What We’ve Learned in 16 Years

In March 2007, Doug followed his entrepreneurial spirit and opened Carolina Plantations Real Estate. He leased a 1600 sq foot office directly off Hwy 17 in Ocean Isle Beach, just a half mile before Ocean Ridge Plantation. Doug was one of the first three business employees; boy, was he naïve.

The market in Brunswick County was just coming down from a utopian high where we all saw homesites selling as quickly as a bulldozer could knock down a few trees. It was the “Land Grab” of the early 2000s, and man, was it something to witness. It started in 2004, and in 2005 it was in full swing. The honeymoon continued into 2006 and even a bit of early 2007; however, the cold shower was in the works, as the economy officially slipped into a recession in December of 2007. Excellent time to open a real estate company, huh?

Before venturing out on my own in real estate, Doug had worked for a prominent local developer, a large regional developer, and a friend of mine who operated a general brokerage in Southport. Real estate seemed natural for him as it allowed him to use a lot of general life knowledge that he picked up by living in NJ, TN, SC, GA, WI, MA, and NC. So, what have we learned in the past 16 years? A Lot!

Land

Most realtors (unfortunately) know little to know about land
Dreams begin with a parcel of land. From there, you design & build your Dream Home
There is a lot to learn about what makes a suitable homesite: Wetlands, the direction of the sun, the topography of the land, soil composition, dimensions, location, pad ready, etc.
Years back, flipping dirt was a profitable side business. That dried up here in 2008
Do not purchase land haphazardly, if you don’t buy stocks haphazardly
The land is an asset – not an expense. It does under your Dream Home
Always check to see those utilities (water, cable, electric, gas, etc.) are available on your land

Communities

Be very careful about building in a “virtual” community. That is one in which the sales team says to close your eyes and picture a pool, fitness center, houses, golf course, etc.
Do your research on the developer, then do it again. There are way too many surprises out there lurking
Kick the tires – drive around and introduce yourself to current neighbors. Get their take and try to find similar socioeconomics or political beliefs of the neighbors (if necessary)
Finding a community that meets your active/inactive lifestyle is important
Take the time to research your monthly/annual fees. HOA, POA, and possible assessments
The newer a community is, the younger the residents are

Area

What is outside your community is more important than what is inside your community:
- Medical services, restaurants, shopping, entertainment venues, nightlife, big box stores, culture/museums, airports, beaches/mountains, etc.
Climate – What is your ideal year-round climate? Don’t switch out three months of horrible cold winters for three months of blistering summer heat
If you are an outdoor person (walking, gardening, tennis, golf, beach, etc.), a moderate year-round climate is best suited for you
Measure how far your area is from good friends, family, or big cities/mountains/beaches

Real Estate Companies

For the most part, Realtors generally have a small narrow geographic focus
In most real estate offices, Realtors are on their own. Little teamwork can be found
Real estate companies rarely provide their sales team leads, = you must produce your own

Teamwork

To succeed in real estate, you need a great team of outside partners, such as mortgage brokers, closing attorneys, insurance agents, home inspectors, photographers, developers, etc. Many thanks to Tom, Jennifer, Lucas, Jules, Ashley, Laurel, Vince, Kiersten, Carol, Randy, Valirie, Charlie, Jim, Kate, Vann, Jerry, Chris, Shane, Any, Melanie, etc.
You need a team of unselfish Brokers and admin folks to run an office. Our team is off the chart regarding teamwork, and our success thrives on this. All the thanks in the world to Patricia, Nancy, Pat, Patty, Nolan, Kyle, Bill, Seth, Mike, John, Bruce, Pam, Joe, Lori, Ryan, Christopher, Court, Haley, Mitch, Sabrina, Siy, Lindy, Sara, Casandra, Steve, Mandy and more!

Picture showing team at Carolina Plantations

Every year since 2007, our industry has faced countless challenges. Not just from the economy but external forces such as:

Companies that list your home for a small % but provide nothing else
Companies that buy your house for a reasonable price
Big companies that commandeered the internet search engine optimization world have zero people to assist you (all work is farmed out)

One thing that has not changed in our industry is appreciating realtors who work hard to earn your trust and put your requirements ahead of theirs. We have seen a lot of ancillary parts to our business change over the past 16 years and, at times, fell for the hype of how much Realtors are a dying breed, but that is far from the truth. It is comforting to know that the real estate market is not soon be replaced by robots, internet-based companies, or artificial intelligence (AI)!

September 26, 2022September 26, 2022

Sunlight: Why We Need it so Much

yellow sunshine with flares and orange background in sky

We can’t believe it’s September already, and winter will be here before we know it. We at Carolina Plantations wanted to shine some light on the many benefits of sunlight. We see our fair share of the sun year-round, but we still wanted to share some key benefits with you all.

