For those considering investing in a leisure home, the beautiful southern tip of the Eastern Shore of Virginia offers buyers an amazing variety of lifestyle choices as well as some opportunities to offset mortgage payments with income from weekly vacation rentals. And especially with the great deals and the low interest rates currently available, now is a great time to consider the purchase of a leisure home with a lifestyle that can make you feel like it’s vacation time all year long ! For those seeking to discover their inner mermaid , consider a beach home offering soft sands and pristine swimming waters. For boaters, how about a beautiful waterfront home with a backyard boat dock ? Virginia’s Eastern Shore offers mile upon mile of saltwater shoreline to cruise by power boat, sailboat or kayak. For golfers, what better home course than the Arnold Palmer Signature course and the companion Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Bay Creek ? For those who love small towns and historic homes, consider the fact that settlement of the area which is now Northampton County VA begin before the Mayflower ever hit Cape Cod Bay ! I’m guessing that nearly a thousand historic homes still exist on the Shore, some of which are for sale. Dreaming about a place in the country , on a spacious land parcel ? Got it in spades ! And since the main economic engine for Northampton County is still agriculture, if owning a farm with all the possibilities – from growing crops to raising alpacas or horses- that owning a farm offers, well, we have a few farms for sale too. Soooo……. how to get started ?
Tip # 1. It’ s really important to decide on the lifestyle you want to pursue. I know that this seems like it should be easy and possibly self-evident but it’s not. In fact, in my experience working with our real estate customers, there is usually a lot of soul searching that goes into that decision since so many folks have multiple interests and settling on the main one is not necessarily simply. Especially if the likes and dislikes of multiple people need to be factored into the equation. Nowhere is that more evident than in the choice between a beach home or a boating home. You might wonder why that is– usually it’s because one party prefers beach but the other loves boating and wants a backyard dock, leaving the conumdrum of which person will have to drive to get to the marina and/ or the beach.
Tip # 2. Decide on your purchase price budget. This is a bit easier than it seems because as realtors we can help you with this. Once you decide on the monthly payment amount you don’t want to exceed, we can work forward to give you a general home price range this monthly payment will handle. Given today’s historic low interest rates, I think you will be exceedingly pleased at the price range home that your stipulated payment will control in the current market.
Tip #3. Start previewing homes on- line to get a feel for the homes available in your price range with the lifestyle amenity you selected in step # 1. Blue Heron’s main website, www.blueheronva.com , is organized by lifestyle, we’ve tried to make it easy to locate the type of property you want without searching a hundred other things first. ( In fact, we have gotten a lot of complements on how user- friendly our website actually is.) Each property has an individual data sheet that can be printed or bookmarked, making it easy to keep track of any particular property. And don’t forget to order our free prime property catalogue, on-line from our home page or call 800-258-3437.
Tip#4. Make an appointment to come visit the Eastern Shore and see our beautiful properties for yourself. The Shore is a relaxed, low-key area with wide open green spaces and a comfortable rural feel, interspersed by small coastal towns and historic villages. And for icing on the cake, Northampton County is less than an hour’s drive from the Hampton Roads area ( Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake), the 32nd largest metro area in the US. We’re not for everyone of course, plenty of day-to- day shopping but no huge malls, not much for bright lights and loud music . But if Capt. John Smith’s 1609 comment about the Shore appeals to you: ” Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation” then you might be a great candidate for the Shore. Life on the Eastern Shore is like having your cake and eating it too, a relaxed lifestyle here but access major shopping, cultural and culinary amenities ( plus an international airport) within 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the neighborhood you select. Many of the folks purchasing a leisure home on the Shore are intending to live here full-time in the future, possibly for retirement or relocation, so then having metro type amenities within easy driving distance becomes more inportant in the overall equation.
Tip#5. Decide if you want to defray some of your carry costs by doing weekly vacation rentals. Blue Heron offers a vacation rental department which can handle rental and most of the management of your vacation home. When you visit the Shore to look at properties we can introduce you to our Vacation Rental Manager who can discuss the program with you. We work with owners to set up a schedule of the weeks during summer that they want personal use of their home and the weeks they want to rent it. May to September is the main vacation season here which leaves plenty of time during the rest of the year for lots of additional personal use. Since Virginia’s Eastern Shore has a terrific climate, with long pleasant Springs and Falls, you can get a lots of use and pleasure out of your vacation home while still defraying some carry costs by doing vacation rentals.
Hopefully these 5 tips were helpful. We would love to hear from you and show you some of the great deals out there right now. With the deals available and the current amazingly low interest rates, we think it’s a great time to consider investing in one of our beautiful Eastern Shore homes regardless of whether or not you are thinking of becoming a part of a vacation rental program. So give us a call at 800-258-3437 to make an appointment or to order your copy of our free prime property catalogue. ( Posted by Marlene Cree, licensed Virginia agent with Blue Heron Realty Co., 7134 Wilsonia Neck Dr., Machipongo VA )
Tags: Bay Creek Golf Resort real estate, Blue Heron Realty Co. Machipongo and Cape Charles, Cape Charles Virginia, Cape Charles Virginia historic home for sale, Chesapeake Bay real estate, Eastern Shore of Virginia, life on Virginia's Eastern Shore, Real Estate, Virginia beachfront property, waterfront home for sale