Buying a Home on the Outer Banks 

     When buying a home on the Outer Banks, there are several items to consider that will help you through this process.  You should determine your budget when looking for property.  We have several local lenders that will be happy to give you interest rates, percentage for down payments, monthly payments and discuss your options of having a second home versus a rental home loan. 

     Once you decide on your budget, you should decide how you want to use the home.  Will this be strictly a rental generating as much income as possible with you taking a few weeks out a year to enjoy and possibly the fall of the year?  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.  Most people have a favorite part of the Outer Banks and will only want to search for property within 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 prices on homes but they tend to go under contract 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.