Two Minute Tuesday | Myrtle Beach Homes | Carolina Forest Homes

Feb 13 2018

An Inside Look At Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so if you haven’t made plans yet you better hurry to it. I’ve actually already discussed the most romantic places in Myrtle Beach that you can see that list here. Every year around this time, I have tried to take my oldest daughter out for a special daddy daughter date night to someplace special here in Myrtle Beach. This year we took an evening to go explore Ripley’s aquarium just the two of us.

For this weeks two minute Tuesday, I hope you enjoy our date as we explored around the aquarium together:

As you can see, we definitely had a fun time exploring the aquarium. We have purchased season passes the past two years for the aquarium because it is a great place to take the family for an outing on a less than stellar weather days. We usually end up visiting at least 1 to 2 times a month.

This trip however, was a special one because it was just me and my oldest daughter. Normally when we go, it’s the whole family together including her younger brother and sister. This time she was able to do everything on her own and not have to share the spotlight with any siblings.

As we drove to the aquarium, I asked her what were some of her favorite things to do in Ripley’s. She replied that she always enjoys seeing the sharks, the octopus, as well as the feeding shows and of course the mermaid show. However, her favorite part is always finding Gabby, the 60 year old sea turtle. She is normally hiding in one of the dark places in the tank. On this trip, Gabby decided to make an appearance and head up to the surface for a few moments which was definitely a highlight for us.

Of course, any trip to the aquarium would not be complete without touching the Horseshoe crabs, jellyfish, and also the stingrays and sharks. And as we do with just about every trip to the aquarium, we ended the night with a final walk down the noisy steps. My kids always enjoy running up and down them making as much noise as possible. Even though we have visited the aquarium many times over the past few years Including on Fourth of July the past two years, we still had a very enjoyable evening where we spent close to two hours walking around discovering things together again.

If you have children, and are planning a trip to the beach in the future, I would definitely try to add the aquarium on to your to do list. Especially if a rainy day creeps up and you need a fun activity to do indoors in Myrtle Beach.

Feb 06 2018

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Selling A House

In today’s 2 minute Tuesday we are going to discuss 5 mistakes to avoid when selling a home in Myrtle Beach. As a Myrtle Beach REALTOR® for 17 years now, I have seen these 5 mistakes made by sellers on multiple occasions when trying to sell their home. While agents try to always honor the requests of their clients when selling, there are sometimes certain requests that can cause major problems in the sale process and even prevent your home from actually getting sold.

24 Hour Showing Notice Required

Ok, so the first thing I wanted to talk about is the 24 hour showing notice. So many times I run into consumers who say “Listen, we need plenty of time to get our home perfect, so we want a 24 hour notice minimum requirement for any showings on our house.” Now while in theory this sounds great to you as a seller, what you are doing is you are missing out on a ton of potential buyers because you have to think, here in Myrtle Beach they are on vacation for a limited amount of time they may have 2 or 3 days to look at homes and if they are required to do a 24 hour notice to see your property they may not see it.

If I am working as the buyers agent and they are only in town for a three day period, we cannot wait 24 hours always to view your home. In our market, that type of time period simply will not work. Whenever we have these types of restrictions on viewing the home, almost always the buyer simply says “just skip that one.” Now, I understand that there are sometimes circumstances beyond your control that you have to have that extra time. You may have an elderly person living in the home that you need that extra time to prepare and transport, you might be running your business from your house and need that time to make arrangements with work, or maybe you have a pet that you need to remove from the property. These are the exceptions, but should not be the rule.

The main reason people want that 24 hours to prepare their home for a showing is that they want to give the home a quick cleaning, they want to make sure everything is spotless and looks as best as possible for the potential buyer entering their home. I get that, but while you are forcing people to wait for you to clean, you are actually losing potential buyers. So while you think that the longer period to get your home perfect is a good idea, it could really cause you to miss out on a lot of good possible showings.

No Sign In The Yard

The second mistake I see sellers make when they are selling their house is they say “Jeremy I don’t want a yard sign in the front yard. I don’t want my neighbors to find out that I’m selling my house, I don’t want people who come up to my door pestering me because they see a sign there. Once again I know that sometimes there might be circumstances like moving away and having to leave a job that might be compromised if they find out your home is on the market, so you cannot place the sign out there. But, when you skip the sign, you give up one of the most powerful marketing tools possible to sell your home.

In Myrtle Beach, people are constantly out driving around looking for yard signs to find property for sale. When I have a property that I can place a yard sign in front of, I can normally expect a minimum of 5-7 calls from potential buyers interested in that home. Also, with our company we’re using a service called Voicepad that allows people to call or text a number and find out all the details on your home. With this service, it should keep the number of visitors to the door wanting to know details on your home. When you take that sign out of the front yard and don’t allow it to be there, you are missing a huge opportunity.

