Happy 250th, America! A Wilmington 4th of July Market Update from Buddy Blake

Hi, and happy 4th of July week and happy birth... birth 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. 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 gonna 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 is... has been very nice to refer us a customer from New Jersey and she's actually moving to Florida. The agent put her house on the market in the shore... 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 thousand 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna lie, it was a lot better in my opinion when we had regional and local builders, but that ship sailed a long time ago. D.R. Horton, we're gonna spotlight them. Now, other builders have some great incentives too, but right now D.R. 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 got available, they cut the prices and then they offer incredible incentives. And right now you'll see below, just click the link and you'll... it's about a four-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 agent... 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 gonna 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, it's 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 D.R. 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 countertop 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 that's 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 gonna tell you what's really gonna happen, and they know we get our job done. I've 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 gonna 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 eatin' 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.

🎙️ Real Estate Stories — Episode Happy 250th, America! A Wilmington 4th of July Market Update from Buddy Blake As America celebrates 250 years, Buddy Blake breaks down what's really happening in the Wilmington NC real estate market right now — plus a limited-time new construction opportunity with rates as low as 3.99% and thousands in closing cost help. 📖 Read the full blog post: https://www.buddyblake.com/blog/happy-250th-america-a-wilmington-4th-of-july-market 📋 Chapters 0:00 - Welcome back to Real Stories. 1:06 - not one of those people who complains about it. 2:11 - and got 100,000 more than she was asking. 3:17 - You can get interest rates at $399, $499. 4:23 - So it's going away soon. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Your Host Buddy Blake, Buddy Blake Real Estate 📍 Wilmington, NC 📞 (910) 395-1000 ✉️ buddy@buddyblake.com 🌐 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