Looking to avoid HOAs in Myrtle Beach SC area? Here’s what to know, where to search
Prospective home buyers in the Myrtle Beach area are likely to find homeowners associations being attached to available properties.
Nearly 85% of residential listings last year in the Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach metro area were part of HOAs, the second highest percentage in the nation, according to Realtor.com.
But HOAs can also be a major point of contention — Horry County regularly has the most HOA-related complaints annually in South Carolina. So where should future Grand Strand residents weary of these associations be looking to buy?
Home search websites, such as Zillow, allow users to search for residential properties with no HOA fee, and that search yielded about 300 results as of Friday within coastal Horry County cities including Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and Surfside Beach.
But Realtor Michelle Duncan, of Duncan Group Properties, said buyers truly looking to live without the restrictions typically associated with HOAs will likely have to look more inland in areas including Conway and Aynor.
While HOAs manage a cluster of properties and enforce certain rules and restrictions, most residential properties in the Myrtle Beach area have limitations on usage whether they’re within an HOA or not, Duncan warned. Limitations can also be enforced through zoning or deed restrictions, she added.
Duncan, president of the Coastal Carolinas Multiple Listing Service (CCMLS), said she recently had a client looking for a property where they could house goats and chickens to produce milk and eggs they could sell at a local farmer’s market. The client sent her a property they were interested in purchasing — no HOA and zoned agricultural — but Duncan later found a deed restriction specifying farm animals on the property could not be used for business interests.
Aside from the number of bedrooms and bathrooms a home has, Duncan said buyers’ preferences surrounding HOAs is among the first questions she asks. Many initially want to avoid associations, she said, either because they’ve had negative interactions with HOAs in the past or they’re moving from an area without HOAs and they’ve heard “horror stories” about high monthly fees and overzealous boards.
In such instances, Duncan said she will have conversations with clients about why they want to avoid HOAs and explain that every association is different, so there are options available for lower monthly fees and fewer restrictions. Many do end up deciding to include properties with HOAs in their search after that discussion, she said.
“Others are just adamantly opposed to an HOA telling them what they can and can’t do with their property,” Duncan said.
For those clients, Duncan suggests looking more inland, particularly at highway-facing homes because builders don’t need to create an HOA with no shared entryway into a neighborhood. There are limited lots along the coast with minimal restrictions, Duncan added, but those are likely unincorporated county properties, and builders often buy those properties quickly when they go on the market.
