Tellico Village

Or, simply put, they seek a place to escape the stressful grips of a global pandemic and start living the ‘dream life’ Americans have always imagined. To be sure, Americans have always been on the move, whether it be for work, family-related purposes, or the generational patterns of retiring to Florida and other Sun Belt states for this appealing time of year.

As it turns out, this desire for a sudden change in one’s real estate scenery these days, and the urgency behind innumerable residential transactions, is something still playing out from coast to coast. Despite a coronavirus pandemic that continues to disrupt lives and economies worldwide, many developers and communities are experiencing record sales volume.

LOW TAXES AND LIMITED COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS

The difference this time, of course, is the sense of urgency behind so many of the real estate moves being made by people from all demographics and all corners of the country. Just a short drive from Knoxville, at Tellico Village in Loudon, TN, an established golf and waterfront community with endless amounts of recreational amenities, 200-plus clubs, and signature Tellico Lake, the active-adult community was wrapping up another year of significant growth in sales and demand.

For instance, in late November, marketing and communications director Beth Kuberka reported that Tellico Village had the lowest resale inventory level the sales team can “remember in years.” As a result of having only 12-15 homes available out of some 4,500 existing homes in the community, lot sales have tripled from year’s past. Kuberka says that people are increasingly discovering Tennessee’s relative tax advantages and appealing lifestyle.

When asked to explain the surge in demand, defying the economic backdrop of the pandemic, Kuberka said “folks don’t want to get stuck where they’ve been. So many can work from home now. We didn’t really shut down here in Tennessee. We had some restrictions, but they went away pretty quickly. And our (positive Covid) cases stayed relatively low besides in the big cities.

“We never shut down our golf courses. We just did different things here (in addressing the coronavirus). I think a lot of people were not going to get stuck or quarantined somewhere where they were. They wanted out.”

A Golf And Boating Community Attracts Buyers

In neighboring North Carolina, just an hour’s drive from Virginia Beach and the international airport in Norfolk, VA, Albemarle Plantation is another established, private golf and boating community experiencing surging resale interest. According to longtime Albemarle sales representative Steve Wentz, besides resort-style amenities and convenient location to bustling coastal Virginia, what continues to make Albemarle so appealing is the 166-slip marina on the pristine Albemarle Sound.

Albemarle

One of the largest private boat basins on the Eastern Seaboard and not far from North Carolina’s famed Outer Banks, Albemarle residents enjoy immediate access to the open waters, which can take up to an hour of navigating time for boaters at similar communities. This is just one reason the development recorded another year of increased sales, Wentz reports.

“After we opened up again in June, we had an onslaught of business,” says Wentz. “There was a lot of pent-up demand. People were calling us from home wanting to get in. Talk about motivated buyers. Like so many others, they wanted to get out of populated places and have some elbow room.

“They were sheltered in place or pretty much on lockdown (under the mandated restricition), and we were still able to canoe, kayak, golf, and enjoy our ‘seclusion’ or ‘sanctuary.’”

Island Life

Further down the South Carolina coastline on Callawassie Island in booming Beaufort County, resident real estate broker in charge Joe Kearney says his fully built-out, private, golf and boating community was “incredibly busy in 2020 with not enough hours in the day” to showcase a coastal community.

Separated by a 0.4 of a mile causeway that spans pristine tidal marshes with sea egrets and blue herons often cruising along, Kearney says the beauty and tranquility of the island was the perfect escape during the pandemic for so many residents and prospects.

“We were the best private community to be quarantined in,” Kearney says with a smile. “We really checked all the boxes with the cost of living and location, being just 10 minutes from the ocean and 40 minutes from Savannah. So you still have that Southern gentility and culture.”

Florida Continues As A Haven For Retirees

Florida remains as attractive as ever for folks migrating down the I-75 and I-95 corridors for the Sunshine State’s attractive cost of living (i.e. price of real estate and numerous tax advantages) and uniquely appealing yearround lifestyles. Some of the Florida hot spots are the booming Sarasota market along the Gulf Coast between Naples and Tampa. Not to mention, growth in the heart of Florida’s “Nature Coast” and all the usual points in between from Ocala to Orlando.

The Villages of Citrus Hills, north of Tampa, is a matured, 55-plus golf community with numerous recreational amenities, clubs, and outdoor activities. According to the company’s vice president of sales Wayne Saxer, this growing demand from Americans wanting out of the pandemic-stressed city life for good is one big reason Citrus Hills had its best year of sales since 2005, and the active-adult community now numbered 1,516

Citrus Hills

completed homes in late November with another 61 homes under construction and 96 in the planning and design pipeline.

Saxer says buyers increasingly moved up their timetables to purchase at Citrus Hills despite the pandemic’s state of affairs, especially with the fact that 50% of the county’s land sits in some form of protected state. And just last June, another 400,000 acres became newly dedicated open land.

Overall demand is “way up,” Saxer added, and that’s despite being effectively closed for two months in the early months of the pandemic.

Delaware Offers Respite With Low Taxes

To be sure, not everybody is driving to traditional Sun Belt locales. For example, Delaware remains another popular destination for the 55-and-older profile from nearby Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states seeking worldclass, amenitized, master-planned developments. Among the main attractions are Delaware’s relatively favorable tax structure and close proximity to major metropolitan cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York.

Heritage Shores

In Sarasota, the husband-wife realty team of Leslie and Irv Rothschild have been as busy as ever selling the Sarasota life. Still, the various quarantine policies are getting in the way of closing these ready-and-willing buyers.

“We’re dealing with mostly people from the northern states who want to get out of not only their urban locations, but the cold as well,” says Leslie Rothschild, whose Bright Realty “Rothschild Team” has been the top-selling realtor of new homes the past two years at Lakewood Ranch, which remains one of America’s bestselling master-planned communities. “We’ve had a lot of phone calls and leads from the many Ideal-LIVING shows we attend, but unfortunately, a lot of people can’t come down to visit. So we’ve had a number of cancellations. But we know they’re coming as soon as they are able.”

Brookfield Homes’ active-adult golf club community, Heritage Shores is one place showing robust growth, especially in new-home construction, according to Dottie Harper, vice president of planned community management and operations for Brookfield Residential, one of the country’s leading developers and builders of this type of age-restricted communities.

Harper notes the company was off to a great start heading into last spring when the pandemic’s effects put things to a halt. However, after 45-60 days of sluggish activity, Harper says every aspect of the company’s “marketing machine” began to dramatically come to life.

“We saw a huge increase in interest level,” Harper adds, “and everything from our web leads, direct mail, electronic communications, direct marketing, and sales campaigns were extremely successful (in 2020). We attribute this to the huge draw to move to less heavily populated areas in conjunction with improvements in their living space.