Ocracoke Real Estate: Finding and buying a home By GARY DAVIS
I learned to swim in Silver Lake as a 9-year-old boy in 1956 when my family came for a vacation. Silver Lake didn’t have bulkheads then. We walked across Silver Lake Road onto the beach just across from our cottage and swam from the docks there.
Highway 12 didn’t exist, the ponies roamed free around our cottage, and we met the ferry on the beach, not at the Ferry Docks. My best guess as to how we got there is that my father was in an Army Artillery group somewhere in the vicinity.
Fifteen years ago, my wife and I made plans to camp on Ocracoke with our two children, but my wife heard about “mosquitoes as big as flies and flies as big as hummingbirds” and the camping trip was off. As it turned out, the island was evacuated that year because of a hurricane.
About five years ago, we made a deal — a week in the Smokies and a week on Ocracoke. The Smokies were great, but within 24 hours of arriving on Ocracoke, my wife Trisha said, “I get it.” She had fallen in love with Ocracoke on her first visit. Like thousands of others, we began the annual trek from Columbus, Ohio, to spend a single week here.
Three years later we met with an agent at Lightship Realty while we were on the island attending the Ocrafolk School. We thought we’d never find a house we’d like in the location we’d like and at a price we could afford. With our agent’s help — and patience — we learned quite a bit about Ocracoke neighborhoods, types and styles of houses, and the dreaded price ranges. Sadly, nothing was available that met our criteria, so we returned to Ohio and planned our next vacation to Ocracoke.
We cancelled our June 2010 vacation when our agent called us out of the blue in February with information on a house that would meet our needs. What luck that she had continued to keep an eye out for us and actually found a good fit. It was a house we had actually seen under construction during two of our visits to Ocracoke.
Within 24 hours and after quite a few phone calls, our agent arranged for us to make a verbal offer. Much to our surprise, it was immediately countered at a reasonable price. Again, long distance, our agent prepared a formal offer that was acceptable to the seller contingent on our actually coming to Ocracoke for a personal inspection of the property. Needless to say, we came, we saw, we bought!
We would never have had a chance at that property without the persistent checking of new houses coming on the market, quick action, and our agent’s knowledge of how to get through the offer process quickly and successfully.
Five weeks later, we returned to Ocracoke to do our inspection. We were shown the house and property and began our education on living on a sandbar. Coming from Ohio, we knew we’d have to give up a basement and an attached garage. However, because we planned to rent the house for 2-3 years leading up to our retirement, there were a lot of things we didn’t know:
With all the contacts she had around the island, our agent came to our rescue with the names of the island specialists who would take care of any septic issues, educated us on the pros and cons of our cistern, and offered alternatives to consider. She was also immensely helpful in contacting a local source for financing, setting up the home inspection, suggesting an attorney to help us with the long distance closing, and generally greasing the process for us.
She also held our hands while we waited in suspense for the federal government to re-institute the National Flood Insurance Program, which had been suspended for several months just about the time we applied for our loan. To our relief, the program was revived and we were able to get flood insurance, which is a requirement to get a mortgage when you live on Ocracoke. To our even greater joy, we have retired to Ocracoke and are loving getting know our neighbors and making friends.
Buying a house is a long and sometimes difficult process even when you are simply moving within the same city. Long-distance buying is a bigger challenge.
Certainly, the first step is to spend some time on this lovely island and get to know some of the people who live here. Renting a place is a perfect way to get started. If you are considering buying a home to rent or to occupy on Ocracoke, you are well advised to contact one of the real estate professionals on the island. They have information you don’t even know you need to know!
(Gary Davis wrote this guest column for regular Ocracoke real estate columnist B.J. Oelschlegel of Lightship Realty.)
