Blog | Myrtle Beach Homes | Carolina Forest Homes

Jun 01 2017

Last Day Of School

Today, June 1st, 2017 is the last day of school here in Horry County. Today is my last day as the father of a third grader & kindergartner. To say that the school year has flown by would be an understatement. I remember my son’s excitement as his first day of school approached. Because of where his birthday fell, he got to spend an extra year at home before actually starting his academics, so when he went to his first day of class, he was almost ready to turn six. He had already watched for the previous three years his sister get up each morning and go to school.

Every day, he would be excited to wake up early and walk his big sister to the school bus. Not knowing where she was going or what she was going to experience, he would wake up excited to say goodbye to her. Then in the afternoon, he would wait at the bus stop for her to return home again and hear all about the exciting things she did that day. It’s funny because as we came to the end of this year, little sister Miriam who is only 2 is already doing the same types of things. This morning at 5AM I heard a loud scream “MOMMY” from her bedroom as she woke up extra early ready to take her brothers & sisters to the bus. I’m sure that as mid day comes around she will be asking Mommy if it is time to go to the bus stop yet and get them back.

New Beginnings

For Jeremiah, this year has been filled with tons of new beginnings as he as started kindergarten. Finally he was able experience what my oldest has been doing for the past few years. In the beginning of the year, it was tough on him to learn to be still, to listen to the teacher and focus on the project at hand. I’m not saying he was being bad, but just as someone trying something new for the first time, school was completely foreign to him. While he has done organized dance and other activities, nothing was ever for the entire day long. Within the first few weeks though, he caught on quickly and started to become the good friend I knew he could be to others in his class.

I remember the first week in class a note coming home where he had been trying to protect someone on the playground from bullies and in the process actually bumped the kid he was protecting causing a minor injury. We had to have a talk about how he can’t be the protector of everyone, but that he needed to let those in authority know of these types of situations and let them handle it. See, Jeremiah is a gentle giant. My son who is by far the tallest in his entire class, (some kids don’t even come to his shoulders) wants to be everyone’s friend and tries to have everyone be his “buddy.” When someone is making fun of a buddy, he would try to protect. The picture to the right is from his 100th day celebration, you can see his buddy to the right doesn’t even come up to his shoulders.

Over the year, Jeremiah had bunches of fun learning to read, play music in music class, and learning to do simple addition and subtraction. He grew into being the leader I knew he could be and had many people in his class looking up to him. Literally & figuratively. At the end of the year he had plenty of great new skills and many new friends.

Living In Fast Lane

As for Isabelle, this year meant a step into the fast lane in third grade. See, towards the end of last year we received notice that after being tested, she was selected to go into the gifted & talented classes for both math and language arts. This meant that she would be joining the strongest academic kids in her grade on an advanced level of learning. As a dad, I was very proud to see this happen as she followed in my footsteps. I remember being placed in these programs at an early age and liked having the challenges they gave. By midway through the year she was working on math problems I don’t remember seeing till fifth grade and up.

Isabelle needs to have her mind challenged every day to grow and shine. As I tell people regularly, she would prefer having a book and sit in a corner reading instead of being surrounded by friends and being the center of the party. This year she continued to excel in all her classes and was placed on the Honor/Merit roll every single semester. By the time she finished third grade, she was testing at a 6th grade reading level and 4th grade math.

Extracurricular Activities

As I shared with a friend yesterday, the school year has been definitely busy for us having the kids homework done and trying to get them into be every night by 8PM, but the kids were also involved with many other things. At school, Isabelle was now old enough to start joining clubs and so in the fall she joined a music club. She also was very excited to join the Battle Of The Books club. This club was made up of mainly 4th & 5th graders and Isabelle. During the year they had to read 10 books, all around 200-300 pages in addition to their normal homework assignments to prepare for the “battle.” On the day of the actual battle, Isabelle shined through answering all her questions correctly.

