Brunswick County Archives - Blog | Carolina Plantations Real Estate

May 25, 2023May 25, 2023

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)!

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023

Making Your Interior Selections in Your Dream Home

For 16 years, Carolina Plantations have been helping our clients navigate the prisms of retirement. While the ultimate goal is to find your Dream Home, so much else must be addressed before finding your forever home. However, once you get there, and especially if it is a home to be built to your specifications (which 60% of our clients opt for,) how do you know what selection to choose?

Two different interior designs of kitchens, one is an upscale kitchen with a different color island and the other is more neutral coloring

A few interior designers disagree with Doug’s thoughts on beginning to make selections for a new home, so that they can skip this article. Owning a custom home design company for 15 years and having helped dozens and dozens of clients successfully select their interior and exterior selections, he thinks he has a pretty good handle on providing “suggestions” on this subject.

Design Selections

The room you begin your selections in is the kitchen, for this is the most expensive room in the home and where many of us spend a lot of time. When you factor in the cost of all appliances, cabinets, plumbing features, lighting options, countertops, backsplashes, and more, the average kitchen will run between $50,000 – $75,000. Upgraded kitchens will run $75,000 – $150,000, and opulent kitchens will be $150,000 and above. So, where do we start?

The Flooring

Think about it, when you are in the kitchen, dining area, or living room, you see a lot of floors. You don’t typically see countertops, cabinets, or backsplashes as you drift out of the kitchen. So, starting with your floor is just a natural decision. Our first suggestion is to determine whether you want a light, medium or dark floor. Then you need to select the material you desire, as in natural wood, engineered wood, tile (ceramic or porcelain,) LVP (luxury vinyl plank), or whatever the latest craze is. And FYI, most people select a medium floor covering as light or dark can often show dirt very quickly. Lastly, you need to choose what color floor you like the best. Today a gray/brown medium combo is the most popular color. However, there are plenty of colors to select from.

The Cabinets

Once you select your floor, you can use that sample to hold up against the myriad of cabinets. Your first task is determining if you want to blend the two or have a mild/medium/stark contrast. If, by chance, you are not aware of this, for years, the cabinet used on the island is typically a darker color cabinet than the rest of your cabinets. And here is well, you need to consider the tone of your cabinets, as in light/medium/dark. Then you select the cabinet material – such as natural wood, engineered wood, wood with glass, etc. Lastly, choose the color you feel best matches/contrasts the flooring, and don’t forget that you can have your cabinets painted or stained with your favorite color.

A Little Tip: If you move to coastal NC, 95% of our clients opt for lighter cabinets, as they provide an authentic seaside feel. Very seldom do you see red cherry; for a while, that is beautiful, but it’s more for cold country.

The Countertops

Finally, you select the surface you will see for decades on top of your cabinets. Like flooring, you need to think about how the extremes of light and dark will affect your kitchen, for too light or too dark, and you could be cleaning your kitchen 24/7 for the rest of your life. Granite and Quartz are the two most popular options for material today, and movement is another variable you need to consider. A little movement might be traditional marble, where the slight gray colors almost blend in with the white background. On the other hand, more countertops today accentuate dramatic colors and movement. Lastly is color, which should be easy since you already have selected the flooring and cabinet colors. Most showrooms have an excellent array of countertop selections.

The Backsplash

Doug thinks backsplashes are the most considerable pain in the butt of everything you must select inside a home. You know you want a backsplash (versus dull paint that collects spaghetti sauce droplets), but between the material, color, and patterns, selecting the perfect backsplash can be overwhelming. Doug’s two cents is to be a bit bolder than your gut tells you; however, within reason, an ugly backsplash can ruin a $200,000 kitchen.

You Paint Color(s)

Unlike your other selections, you have a finite number of choices to choose from, but there is no limit when it comes to painting. If you thumb through the Benjamin Moore color chart, we believe there are over 50 variations of yellow to select from. Therefore, no matter what your other selections look like, there will always be a paint color to match!

