Floridians are moving to the Myrtle Beach area as the 2024 real estate market looks up

The Myrtle Beach area real estate market in 2024 is looking to speed up after a slowdown in 2023.

Homes stayed on the market longer than in previous years as the pace of buying property in the Myrtle Beach area has slowed due to national factors. However, new homes have been developed across the Grand Strand, and the influx of residents from one Sun Belt state is helping grow the Palmetto State’s population.

The 2024 Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors President Brianne Bender said 2023 saw a downturn in business and blamed increased interest rates, while mortgage rates also reached levels last seen in 2000, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Economic Data.

“We’ve had such an interesting year; last year. We didn’t have as high sales as we had in 2020, 2021, and even 2022,” Bender said in an interview with The Sun News. “(There was) a little bit of uncertainty in the market as to what was going on sellers not being able to move because of interest rates being higher, because they couldn’t then go and take the money that they got from their sale, and equally apply it and purchase of another property. So I think people were just a little bit hesitant.”

Bender, who is also the director of brokerage operations and broker in charge for South Carolina and Florida for BRG Real Estate, said part of the problem is home buyers having to wait longer to buy homes.

“The average buyers who we are working with this past year; they’re probably waiting a good extra four to five, maybe even six months to find that right inventory when it comes on the market,” Bender added.

Indeed, while a lack of supply affected the market, houses also stayed on the market longer than in previous years. CCAR tracks data regarding the Grand Strand real estate market.

CCAR’s 2023 Annual Report found that realtors sold $4.6 billion worth of homes in 2023, a 36 percent drop compared to the $7.2 billion sold in 2022. The report also found that listings did increase, as did home sale prices from 2022 to 2023. New listings for single-family homes fell in 2023 by about six percent compared to 2022, which also saw a drop of about six percent compared to 2021, according to a December 2023 report by CCAR.

New Condo listings also dropped in 2023 and 2022 and closed sales for single-family homes declined by about eight percent and more than 18 percent for condos, according to CCAR’s December 2023 report. Meanwhile, homes are sitting for sale longer. The CCAR December 2023 report found that single-family homes were for sale an average of 123 days compared to 113 in 2022, a trend continuing from 2021. Condos sat for sale for an average of 95 days in 2023 compared to 75 in 2022, still an overall improvement from the average of 99 days in 2021, The CCAR December 2023 also stated.

Jeff Forman is a real estate agent for Keller Williams Realty, Inc. and has 53 townhomes, beach homes and condos with an estimated market value of about $25 million either currently on the market or close to completion. Forman said several properties are already under contract; however, investment properties like beach homes are selling faster than residential ones, and the specifics of each plot determine how quickly it sells.

“It’s so specific, based on the property,” Forman said in an interview with The Sun News. “I can have one property that just is out in Conway, and the Conway property will take 240 days to close compared to somewhere more desirable ... So it’s really hard to correlate that.”

Forman also said high-interest rates were why people avoided buying homes in 2023.

“The interest rates pushing up caused people to calculate further,” Forman said. “People are starting to make wiser decisions with their money, and that’s understandable because you’re not throwing three percent interest rates at them any longer ... it’s definitely slowed down, but I don’t think it’s anything alarming.”

Real estate was not the only Myrtle Beach area economy sector that saw a decline in 2023 compared to other years. Some short-term renters, specifically some Airbnb hosts, told The Sun News in July 2023 that 2023 was not as strong a year as past ones.

Why Myrtle Beach area real estate professionals expect 2024 to be a strong year

Bender said she believes 2024 will be a good year for sellers and more homes will get put up for sale this year.

Indeed, one part of the market that continued to perform well in 2023 was new home construction. Horry County saw an uptick in building permits issued during the 2022-23 fiscal year, The Sun News reported in September 2023, and new home sales helped buffer the Grand Strand real estate market in 2023.

CCAR reported that more than 5,200 new homes were sold in Horry and Georgetown Counties 2023 compared to the 4,600 plus in 2022, and newly built home purchases made up 35 percent of total sales in 2023.

For the high mortgage rates that hurt the Myrtle Beach area’s real estate market in 2023, the St. Louis Fed’s economic data also shows that 30-year fixed mortgage rates have fallen from their peak in late October 2023. While interest rate cuts at large might not be in the immediate future, for Bender, the fundamentals have not changed.

“Part of why (the real estate industry is) predicting that we’re still going to have such a strong 2024 is because South Carolina is still, year over year, one of the highest migrated to places in the entire country. Myrtle Beach by itself had just over double the amount of move-ins to move-outs last year than any other area in the state,” Bender said. “That’s also why we feel pretty confident that we’re still going to be experiencing that growth next year and seeing these sellers come back on the market now that things have calmed down slightly.”

Bender added that she expects second homeowners, who might have avoided selling in 2023, to begin putting their homes on the market in 2024, which should help address the lack of supply along with continued new home development. Forman also said he doesn’t believe the downturn in 2023 is a sign of trouble in the future.

“I definitely still see the Myrtle Beach downtown area marketplace is somewhere that has plenty of room to grow,” he said. “Especially considering outside of our bubble of Myrtle Beach what every other market is doing. There are very few that are super, super struggling.”

Recent trends of people moving to the Grand Strand have also begun to emerge.

Why people are moving to South Carolina and Myrtle Beach from Florida

As the Myrtle Beach area grows, people moving from Florida are helping spur that growth. WBTW reported in 2020 that Florida had the sixth-highest average number of people relocating to Myrtle Beach each year. CCAR also reported that more than 14,000 Floridians have moved to South Carolina. In 2023, more than 90,000 people moved to the Palmetto State, The State reported in December 2023.

While the trend is not new, Bender said that South Carolina has an appeal for Floridians because of proximity to family and cost.

“It doesn’t take as long to get to South Carolina as it does to Florida. So they have the opportunity to be closer to family and have a little bit more temperate climate. But we still have a lot of clients that are still keeping their Florida properties and additionally getting one in South Carolina as well,” She added. “As far as affordability for Florida, I would say owning a property there myself; taxes are probably twice as much where we’re at ... Same thing with insurance. Florida’s having the same issues as South Carolina as with insurance availability and being able to have access to affordable insurance companies.”

Real estate agents like Forman said part of this movement is due to Florida’s ongoing insurance crisis, partly due to the effects of climate change.

“I just helped a family move from Florida simply because of the insurance,” he said. “Especially in condos, the insurance has crept up a little bit (in Myrtle Beach), but it’s not anywhere near where the Florida market is. So now the people that migrated down to Florida, they’re looking at options in North and South Carolina.”

While Bender said she hadn’t seen a specific example of someone moving due to insurance costs, weather is a factor for some homeowners looking to move from Florida.

“The last two big hurricanes we had that hit the Florida Gulf Coast side pretty hard, which hasn’t been hit in a long time, and I think it did, make some people reevaluate their living positions and whether they would want to be in that same situation again if another storm came through,” she added. “I think we’re really fortunate in Myrtle Beach that, knock on wood, we haven’t been affected by a big hurricane in a while. We’ve been pretty fortunate that we’re pretty protected.”