In addition to the clubs, both kids also were involved in Dance. All three of my kids are involved with Silver Lining Dance Academy in Myrtle Beach. While there are several dance studios throughout Myrtle Beach, we chose to have our children be involved with Silver Lining because in addition to them learning basic dance skills, the staff at Silver Lining are more concerned with the children’s character. For Isabelle, this was her first year making the dance team which meant extra practices on Monday night. To give you and idea of what this studio is like, her practices on Monday were for an hour and fifteen minutes. The first hour was spent on dancing, the last fifteen minutes were then prayer time where each of the children shared prayer requests and testimonies for the team to lift each other up and pray for throughout the week.

Jeremiah was very excited this year to try out the hip hop class as he was finally old enough. This class is only for kids who are 6 and up because it involves greater levels of skill and discipline. This met every Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesdays, Isabelle had her intensive ballet class for an hour long. Thursdays were for Miriam who took a 30 minute ballet and 30 minute tap. This is Miriam’s first year in dance and she is the youngest in her class I believe. At her young age she is just starting to learn the basics. The reality is that at this age, we are just happy if she stays in her place on the stage. I remember when we had the winter performance of The Nutcracker, Miriam decided she would get her money’s worth stage time by running from one side to the other and back and forth during her dance number. Luckily she’s cute at that age and everyone giggled. Dance will wrap up June 10th with their final dance recital and then will break for the summer.

In addition to all of the dance classes, Isabelle & Jeremiah just finished up their soccer season. Once again, for Jeremiah this was a new experience being on a team and learning to work with others while having to listen to what the coach wanted from each player. His team this year did well losing only once in the last week of the season. Just like in school, he became buddies with all his teammates and even some of the opponents. For Isabelle, this was her third year playing soccer and I definitely began to notice growth in her play as she was able to stay more focused during the game and do a great job on defense for her team. For her, this was her first year being on a team that would win games. It only took three years, but she was finally able to experience victory. Once her team did that, they went on to win several other games in a row.

Proud Dad

I write all of this today to basically brag on my kids and acknowledge how really proud of all the accomplishments and growing I’ve seen in my kids over the past year. Jeremiah has done an awesome job learning to follow rules and deal with a structured day. He has really become good friends to the people around him and does an awesome job supporting & encouraging others. He prefers others before himself and does what he can to help those who might be in need.

Isabelle has really started to show maturity this year as she has grown up a lot. Her focus on being the best in everything she does is admirable. I’ve noticed her skill levels increase exponentially in everything she has done from her reading, dance, and even sports. Miriam has also began to grow and transition into being home alone during the day to learning her dance moves. She is a loving and caring child who will tell you “she is no longer a baby, but a little girl.”

To say I’m a proud dad would be an understatement. Also, I need to say thank you to my wife who has handled the kids and their crazy schedules during the school year. She did an amazing job keeping up with all the different schedules and handled it as if it was no big deal. She is definitely one amazing woman who without her, the kids would not be to accomplish half of the things they actually did.

Here’s to summer!

May 24 2017

I Was Hacked… Almost

Over the past several months I’ve heard of real estate agents in our area getting fake offers, bogus pre-approvals, and other types of scams that are simply trying to capture the information of real estate agents. The main thing people are trying to access is your email inbox as they know that we help buyers purchase some of the largest investments in their life. Here in Myrtle Beach, once we have seen the home and written our offer, it is not uncommon to handle almost the entire rest of the transaction through email and phone calls with many times the buyer not even coming back to the beach from closing. This is why our area is a prime target for hackers trying to fool people into giving them money.

Now, the way that this type of scheme works is different than the age old days where people sent an email saying that a rich king in a foreign country has passed away leaving them hundreds of millions of dollars. I think in this day and age, that most everyone now realize that those are fake and that nobody falls for that any more. Instead, the criminals are trying all sorts of new techniques, one of which seems to be pretty consistent in the real estate industry.

Why Do They Do It?

Knowing that real estate agents assist people in making one of the largest purchases in their life, we are prime targets to try & steal money through. Hackers in other parts of the world target real estate agents because of the large amounts of money people will spend when purchasing a home. Think about it, our company average selling price right now on a transaction is around $193,000. If someone is purchasing a home and is only putting 20% down and financing the rest, that is still over $38,000. What if the person is paying all cash? That could be a major score for a hacker at once. Once the money gets wired into their account, they are almost immediately wiring the money out of the account to another country and covering the tracks as to where the money has gone.