White Cabinets in first picture on left with a colorful and bold backsplash, middle picture is a quartz countertop with white cabinets and last picture is blue cabinets with light wood flooring

Other Selections

Once you’ve got these five out of the way, the rest are relatively easy to select on your interior selections, which include but are not limited to:

Plumbing Fixtures – faucets, faucet handles, sinks, toilets, etc.
Appliances – stove, oven, dishwasher, microwave, refrigerator, wine fridge, washer & dryer, etc.
Lighting Fixtures – chandeliers, can lights, mirror lights, pendant lights, light switches, etc.
Cabinet Hardware – don’t select something boring, be bold! There is so much to choose from.

Picture on left shows hardware for cabinets, middle picture shows blue light fixtures and right picture shows faucet handles with running water

Your exterior selections are a lot simpler because you are dealing with only a few options – shingle color and material, paint color(s) for houses and shutters, stone, or brick accents, stamped concrete options, light fixtures, etc.

Making your selections is a process that can be overwhelming; however, if you take a step-by-step approach to it, you will minimize your stress levels significantly. One must remember that this is probably the last and perhaps only home you will ever customize precisely to your liking, and what you select is a true reflection of you, so take your time, have fun, and enjoy the process!

October 22, 2022October 22, 2022

Hurricanes

In early 2002, when the Blue Green Corporation hired Doug to sell land at Winding River Plantation in Bolivia, NC, he taught him to refer to hurricanes as “storms” and do all he could to change the subject if it came up. Talking about hurricanes while trying to sell real estate is like asking a Yankees fan to root for the Red Sox.

With Ian wreaking havoc on the Caribbean, Florida, and the Carolinas a few weeks ago, we are going against the grain and speaking openly about one of mother nature’s worst occurrences. Wish us luck!

A Little Peek at Facts

First, though, let’s take a quick peek at some interesting statistics about the population of the US and where it resides:

About 94.7 million people, or about 29.1% of the total US population, lived in coastline counties in 2017, a 15.3% growth since 2000.
81.4% of the population lives in coastal states on 57% of the nation’s land. 37.4% of the population can be found in counties adjacent to the oceans and Great Lakes. These counties occupy less than 18% of the land.
About 60.2 million people lived in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico regions – those most vulnerable to hurricanes. These areas added 8.3 million people between 2000 and 2017, a 16% increase.
Florida’s net annual gain of 404,000 (or 1106 a day) new residents in 2021 has increased Florida’s population to over 22,000,000. Only Texas and California are more populated.

We think you get the point. Coastal states and cities are popular destinations for people escaping the brutal winters and high taxes of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and New England. The first goal is to find a warmer climate; for many, it is also to live somewhat close to the ocean. So, if the trends are for more Americans to move closer to the sea and warmer climates, then don’t these people know about hurricanes?

photo of the ocean, sand and a walkway to the beach with blue skies

It would be hard to believe that someone moving to a saltwater coastline is unaware that hurricanes are brewing in the oceans. The draw of living near a warm ocean is powerful, for here is where you’ll find more favorable weather, a plethora of beautiful, planned communities, a laid-back lifestyle, and tons of year-round activities.

Elevations

However, the downside is that you must be on the lookout for storms instead of hurricanes. For example, Governor DeSantis announced that Ian is a 500-year floodplain storm – so they got to go back in history to find similar damage in that area.

Oh, and Florida is quite different from North Carolina in elevation. The highest peaks in most of Florida are overpasses, with most people living on 3’ – 10’ of elevation. In Brunswick County, we are blessed with higher inland elevations, such as Brunswick Forest boasting 30’ – 40’ above sea level, Ocean Ridge is 30-55’, and Compass Pointe is 25-40’, etc.

Below you can see the paths of 57 storms that have landed on the shores of the US since 1985 (Ian is not on the map below.) It is safe to say that even people who live inland in coastal states experience their level of storm hits. What is also true is that there is no actual safe place on the coast from Brownsville up to Bangor. Doug has some friends in Winston-Salem, which is easily 3 hours from the NC coast, who received a bunch of rain and experienced high gusts from Ian.

