Once you have found a price range you will want to consider how often you are going to use the home. How are you going to use your second home?? Do you want this to be a second home that you can escape to whenever your schedule permits? Some people are finding a happy medium, renting the home out themselves to family and friends to defray some costs but still keeping the schedule open and flexible.
Finally you want to think about location. Many folks have a favorite vacation location and will only want to search for homes in that area.. There is a big difference between west side homes (homes west of Bypass 158) and homes referred to as “between the highways” which will be between 158 and Highway12. The rental income will be higher in this area but so will the home prices. We can show you the differences in homes and neighborhoods for these two sections of the beach.
For any property that is for sale, we will walk through the steps of obtaining insurance costs, property taxes and utility costs for each individual property so that you will know exactly what expense to expect. We will also show you net income from rentals versus the “advertised gross rents” that you will see posted on listings.
We will go over the advantages of a home inspection, pest inspections and septic inspections which are becoming more important. All of these steps will be taken before you write any offer on a property. Homes are becoming very attainable with the prices falling and interest rates staying low. We have seen some great opportunities in Outer Banks foreclosures but they tend to sell quickly. Once you decide what type of property you want, we can keep you posted on new listings as they come on the market and preview them for you.
