Episode 81

Buddy Blake's 4th of July Wilmington Market Update: America Turns 250, DR Horton Deals, and Where the Market Stands Right Now

Hosted by Buddy Blake, Buddy Blake Real Estate
Jul 4, 2026 Video Available
Cover for Buddy Blake's 4th of July Wilmington Market Update: America Turns 250, DR Horton Deals, and Where the Market Stands Right Now

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Buddy Blake celebrates America's 250th birthday with a personal Wilmington 4th of July message while breaking down exactly where the local real estate market stands — plus a limited-time DR Horton incentive spotlight buyers won't want to miss.

Episode Summary

Hi and happy 4th of July week and happy birthday to America 250 years. I'm actually old enough to remember in 1976 the bicentennial. What a big deal that was. So anyway I just wanted to put that out there wish a very very happy 4th of July to everybody. I hope you have a great time. I understand in our region we're expecting anywhere between 75 and 100 thousand visitors between Wilmington and Topsail Beach, Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach and then of course North Carolina's official celebration which is in the little river community of Southport North Carolina. Our family will be down at Carolina Beach at our place down there so otherwise I want to give you some updates on what's going on in our world of right now the market is just kind of paused. It's just kind of holding on right now waiting to see what's going to happen overseas, waiting to see what's going to happen with the economy. Interest rates are back up but we expect that to settle down and we're still seeing interestingly enough the higher the price the more likely the house is to sell because the folks in the northeast and the west Colorado, California, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington and Virginia. Their markets are still pretty busy. I actually talked to an agent yesterday who has been very nice to refer to us a customer from New Jersey and she's actually moving to Florida the agent put her house on the market down at the shore in New Jersey and in one day I think maybe one or two days she had multiple offers and she got 100,000 more than she was asking. Okay I want to go ahead and tell you if you're thinking about selling your house in our area that's not happening unless we mark your house way down and then we go for the bid up process. But anyway I just wanted to let you know that a lot is going on in our area if you have any questions I'll be happy to share some ideas and I've lived here my whole life so I'll be glad to share what I do on 4th of July. Sometimes it's stay away from everybody but this year I'm going to dive right in because the scenery, the sights it is just entertaining to see so many people and I love seeing visitors. I'm not one of the locals that hates to see outsiders. I love it. I married an outsider. My wife is from New Jersey so now we have completely southernized her in all ways. Other than cooking. Still the word casserole does not exist for people from up north and I just don't understand that especially sweet potato casserole. How can you not like that? Down below I'm going to be talking there's a couple links to some podcasts I did about right now if you're looking for something if you're looking for a deal. You're an investor, want a second home or your first time home buyer. I'm going to spotlight one of the national builders in the area. Now I come from a world where we did not want national builders and I'm not going to lie it was a lot better in my opinion when we had regional and local builders but that ship sailed a long time ago. DR Horton we're going to spotlight them. Now other builders have some great incentives too but right now DR reached out to us and to our team and they asked us to let our folks know they've got over a hundred homes available in our three-county area and just like they do every summer and then at the end of every year whatever they've got available they cut the prices and then they offer incredible incentives. And right now you'll see below just click the link and it's about a 4-minute podcast you can hear me talking about it but you can get interest rates for 3.99, 4.99 plus they will throw in literally the kitchen sink, you know refrigerator, washer, dryer and give you $10,000 to use as you choose for closing costs or whatever if you use their lender. But they've got some really great incentives and they will even consider doing contingencies as long as you list your house with an agent that they're confident with and they're very confident with us. I just want you to know that. But the other thing I want to point out is if you work with them just keep in mind that if we, our team is acting as your buyer's agent they will agree to pay the buyer agent commission. Some builders don't do that but they will pay that so that's something you do not have to pay as a buyer. But the other thing is we have a Homes for Heroes program that we've been doing for many years so if you qualify for that, you know law enforcement, active duty military, veteran, healthcare industry, teacher, first responder, firefighter, clergy, all these things they go into that you actually may qualify to get a rebate check after you close for thousands of dollars and that comes out of our commission. We do that to give back to those that serve us and we just want to thank you for doing that. We've given back well over $250,000 over the last five or six years of our commission. So that is something you get on top of that. So I want you to think about that because I'm going to tell you we've got agents in my office right now looking for either primary or investment properties and they're looking at this because we know that when the market is slower like it is slower now. There's no question about it just kind of paused. The house prices aren't crashing but they are adjusting and people, sellers aren't getting what they had hoped to get three or four years ago what their neighbor may have gotten. But holy cow if you've owned your house for more than five or six years you have made a lot of money and don't be greedy. Get what you can and go. You've done well. Celebrate, enjoy it. I want to just point out that you need to watch this because this is going to go away. This is for things that they sell in July and August. So if you're interested in that give us a call. We have the list of all of their homes that are available that you can see and from what I understand we've been told by their people that it applies everywhere. Now some areas have nicer appointments in the homes because DR Horton has about three different levels of homes all the way down to their bottom end budget-conscious no toilet paper holder homes all the way up to their quartz countertops super nice homes. So they've got a little bit of everything. They've got townhomes, they've got single family, they've got communities with incredible amenities like Blake Farm and lots of those places all in our area. And we would love the opportunity to work with you as your buyer's agent. And if you have a home you need to sell in our area we've even gotten an agreement with them where they will consider doing a contingency deal as long as we list the home and we get it on the market because they're confident that A: we're going to tell you what's really going to happen and they know we get our job done. Been doing this for almost 30 years. We have a high degree of success because we are just straightforward with people. And just like anything else anytime you're unhappy with our service whether as a buyer's agent whether I'm listing your house you can fire us at any time while you're not under contract to buy a property or sell a property and the reason why is I don't want the only reason you do business with us to be because of a piece of paper. Thank you so much. Have a great 4th of July. Please, please say hello if you're down at Carolina Beach. We're going to be down there in the mix taking in the sight and the scenery just like everybody else and just eating a lot. And if you want the really good eating places the locals like let me know because I've been going down there for about 20 years and I know the best places in my opinion. Thanks a lot. Take care.

Show Notes

🎙️ Real Estate Stories — Episode Buddy Blake's 4th of July Wilmington Market Update: America Turns 250, DR Horton Deals, and Where the Market Stands Right Now Buddy Blake celebrates America's 250th birthday with a personal Wilmington 4th of July message while breaking down exactly where the local real estate market stands — plus a limited-time DR Horton incentive spotlight buyers won't want to miss. 📖 Read the full blog post: https://www.buddyblake.com/blog/buddy-blakes-4th-of-july-wilmington-market-update-america ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Your Host Buddy Blake, Buddy Blake Real Estate 📍 Wilmington, NC 🌐 https://buddyblake.com 💼 Sell Your Home & Keep The Most $: https://expresshomesale.com 📱 Follow & Connect: • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@buddyblakenc • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buddyblakedotcom Powered by https://buddyblake.com

About the Host

Buddy Blake
Buddy Blake
Buddy Blake Real Estate
Wilmington, NC

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