Flooding

One other item worth mentioning about hurricanes is that over 80% of the damages (and therefore costs) come from flooding. Winds will always be responsible for some damage, but the water produces most of the damage. Did you see the damage to Ft. Myers beach? Devastating is an understatement.

Picture on right is the water damage on the Federal Court House and the picture on the left is after the damages happened

And water damages occur in many ways. There is the obvious, such as water in buildings and homes and erosion, but in 2019 in downtown Wilmington, we experienced Florence. On Doug’s daily morning on the Riverwalk, he passes by the Federal Court House (formerly the US Customs House). Directly after Florence, none of the maintenance staff for the building came to check on the structure and air it out. What transpired during those 4-5 days was unimaginable. Mold spores grew inside the building because it was usually hot outside after a storm, and because they had some minor water intrusion in the building, it was like a terrarium inside. Today, over four years later, that building is still not inhabitable. They have been sucking out the moisture for four solid years, 24/7. Eventually, government officials decided to remove most of the drywall and replace all the windows. The repair cost to this building is astronomical now, and we still have no time on when it will reopen. Therefore, water damages come in all shapes and sizes and should be feared.

Hurricanes happen, and no place is without weather drawbacks. Since 1999, Doug has experienced two direct hits (relatively mild, though) and many drive-by’s. Before moving to Coastal NC in 1999, he lived north of Boston for seven years and experienced at least 4 Nor’easters – which is code for a wicked lousy winter storm. And before that, he spent three years in Milwaukee, where winter lasts seven months. No place is perfect. But if you are on the hunt for that Coastal NC home to retire in, then allow us at Carolina Plantations to help you with your search!

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!

July 12, 2022August 10, 2022

Diverting Your Water

In one’s search for a retirement home and community, many factors exist to consider. Many of the most common are demographics of the residents, location, age of the community, and more. How often, though, do people give serious consideration to the movement of water in the community?

two different ways to divert water from home.

Since 2007, the team at Carolina Plantations has helped thousands of people find their dream location and home to retire to – even if it was not in Coastal NC. During that time, we welcomed nearly 500 families to Brunswick Forest, located in Leland, NC – just 5 minutes from downtown Wilmington. We bring this to your attention because, being as involved as we have been, we have been close to allies with the developer and have been privy to some valuable information.

Anytime you are within 50 miles of the southeastern coast of the US, you need to be concerned with water, for when you hear the phrase “Low Country,” that should associate in your head that low terrain equals high water table. And while our rain levels are pretty standard during the year, we get heavy rainstorms and occasional storm water drains and pipes feverishly moving water – and sometimes, lots of water.

What Choices are there?

When entering a community, you are most aptly to see one of two methods of moving water. The first is using culverts/swales placed in front of your homes. When it rains, these fill up with water, and if it is heavy rain, you might just end up with Lake Winnipesauke on your front lawn. This is because culverts tend to collect water and not move it as intended. And probably most important to note is that these swales tend to get long-standing water, collect garbage, and are hard to maintain.

Choice #2 is where the developer uses curbs and gutters along with sidewalks. This is far more costly than the first option but by far the best for you, the homeowner. Home water is often directed to the street, whereby gravity sends it to a drain. The water goes down the drain and is carried along pipes to a retention pond.

Retention Ponds

Retention ponds can be your friend if the developer has a plan if the ponds overflow. Spillways are commonly factored in, and water from one pond will flow to another at a lower elevation. This continues till the water is sent off the property to an estuary or into the town’s drain system. Retention ponds that do not have a spillway can often flood the homes of those who live around the pond.

showing two different ways that a retention pond works

Numerous communities throughout Brunswick County and Coastal NC do not install stormwater drains, pipes, or sidewalks. Many are older communities but make no mistake; economics drive the water removal issue 99% of the time. Some may say they are more environmentally conscientious; however, now you are armed with the truth!

Be careful when selecting a community and pay attention to how water is moved off your personal property and the community. The last thing you want to do when you retire is to worry about a lake forming in your yard every time it rains. If you’re still on the hunt for a dream retirement home, give our team at Carolina Plantations a call today!