Leaving The House Show Ready

The third thing that I’m seeing happen regularly is people saying no I don’t want a showing today because the home is not clean. My suggestion to you as a REALTOR® is to try and keep your home in show ready condition or as close to it as you can whenever you place your home on the market. However, as a father of a 9, 7, & 3 year old, I know how difficult it is to keep your house spotless at all times when living in the home with children.

If you have somebody who calls you and says they we want to show your home today at 3 o’clock and it’s 10 in the morning and you have already left for work but you didn’t make the bed, it’s OK, still let them go through and see the home. They are not buying the house based on whether or not the bed is made. I have however experienced a seller missing the sale of their home because they didn’t clean up the dirty clothing on the floor before leaving in the morning. The buyers called last minute and wanted to see the home for a second time to make their final decision before boarding an airplane to head back home.

There was no time for the seller to get back home and clean things up and when they left for work in the morning they were running late, so they didn’t load the dishes into the dishwasher and their clothing from the night before were just left on the floor. The buyers feedback to me was that they changed their mind about buying the home because they had to step over the panties of the seller and they were concerned that they didn’t take the best care of the home because of this. If the sellers had simply cleaned up the dirty clothes and loaded the dishwasher, we would have sold that home that day.

The Crayon Box Effect

Number four is a huge problem I see too many times made by people trying to sell a home in Myrtle Beach. When you purchase a home you want to customize it, you want to make it your own personality inside. That may mean that you make one of bedrooms pink, another one blue, your living room might be green, your dining room might be red. I know every home I’ve ever owned we have customized the rooms to our preference and gave the house our own personal touch inside. While these are your own personal preferences of things you like, unfortunately others can have a hard time visualizing themself in the home when it painted with a bunch of custom colors.

When every room in the house is painted a different color, I call it the Crayon Box Effect. It feels like a box of crayons vomited in your home onto the walls of your property. There is no continuity throughout the house. While it’s OK to have color in your house when you live there, when you are getting ready to sell your home, you need to make sure your home is neutralized and in the best condition inside possible. That means if you have different colors everywhere, you have wallpaper hanging, take all that stuff down, neutralize back to colors that are not going to be offensive. This will help your home to sell faster, and for more money too! If you want to see more on this topic, I wrote about it here a few months back here in Tips to selling your Myrtle Beach home-Staging.

Front Yard First Impressions

And the final thing that I think needs to be done when you are selling a house in Myrtle Beach is that you need to make sure your front yard is in pristine condition. You have to think, the first thing people see when they pull up to your house is the front yard. If they pull up and they see weeds that are up to their knees, they see grass growing between the sidewalks, they immedtiately think that it’s not in good condition. Their minds begin to wander to what else might be wrong in the house, or that your home hasn’t been well kept. A messy front yard sets off warning signs to them and they are already forming an opinion about your house before ever walking in the door.

Think of it this way, when you go to a restaurant and this is what we used to say when I was in the restaurant industry, “People eat with their eyes first” make the plate look beautiful. The nice thing your front yard is that most of the time it is a very minimal cost item to make look good. Some fresh mulch, pulled weeds, $30 of flowers and a lawnmower and you are in business. Do the same thing with your front yard that restaurants do with a plate of food and you are going to be in much better shape.

Bonus Tip

Here’s a bonus tip when selling your home. When you list your home on the market, allow your agent to install a lockbox on the property. It will increase the number of showings on your home immensely. With the new types of technology, the lockboxes are now more secure than ever. They track every single time it is opened and shares that information with your listing agent. They also prohibit people from opening the lockboxes at night or early in the morning. You have very little to worry about when it comes to someone opening the lockbox and entering your home without someone knowing it.

But, if you require the agent to pick up a key from another location, most of the times they will just move on to another option. Whenever I take a listing that has a tenant in place and the rental management company will not allow us to install a lockbox, those listings take much longer to sell because agents do not want to have to drive to another location to get they key and then have to return it again after showing. Allow the agent to install a lockbox on your property get much better results.

Ok so there you have it, 5 mistakes to avoid when selling a home in Myrtle Beach. If you would like to learn more about selling a home, feel free to call me at 843-222-9402 or simply click here to contact me.

Jan 30 2018

8 Places To Watch A Sporting Event In Myrtle Beach

With the Super Bowl right around the corner, I figured this was a perfect time to answer where are the best places in Myrtle Beach to watch the Super Bowl. So, I went to Facebook and asked the question to my friends. After several responses, I have listed below the top places to catch a sporting event in Myrtle Beach.