Improves your Sleep

Your body creates a hormone called “melatonin,” which is critical in helping you sleep. Because your body starts producing it when it’s dark out, you will usually begin to feel sleepy two hours after the sun sets. This is one of the main reasons why we’re able to stay up later during the summer compared to the winter months. Research indicates that an hour of natural light in the morning will help you sleep better at night. FYI, a little unknown secret is that in our brain, the Pineal Gland is the one producing melatonin. If you have heard of people going crazy from light deprivation, it’s because your pineal gland produces too much melatonin, making you tired.

an older couple with white hair sleeping in bed on pillows covered up with a white comforter

Reduce Stress

Melatonin also lowers stress reactivity and being outdoors will help your body naturally regulate melatonin, which helps reduce your stress level. Additionally, because you’re often doing something active when you’re outside (walking, playing, etc.), that extra exercise will also help lower your stress level.

Maintains Strong Bones

One of the best (and easiest) ways to get Vitamin D is by being outside. Our bodies produce Vitamin D when exposed to sunlight – about 15 minutes in the sun a day is adequate if you’re fair-skinned. And since Vitamin D helps your body maintain calcium, this helps prevent brittle, thin, or misshaped bones. Soaking in the sun may be just what the doctor ordered this winter.

Strengthens your Immune System

Vitamin D is also crucial for your immune system as it will help strengthen it with constant exposure. A healthy immune system can help reduce the risk of illness, infections, cancers, and mortality after surgery.

Fights Off Depression

It’s not just in your head; there’s a scientific reason being in the sunshine improves your mood. Sunshine boosts your body’s serotonin level, a chemical that enhances your mood and helps you stay calm and focused. Increased exposure to natural light may help ease the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. This change in mood typically occurs in the fall and winter months when there are fewer hours of daylight.

one older couple with woman looking sad and another woman with a family member making sure their ok looking depressed

We are astonished by how many current and past friends have trouble falling asleep. It never occurred to us to recommend more sunlight to them. Luckily, we live in a beautiful area that does get a lot of sun, so falling asleep for many is no issue.

Carolina Plantations opened up 15 years ago with one simple focus: Help people find the sun. If NJ, NY, MA, PA, or any other northern/midwestern states experienced as much sun per year as we did, very few people would be moving here, right? Find your sun today and see what you can find in Coastal, NC. Give the #1 Team of Sun Finders – Carolina Plantations Real Estate a call today!

April 11, 2022August 10, 2022

Finding You a Solution

Many moons ago, Doug coined “The Martini Theory.” It’s a simple analogy for a place to retire:

Top of Glass: Find the right AREA.
Middle of Glass: Find the right COMMUNITY.
Bottom of Glass or Well Soaked Olive: Find your DREAM HOME.

Tens of thousands of people have been introduced to this catchy analysis, and one thing that was always a given about the theory was finding your DREAM HOME. If you found the right area and community, one of the professional Brokers at Carolina Plantations would always find you a home.

That is not as quickly said as done today, but approximately 70% of our clients built a new home in years past. Why? Because after living in homes where there was no pantry, the laundry room was in the basement, the rooms were choppy, and the bathrooms & closets were minuscule. Therefore, the building has been the overwhelming choice of people migrating to Coastal NC for nearly three decades.

A lot has changed in our landscape today with regards to building:

Most of our large developers have sold out their inventory of homesites.
Building costs have skyrocketed, mainly in part to supply issues and Covid.
Trained labor is limited in our area, so builders can only build “X” number of homes a year.

St. James Plantation, one of the oldest gated communities laden with amenities, has SOLD OUT of its inventory of over 6,000 homesites. Only resale homes or homesites remain. At Brunswick Forest, there is just a tiny handful of homesites remaining, but new homes are popping up. Compass Pointe is expecting a new crop of homesites within the next few months, but it has been slim pickings there since last summer. And at River Bluffs, they too have new homesites coming down the road but not anytime soon.

The number of inquiries at Carolina Plantations continues to set annual records, as many people have been itching to sell their homes up north in the congested and colder climates and move to the sunny and warm coast of North Carolina. We are fighting a daily supply and demand situation as we’ve never seen before, yet the fantastic team at Carolina Plantations keeps finding solutions.

Our company sales are almost equal yearly versus the 2021 year to date; however, our pending sales are nearly 40% more. This is almost inexplicable, ladies & gentlemen, for our top developers are virtual without new products to sell. So, just how are we keeping pace with last year?

Expanding our Search Criteria

Instead of limiting oneself to just one town or one or two communities, our Brokers are as well versed as any local real estate firm within a 50-mile radius. This is very beneficial to our clients because we are not limited by town borders or only a small handful of beautiful communities.

map showing of coastal brunswick county nc showing new communities

We Work with Local Builders Extensively

Even though building material costs have gone up significantly across the country, building a new home in Coastal NC is still a bargain compared to where most clients live. With homesite inventory dwindling, builders are being more creative and finding new/er communities to put up spec homes, for if they don’t have land to build on, they will go out of business. And for 15 years, no real estate firm has guided more people through the building process with our local builders than the team at Carolina Plantations.

Increased Listings and Teamwork

In addition to our monthly Carolina Dreamin’ eNewsletter, each of our Brokers sends out a quarterly newsletter. This helps us stay in contact with our potential Buyers and previous Buyers, who often sell their homes, condos, and homesites. Possibly knowing about inventory coming on the market provides us with a valuable “heads up,” so to speak.

