costs.

“For a while, I wanted to be under $300,000, and then I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to be the house that I wanted.” – Jenny Depuy, recent Wilmington homebuyer

In the meantime, people continue to move here, even if they have to pay more than 30% (the affordability threshold) for their housing costs.

Nicholson, who works at a Wilmington hotel, and Speck, a barista, combed through various options in their search for an affordable rental.

“We both had like seven apps downloaded, and we both were just looking through them every single day,” Speck said.

Sometimes, the price advertised wasn’t real.

“I would apply, and then they would send me more information, and then they would be like, ‘Mmm, actually, it’s $3,000 a month,’” Nicholson said.

Other times, Nicholson had no luck getting responses back from her apartment queries.
“They would post several apartments online and have like, 20 openings, and then never answer,” she said.

DePuy looked online, too, as she searched for a house in the Port City to buy and renovate.

“I would also come stay here for chunks of time. I had a Realtor the whole time, so I would see houses when I was here,” she said.

She was determined to find something because after years of coming to see friends in Wilmington, she was hooked.

“I just really love the area. I love that, you know, there’s a cute downtown. I love good food and drink. I love that the coast is right there. So, I feel like Wilmington has got the best of all worlds,” she said.

DePuy wasn’t a first-time homebuyer. She owned a house in Tampa. On top of that, she wasn’t new to the real estate industry, which is why she was looking for something she could improve.

“When I was growing up, my parents would buy really run-down houses and fix them up and then rent them out … I would do a lot of that stuff with them, like ripping up carpets and painting. … We didn’t have a lot of money, so we would do as much as possible of that ourselves,” DePuy said.

But in her search for a house in Wilmington that met her criteria, her previous $300,000 price point wasn’t cutting it.

“What I was having trouble finding was something that would be – all in, house cost and project cost – close to that $300,000 mark,” DePuy said.

She was also finding homes that were not the size she preferred.

“My house in Tampa is 950 square feet, so I decided I wanted a little more room. A lot of the houses I was finding were a smaller footprint than I liked,” DePuy said.

Other homes had too many problems for DePuy, such as a lot of structural issues, or didn’t have the big yard she was looking for.

Finally, she said, she got a break when a friend of hers who “cruises open houses on the weekends” found something that could check off all the boxes DePuy had set for her new home.

She bought a 1,200-square-foot house in Wilmington’s Princess Place neighborhood.

DePuy’s efforts were boosted through her use of a renovation loan, which can be a complicated process to go through, she said, but it can be rewarding. A renovation loan is a type of financing that can help cover the cost of a home’s renovations based on the future value that house is expected to have. DePuy said she believes she will end up with a house that’s worth more than she paid for it.

Median home prices in the Wilmington area have increased more than 85% over the past seven years, according to data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, while mortgage rates have also jumped.

“A $200,000 home in 2018 would have had a mortgage payment of just over $1,000 per month,” said Tom Gale, a Realtor and chair of the New Hanover County/City of Wilmington Workforce Housing Advisory Committee, as he gave a presentation to the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners in February. “That same home today would be priced at $370,000 and have a mortgage payment of over $2,400 per month – a 140% monthly increase.”

“A $200,000 home in 2018 would have had a mortgage payment of just over $1,000 per month. That same home today would be priced at $370,000 and have a mortgage payment of over $2,400 per month – a 140% monthly increase.” – Tom Gale, Realtor and chair of the New Hanover County/City of Wilmington Workforce Housing Advisory Committee

Meanwhile, rental rates are also climbing, Gale said.

“Unfortunately, construction of new units coming online in the next few years is expected to slow significantly, which will tighten supply and increase rents substantially again,” he told the commissioners.

In their search, Speck and Nicholson had to give up on finding anything downtown that fit their budget and needs.

But they did eventually come across River City Studio Homes at 5040 Market St., which costs them about $1,200 a month, including utilities. The complex used to be a Days Inn before damage from Hurricane Florence in 2018 caused mold to spread throughout the hotel’s 120 rooms. A Louisiana-based real estate investment firm bought the property and renovated it to turn it into an apartment complex.

Although they don’t always feel safe in that part of town, it’s close to some stores, including the Target off Market Street, which Nicholson and Speck find convenient.

They’d like to buy a home and land one day, but for now, the former hotel room turned studio apartment will have to do.

“The only downfall is not having an oven,” Nicholson said. “But that’s okay.”