The first place recommended to me by my peers was The Grumpy Monk in Carolina Forest. This place has a great atmosphere we can go catch the game hang with friends and eat some delicious food. I’ve been told that their hot wings are rather tasty.

The second place to go check out the Super Bowl in Myrtle Beach is Wild Wing Café in barefoot Landing. This is one of my personal favorites to go to. My wife and I enjoy going to Wild Wing Café on Tuesdays to enjoy their Two Fer Tuesday wing special. Definitely try the Boss flavor wings. They are done with a dry rub that has just enough heat. They are my personal favorites!

Next is Carolina Ale House. This is a fairly new restaurant that just opened up near Broadway at the Beach. They have a ton of TVs, pool tables and other fun things to do as well. When I go here, I always get one of their yummy burgers.

Another great option is Dagwood’s Deli. They are known for some of the best sandwiches on the beach. I personally like the French dip. Here you can enjoy the game on one of their extra large TVs.

If you have children and want to watch the game, then Dave and Buster’s at Broadway at the Beach might be the right choice for you. Your children can be entertained by all of the games in the arcade while you can relax and enjoy watching the Super Bowl on one of their many televisions. Another option is Sam Snead’s over in Carolina Forest. Once again, a great atmosphere with amazing food.

The final place to check out the big game here in Myrtle Beach would be Buffalo Wild Wings. They have multiple locations up and down the beach, delicious food, and a great atmosphere for a sporting event.

There you have it, the best places in Myrtle Beach to Watch a sporting event. If there is a different place that you prefer watching a sporting event in Myrtle Beach, feel free to leave it in the comments below.

Photo by Sandro Schuh on Unsplash

Photo by Carl Raw on Unsplash

Jan 23 2018

Most Romantic Restaurants in Myrtle Beach

Valentine’s Day is just a few weeks away, so I figured that for this week’s Two Minute Tuesday I would share with you the most romantic restaurants in Myrtle Beach. While I consider myself to be pretty good in this category, I wanted to get the opinions of others as well, so I asked on Facebook my friend where they thought were the most romantic restaurants in Myrtle Beach. The video below covers the 5 most popular places, but make sure to read the entire list of recommendations after.

5 Most Romantic Restaurants In Myrtle Beach

5. Thoroughbreds Chophouse and Seafood Grille. I’ve been to this restaurant several times myself, in fact, I’ve gone to weddings receptions there. It’s a great romantic place where they have very quaint settings, amazing food, and awesome steaks. They are just reopening from doing renovations, and take reservations, so I’d call quickly to get your reservation. Also, try the Angels on Horseback- Jumbo sea scallops, wrapped in Applewood smoked bacon and served with butternut squash puree, sweet potato sticks, and our Kentucky bourbon sauce, a personal favorite!

4. Frank’s Restaurant & Outback down in Pawleys Island. I’ve never been there, but from everyone who responded to the question, they said Frank’s is an amazing place that you should go check out, so definitely go give that one a test, and I will soon as well. The 20 oz bone in ribeye is calling my name.

3. New York Prime Steakhouse. I’ve heard this is a great amazing romantic place to go take your date and have some amazing food. I’m going to definitely try the extra thick bacon when I go, and from what I’ve been told, this is the place to go to find the absolute best steaks on the beach.

2. The Library. The library used to be located in downtown Myrtle Beach right near where the Pavilion was. However they just recently moved about 55 avenues north up in Myrtle Beach into a brand new location. I had a lot of people who responded saying the new location is amazing it’s quaint, and a very romantic place to take your date. Plus, you can never go wrong here with their She Crab soup.

1. The Melting Pot. Where else can you go and have a romantic date in a private booth with your special someone where you can share together, sit side by side and create your own magical meal. from the cheese dip fondue to start to the main entree, to the chocolate dessert fondues, it is probably the most romantic place on the beach. One word of caution, be careful your server doesn’t go overboard on garlic in the cheese fondue. My wife & I have a funny story about this we can share with you, feel free to ask us about it.

Honorable Mentions

Here’s a few other restaurants that were listed on my post that you may want to give a try as well if the top 5 are all booked up with reservations, or you want something not quite as popular. I’ve eaten at many of these restaurants and can honestly say, the food will be just as good.

So there you have it, the most romantic restaurants in Myrtle Beach and the surrounding Grand Strand. Make sure to get your reservations in place now, and leave a comment below letting me know which place you are planning to go to with your date!