This makes it almost impossible to retrieve the money once it has been sent and extremely difficult to recover if it has already been moved onto another account. In other words, once they get your money, it’s pretty much gone.

How Do They Do It?

Now, unlike the bogus emails from someone in a foreign country trying to give us millions from a rich ruler, the tactics are much more advanced now. Instead, it normally starts with a simple property inquiry like I received the other day from “Sharon Stephen.” You can see the screenshot below of the email inquiry I received. This person was inquiring about one of my current listings on Dogwood Circle.

Like I do with all my online inquiries, I followed up with the person to see what additional information I could provide to them. Because I had a phone number and had not heard back from my voicemail & emails, I sent over the following text message as well to the phone number:

Approximately 90 minutes after sending this text message off, I received an email back finally from “Sharon.” But, when I received the email, I became instantly confused, because now “Sharon” had gone from being a interested buyer, to an agent representing someone and attaching an “offer (with pre-approval letter attached below)” on my listing.

Now as a sellers agent, I keep pretty close track of my listings and who has or hasn’t shown one of my properties so that I can give the highest level of safety to my sellers. I use an online program that tracks all showings on my listings so that if there is ever an issue in one of my properties, I can see who was there last and might be responsible. I first looked through that app to see that nobody by this name has shown my property ever. Next, I went into our local MLS program and searched to see if such a person even existed in our MLS to which I didn’t find anyone. In our previous market boom, it wasn’t uncommon though for someone to place an offer sight unseen on a property if it was something in a desirable area or price range, so I continued to try & track down who this person was. When both of these things brought back blank answers, I did one final step to see if this person was an actual real estate agent by doing a quick search on Google to see if I could find any information on this person by searching by name and also phone number. As a rule of thumb, most real estate agents have their name & phone number registered on several sites across the web, so even if this was a person brand new to the area and on their first week in real estate, I should be able to at least find something.

Just to make sure I wasn’t completely missing something, I decided I would at least try to look at the file that they sent as I could tell it was some sort of file attached to the email. When I clicked on what was supposed to be an offer in PDF format, it actually had a script attached to it that opened a link that looked like this:

When I saw this pop up, I knew immediately this was a phishing scheme by someone who was trying to access my email so that they could try and steal money from my clients. Instead of clicking on the download file image and try to open an offer, I instead copied the URL attached to the image and headed to Norton Safeweb to make sure it was a bad site. If I had clicked on the image, it more than likely would have sent me a Google login page that would look similar to a normal login screen. However when I would have entered my information, it would have not shown me a file, but instead sent my login credentials onto the hack. Instead, here’s what Norton said about the URL:

Just as I suspected, it was all a bogus attempt to access my email. Now, unfortunately, not all agents are as tech savvy and knowledgeable on these schemes existing, luckily for me, my brokerage tries to stay on top of all these items and make all our agents aware of these scams. In fact, the National Association of REALTORS® shared about wire fraud a year ago.

What To Expect Out Of Me As Your Agent

So, here are a few things you can expect from me as your real estate agent:

I’ll never ask you for confidential info- I have zero needs for ever having access to any of your banking information, social security number, etc. You will never get a text message or email from me asking for you to provide any of this sort of information. If any of this type of information is ever needed for a deal we are doing, you will be asked to provide this stuff directly to the lender or attorney. If you do receive an email from me, a lender, or attorney requesting this type of information or a change in wiring instructions, please contact me immediately and do not do what they request without at least speaking to a live human on the phone first.
Most lenders & attorneys now use secure email servers- I know it’s a total pain when you have to log into an email server in order to respond or speak to an attorney or lender, but it is really for your best interest. It’s just another level of security to make sure your money and information stays safe.
Always verify before sending confidential information- Before you ever wire money, or send over private/confidential information to someone, it doesn’t hurt to call them on the phone and make sure it actually came from them. I actually spoke to an attorney last week who said their company policy is to ALWAYS confirm numbers over the phone with someone before they send any funds, even if they have wired to this same account in the past. You can never be too secure when transferring large amounts of money electronically.
My email is as secure possible- I’ve taken all the necessary precautions to make sure my email is as safe as possible. This means I use an ultra secure password, change it regularly, and also have the two step verification set up as well for extra protection. Also, I’ve placed a disclaimer on the bottom of my email signature to remind everyone I email that I will never request or send any type of information regarding wiring funds.

