In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, we want to share a quick look at some good real Outer Banks real estate news. Looking at the traffic on the roads and grocery store shelves, we’re a good place to be this holiday week. Reassuringly from an investment perspective, the Outer Banks real estate data is confirming that feeling.
We hope you and your family have a great holiday season and we hope to see you on the beach.
Best,
Clark
What’s the Big Picture Since the Breakdown?
The Great Recession officially ended in 2009 and based on continued positive economic indicators, we’re seeing a prolonged period of national economic growth following the Recession. For the regional Outer Banks real estate market, we continue to see a mix of both consistency based on our tourism economy and also encouraging trends over the past almost four years. Of note, we say regional because so much of the Outer Banks real estate market consists of second home or investment home assets with actual homeowners living broadly across the Mid-Atlantic region.
While Twiddy & Company is only one Company in a competitive marketplace, it’s useful to take a look at some overall trends just to get some good data points toward the end of the year and peering into 2019 as well.
Real Estate Summary
The past ten years within the Outer Banks real estate market has seen a gradual restoration of activity to pre-Recession levels although we have seen encouraging high-end trends across the board since 2016. These positive trends reflect both a combination of micro-level competitive development and also larger market forces to include the interest rate environment, overall economic optimism, and most importantly a strong regional tourism economy closely linked to major and growing population centers.
We continue to see the competitive availability of capital and in-depth agency knowledge as competitive advantages combined with speed of action in engagement.
The big question, shared with much of the country, continues to ask whether these trends still have headroom to grow. With our tourism demand remaining strong, we are optimistic looking into 2019 and 2020.
Average Home Days on Market
The average time on the market for an Outer Banks home has decreased significantly over that period as shown below. Note the remarkable decline after 2016 perhaps pointing to post-election economic optimism combined with slowly and predictably rising interest rates.