Jan 16 2018

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Buying A Myrtle Beach Home In 2018

It’s time for another Two Minute Tuesday where today we are going to discuss 5 mistakes to avoid when buying a Myrtle Beach home in 2018. If you don’t feel like reading, you can watch this video where I give you the summary of this entire post.

Today I’m going to share with you the top 5 most common mistakes I’ve seen buyers make when purchasing a home over the last several years. We’ve written a contract on a home here in Myrtle Beach, the buyers are excited and have already moved into the new home in their minds and forget about something very important still needing to happen, the financing. Over the past 17 years in this business, I’ve run into these 5 items on more than one occasion so I figured I’d share them with people thinking of buying a home in the next year to save you some headaches and issues.

5 Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Home in 2018

1. Don’t go change jobs. We see too many times where somebody changes jobs the week before closing or they are moving here from another state and while they may have a job lined up, they now have no employment. Almost every lender that I deal with will do a final check up on employment the week before closing to make sure the borrower still has that steady source of income.

If the source of income has disappeared, the lender isn’t going to give you a few hundred thousand dollars to purchase a home if they cannot see that you will have the ability to repay on the mortgage. Now, if you are transferring from one location to a location here within the same company doing the same job with basically the same pay, then you are fine. This won’t cause an issue. If you are changing careers or going to pursue something completely different, wait a few months after you have your home to make that change.

2. Paying Off Your Debt- The second thing that causes problems when you are trying to purchase a house is you were to go and pay off all your debt. A common misconception that buyers have when purchasing a home is that if they can reduce their debt more, it can make them more qualified to purchase. While this is partially true in the sense that it does help with your debt to income ratios, it actually can cause more harm by closing out several credit lines. When you pay off those lines of credit, your score can actually go down in a negative manner that can make your credit score too low to qualify.

Before you start paying off all your debt, talk to the lender. Sometimes they will tell you that you need to pay off something in order to qualify, but in other instances they will tell you not to because it could be a negative effect. Many times the best option is to just keep making monthly payments till after closing and then pay off those small loans.3. Keeping your down payment in cash. Unfortunately there are some people that just do not trust in banks. They do not trust in their systems so they keep their money in cash, either tucked under a mattress, in a piggy bank, or in a coffee can in the back of the toilet. Unfortunately when that happens, you do not have that money in a seasoned fund which is what the banks are looking at when they are trying to give you a loan.

I remember a client who was ready to purchase a condo in Myrtle Beach and the lender could not qualify him for the small loan because the gentleman didn’t trust in banks and kept the $100,000 he was going to use to purchase at home. He was only trying to get a loan for around $75,000 but because the part he was bringing to the table wasn’t seasoned funds, it delayed the closing and almost lost him the property.

4. Making large purchases. Listen, I get that your car may be old and it’s breaking down. But try to make it through purchasing your home and closing before running to dealership and buying a new vehicle. If you are wanting new furniture for your new house, don’t go to the furniture store and purchase it on a credit card.

If the furniture store asks you “Do you want to buy this on 6 months same as cash deal?” Just say no! What they are going to do is open a credit card for you that a payment isn’t due for an extended period of time. But, it will be a lowering on your credit score, and an increase on your overall debt. When those things happen it could knock you out of the ability to get the actual financing for your new home. So you may end up with a brand new sofas and no place to them.

5. Do not change banks. Your money is sitting right now in an institution. If you take that money and move it over to somewhere else or transfer it over to another account, it then becomes non-seasoned funds. You need to have that money sitting still for 30-60 day period so that the bank can see this is the actual money that you are using for a down payment and it is actually yours.

The banks what to see that this money isn’t money that somebody gave you and will want it back, it’s not money that you stole from somewhere, and it’s not something you got from a credit card cash advance. The reason for the 30-60 day time period is so that if you did get it as a loan from somewhere, it will have time to show up on your credit report.

Wrap Up

In closing, I want to make one final point. When you are purchasing a home, the lenders are going to do a final check on everything related to you and any other borrowers on the loan. When you apply for the loan, you answer some basic questions related to employment, your current assets, your current debt, and current credit score. These numbers is what a lender uses to determine if you qualify for a loan.

These items will then be verified by the lender of the next few weeks after application has been made to make sure you are telling them the truth. Then, a few days prior to closing after all the title work, appraisals, and inspections are done, the lender will then do a final check to make sure that all the information you gave in the beginning is still true and that nothing major has been changed since the original application.

If anything does change, that will be the difference between you purchasing your new Myrtle Beach house or not. If you have any other questions regarding mistakes to avoid when buying a home in Myrtle Beach in 2018, feel free to call me at 843-222-9402 or you can contact me through the website.

photo by: cafecredit