Marketing Director Kristina Skalak and I returned today from another trip to Washington DC for this fall’s “Ideal Living” 2nd Home and Retirement Expo. These shows have now become another primary source for feeding our pipeline of leads for prospective future Seabrookers. The other main source is the thousands of visitors who rent and vacation on the Island every year and the many direct referrals we receive from current and past property owners. It’s important to remember that most buyers enter our pipeline at least two to three years before they actually buy a property, so consistent follow up is critical.
Just last week one of the attendees from last year’s 2014 Washington DC show came to Seabrook to look at property. Like most, he was very impressed and the next day wrote back to one of our Sales Executives. Among his comments were the following:
“The golf courses were in great shape. In fact, better conditioned than Kiawah and equal to the Ocean Course. We played on Saturday with a gentleman who vacationed for years in a condo/villa he owns and is now looking to retire in the next few years on Seabrook and buy a home. We got to pick his brain and heard all good.”
These folks say they hope to buy by the fall. Our company data base is full of thousands of past visitors and referrals just like this. For many it is only a matter of reaching them at the right time of their life and the confidence of the overall economic situation.
We are also executing several local marketing activities to place Seabrook in the minds of the thousands visitors to Charleston. The most recent are the billboards posted along the I-26 corridor near the airport and the cover page and advertisement in the high-end Oasis magazine distributed throughout the Charleston area.
In the meantime, we continue to be active on the sales front. Halfway through September Seabrook has 124 properties closed or waiting to close, which is on our way to beating the 141 closed Seabrook Island properties in 2014. There has been a trend toward higher end sales in the past few weeks, with three recent $1,000,000+ closings, three new contracts finalized for listings over $1,000,000 waiting to close, and two more such contracts currently being negotiated. Additionally, several deals just below a million are either consummated or being negotiated.
Here’s to a continued successful fall season! Feel free to call if you would like to discuss anything related to real estate.
Joe Salvo
Broker-In-Charge
843.768.7796 • jsalvo@seabrookislandclub.com