We probably have over 50 people in the queue to purchase. We have seen a nice increase in inventory in specific areas or markets recently, making solutions possible again. And as we all know, life and real estate are cyclical, so be sure to have the best trained and most responsive real estate Broker fighting for you, for if you don’t, you will receive rejection after rejection – and that isn’t fun, is it?

January 12, 2021August 10, 2022

2020: The Flip Side

Remember when we listened to 45’s? The hit song was usually on the “A” side while the lesser known song was on the “B” side. A partial list of some of the breakthrough “B” sides though include Maggie May, I Am The Walrus, Ruby Tuesday, Silver Springs, Strawberry Fields and Unchained Melody.

Opening a real estate company in 2007 was a bit of an auspicious event. The real estate markets and stock markets were tilting helplessly towards an abysmal 2008. Somehow, Carolina Plantations was able to post sales in excess of $2,000,000 in 2007, and despite the horrific impact on real estate values the following year, the team here has managed to best it’s previous years’ sales for 13 straight years. Then COVID-19 happened.

For years prior to opening up Doug’s first company, when he would see a Realtor’s business card that displayed “Million Dollar Producer” on it, well, he just assumed that this person was some kind of extra-terrestrial alien rockstar.

It pleases Doug to announce that every Carolina Plantations Broker was a Multi-Million Dollar Producer in 2020! It would have been easy to throw in the towel when this pandemic started, however more and more clients contacted us for help – help in escaping the overcrowded and cold areas that they lived in. The Covid Exodus was – and is – real, and will continue through the end of 2021 for sure.

Doug’s thoughts on making it 14 straight years in a row where we increased our company sales vs. the previous year was tossed out the window in the spring, for with a good part of the country in lockdown, how could we sell real estate? Au contraire monsieur, au contraire.

In 2019, we finished ahead of 2018 by over $3,000,000, for total sales of $75,863,083. It was close, but the team pulled through with a very strong Q4. So, with expectations for another record seriously dashed, the amazing team of Realtors at Carolina Plantations continued forward with their business plans and before we knew it, we were tracking in the right direction. Therefore, Doug is tremendously to present you with our final sales number for 2020:

$103,047,764

So, while the “A” side this year was COVID-19, the surprising “B” side was the residual effect from the massive Covid Exodus we saw. The team kept the hammer down and helped countless number of wonderful people find a new beginning here in Coastal North Carolina.

Here’s a 2019/2020 comparative look at some of the most popular communities in Brunswick County:

*(Please keep in mind that these #s are strictly MLS sales and do not include significant numbers custom to new construction hoes in each community.)*

The above numbers are encouraging, for several of the communities listed were struggling in 2018 and 2019 to find a stable footing. With an average increase in home sales at 51%, it is one of the best times in the past several years to consider listing your home.

Carolina Plantations is the #1 team of professional retirement experts on the east coast, and we’d be more than happy to stop by your home and discuss your current estimated selling value. We will also share with you staging tips that will help your home show well for all your showings. In essence: we need good inventory!!

Contact Doug today at Doug@CarolinaPlantations.com and one or more of us will more than happy to schedule an appointment with you. This is what we do, and nobody does it better.

And, to those of you who have trusted the amazing team of professional Realtors at Carolina Plantations, THANK YOU for your continued support. To those of you on the fence about whether Coastal NC might be in your future, no other firm on the planet is better equipped to answer all of your questions and, provide you with the information you need to make educated decisions.

Happy New Year!!!

April 1, 2014August 10, 2022

Carolina Plantation Real Estate – Best of Brunswick Award Winners!

After over 7,000 ballots were tallied, the readers of the Brunswick Beacon selected the winners of the Annual Best of Brunswick Awards – which are presented to the winners of over 70 categories. Out of nearly 180 real estate agencies in Brunswick County, the people chose Carolina Plantations Real Estate as their third favorite real estate firm!!

I am extremely proud of our accomplishments as a small firm and it proves that our unique business model is successful. We were runner up to two extremely larger firms and congratulations to them for their efforts, and for us to even be considered amongst the giants, well, we truly are honored.

The teamwork in our office is unlike any real estate office in the region. We have weekly meetings where we share what is current in the market and trends in the industry. Our goal is to continually keep learning so that we can provide as much information as possible to our clients so that they can make well informed decisions.

Patty McGrath, Nancy Boston, Christopher Columbus Creekmore, Court Terhune, Nolan Payne, Peggy Earwood, Pat Coye and myself, Doug Terhune, make up Team Carolina Plantations. Our knowledge of the market is vast and of the area even larger. Our website has over 12,000 visitors per month because we make searching real estate easy and rewarding. Our office location on Hwy 17 is the best in the county and I think we have the largest real estate sign in North Carolina! And as you are probably aware, our monthly eNewsletter reaches over 27,000 email addresses – and its goal is to bring you interesting stories about real estate, local commerce, local movie production and more.

And to those of you who voted for us, we thank you for your support and next year we will add in a link to Carolina Dreamin’ where everyone would be welcome to vote on your favorite categories.