Housing sales up 59% on Hilton Head Island compared to months before pandemic. Why?
The ability to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic is continuing to benefit home sales on Hilton Head Island, new data shows. But with the hot real estate market comes a plummeting supply of homes that experts say is expected to last through the end of this year.
According to data released Thursday by SCR, the Hilton Head Area Association of Realtors and the Hilton Head Island Multiple Listing Service, 59.1% more homes — including houses, condos and villas — were sold on Hilton Head Island during the first two months of this year than during the same time period last year. As of the end of February, 428 homes have been sold on the island this year, compared to 269 homes sold by the end of February last year.
Areas of Bluffton are also seeing increasing sales, neighborhood data indicate. In Sun City-Riverbend, for example, 115 homes have sold this year compared to 75 at this time last year, a 53.3% increase.
The Lowcountry’s real estate market has both survived and thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic, buoyed by the exodus of people working from home from high-cost areas in the North, Midwest and West to the more affordable and less-restrictive South and Southwest.
Roni Kincaid, who has sold real estate on Hilton Head for 38 years, said the past year is the best she has had as a Realtor in a long time.
“It was COVID-driven, definitely, now that [many employees] can work from home,” Kincaid said. “It really started [last] March, because people who had been looking decided to bite the bullet and buy.”
The past year has seen sales prices on the island increase substantially, and Kincaid says those increases are especially high close to the beach. On Hilton Head, the median sales price for a house in February was 31% higher than it was at the end of February last year, according to SCR data. For a condo or villa, it was 8.2% higher. Hilton Head remains one of the most expensive real estate markets in the state, with houses selling for a median price of $737,500 currently, and condos for $272,000. The median statewide for all kinds of homes is $256,300.
Inventory, meanwhile, is down 71.1% from last February on Hilton Head. Only 286 properties were available for sale on Hilton Head at the end of last month. Sun City-Riverbend’s inventory is down 81% to just 29 homes.
“Now we have such little inventory that there’s people out there going, ‘Find me this, find me that,’” Kincaid said. “I sold a place to a person who had never met me and had never seen the property. Sight unseen. I think he still hasn’t seen the property. It was an $800K property in Palmetto Dunes.”
The lack of inventory, Kincaid says, is driving prices up, which makes Hilton Head even less affordable for the working class who power its tourism industry.
“All the different properties, all the different POAs increasing their fees, all these things are hurting our residents that work,” Kincaid said. “It’s really difficult for them to find places that are reasonable.”
Those who can afford to buy must compete for the home, though, said Colette Stevenson, the CEO of Hilton Head Island Multiple Listing Service. Those with agents who are well-connected in the marketplace have an advantage, Stevenson said.
“There are homes that are only on the market for 12 hours or less,” Stevenson said. “Buyers have to be extremely alert and … completely aware of what’s in the marketplace on their own. But the only way you’re truly going to know is if you’re dealing with a professional real estate agent because they will see things coming on the market generally before it comes onto the Internet.”
Stevenson said MLS’s data models project the current trends to continue through the end of the year. Beyond that, it is hard to say what the market could look like, she said.
In a press release, SCR president Morris Lyles said the inventory problem will resolve itself as homeowners who were worried about listing during the pandemic become more comfortable putting their homes on the market.
But for now, the real estate market on Hilton Head and in neighboring areas is staying busy.
“People want space,” Kincaid said, “and they want it away from the cities.”