Ultimately, you work hard for your money and I want to do as much as I can to make sure your information is safe and secure so that when you are trying to purchase a home, it gets used for just that. So, like I mentioned above, if you ever get any type of correspondence from me asking for private information, please do a few things:

First, do not automatically do what the email requests you to do. Second, forward the email to me immediately and then lastly, please pick up the phone and call me at 843-222-9402 immediately to let me know that such thing was requested by my email. Your identity and money is too important to allow it get into the wrong hands.

photo by: ivanpw

Mar 27 2017

SOLD! 2267 Beauclair Court in Berkshire Forest

I am happy to announce that I recently helped my clients purchase 2267 Beauclair Court in Berkshire Forest in Carolina Forest. This was a wonderful 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home with preserved wetlands behind. This home featured a large Carolina room and a bonus room upstairs with half bath that could be used as a 4th bedroom. My buyers were very excited to be able to find a home in a Carolina Forest community for $215,000.

Berkshire Forest amenities include newly renovated, luxury clubhouse with catering kitchen with a banquet room, pool table, library, and gym. Large pool with hot tub, gas grill, basketball, tennis and bocce courts, horse shoe pits, gazebos, playground, white sand beach, and 32 acre fishing lake with pier and boat ramp. All residents of Berkshire Forest have a membership to the Atlantica Resort in Myrtle beach (free parking, indoor pools, hot tub, lazy river and indoor restrooms and showers) to use as well. You can see all the other homes for sale in Berkshire Forest Below:

If you or anyone you know is interested in buying, selling or just need information on our Myrtle Beach real estate market along the Grand Strand it would be my pleasure to help. Also if you have other Real Estate needs outside the Myrtle Beach Grand Strand area I can refer a top agent in your area. Feel free to either contact me or reach out to me at 843-222-9402.

Mar 24 2017

SOLD- North Myrtle Beach Oceanfront Condo in Sea Winds

I’m proud to announce that I just SOLD an oceanfront condo in North Myrtle Beach. This was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, bank owned property in which I helped the bank sell their property in Sea Winds. We had the property on the market for less than 24 hours before we received a cash offer.

If you would like help buying or selling an oceanfront property in Myrtle Beach, please feel free to reach out to me & call me at 843-222-9402. Or, you can search all Myrtle Beach Properties on my site.

Mar 23 2017

Myrtle Beach Real Estate Market Update March 2017

The spring real estate market in Myrtle Beach is here! We are gearing up for an all out crazy spring housing market based on the amount of business we have already experienced this year during the first three months of the year. As someone who has been a Myrtle Beach real estate agent since 2001, I have to say that this has been one of the busiest beginnings to the year that I can remember in a long time. The last time I remember working with this many buyers & sellers in the first three months of the year was probably back in 2006.

Below I’ve attached a video from our local real estate association that highlights some of the key elements in our market for the month of March 2017. Take a look at it:

The one key statistic I would like to focus on is this one:

What this graphic is trying to say is that in the first three months of the year, we have seen a 6.2% price increase on single family residential sales to a median price of $215,000. Homes that last year sold in December for around $202,000 are now up to $215,000 in just a three month period of time.

The other alarming graphic that I found in this report was that the housing inventory has gone down 8.7% from February 2016. What this means is that while sellers are getting more for their homes they sell, there is less options out there at this time for buyers to pick from. This also equates to sellers having even more leverage during the transaction due to less demand.

What all this means is simply this. If you have been thinking about selling your for the past few months to either buy something larger, smaller, or a different section of Myrtle Beach, there is no time better to do it than now. Contact me today to learn what I can do to help sell a Myrtle Beach Home and get it sold for you for top dollar.