By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Lowcountry homes costing upwards of $1 million were in hot demand during 2004. While fewer sales are expected for this year, property appreciations should make the total sales value at least equivalent to last year’s tally, says broker Ron Davis of Isle of Palms-based Ron Davis Realty.

In 2004, the Charleston area, excluding Seabrook and Kiawah islands, posted more than 300 sales of million-dollar homes, generating a total sales volume exceeding $480 million, according to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. Those figures soared past tallies for 2003, during which more than 182 homes costing at least $1 million sold in the Lowcountry and generated a sales volume of about $280.3 million.

During last year’s explosive season, the most expensive home in the association’s Multiple Listing Service sold for $4.3 million south of Broad Street on the Charleston peninsula.

So far in 2005, the association reports that 82 homes in the million-dollar-and-up category have sold at an average price of nearly $1.6 million. Total sales volume has reached about $130.7 million. There are 290 such homes currently on the market.

Luxury home sales should be leaner in 2005 because last year’s buying spree picked clean the inventory’s choicest offerings, Davis points out.

“Leftover million-dollar homes are on the market now,” Davis notes, adding that “a significant demand and an ever-dwindling supply” continue to push home prices upwards, thus keeping the Lowcountry’s luxury home market a hot one.

Seabrook Island, which is not in the MLS, saw sales of homes costing $1 million and more jump from four in 2003 to 16 in 2004, says Joe Salvo, broker-in-charge of Seabrook Island Realty. The most expensive Seabrook Island home sold for $3.8 million last year while four homes sold for between $2 million and $3 million. So far this year, Seabrook Island has landed sales of nine homes costing at least $1 million.

Davis, whose company sells homes on Isle of Palms, Wild Dunes and Sullivan’s Island, says most of the luxury homebuyers are out-of-towners, with retirees comprising the largest percentage.

Retired baby boomers moving to the Lowcountry, the upcoming and upscale Freshfields retail village on Johns Island and more aggressive real estate marketing are factors that have led to Seabrook Island’s real estate sales boom, Salvo explains.

“We’ve gone from an oversupply to an undersupply,” he says of the island’s luxury-home inventory.

Last year, Seabrook Island Realty began marketing the island’s geography and wildlife. Additionally, the real estate company’s marketing campaign tied the island closer to Charleston, which has a strong allure, whereas in the past the island seemed separate from the Charleston area, Salvo explains.

The new Limehouse and Maybank Highway bridges on neighboring Johns Island make it easier for Seabrook Islanders to get to West Ashley, James Island and downtown Charleston, he says.

Freshfields Village, being built near the entrances of Seabrook and Kiawah islands, will give islanders a shopping enclave that will include a high-end grocery store, restaurants, clothing stores and other retail outlets. That plus the renovation of Seabrook Island’s Bohicket Marina are drawing homebuyers to the island, says Salvo.

The realty company is marketing Seabrook Island to Lowcountry residents and tourists in addition to out-of-state buyers, Salvo points out.

Nationally, 2004 proved a record year for the million-dollar-home market. Coldwell Banker, one of the nation’s largest residential property sellers, reported 20,292 sales of homes costing at least seven figures, a 47% increase from the company’s 2003 sales tally. California accounted for more than half of Coldwell Banker’s sales, with market-leader Los Angeles posting a sales volume of nearly $1.7 billion, a 56% increase over the previous year.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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