Myrtle Beach custom home builders relied on new golf courses. They might be out of land

Despite high mortgage rates, the allure of owning a home remains for many. The idea of having a domain for oneself and family free from the sounds and smells of apartment living is appealing to enough people to put a down payment on a home.

Many prospective home buyers will look towards production homes built by a national firm. While the shape, size, and design might be constrained to a few options, the supply along the Grand Strand is growing. According to building permit data, Horry County issued almost 5,800 residential permits during the 2023-24 fiscal year, a nine percent increase from 2022-23.

While most prefer to build a production home, some prospective buyers might seek more control and choice regarding their dream abode. For that, some might buy their own tract of undeveloped land and task a builder to create a custom home.

A dream home is a goal for many, but the Myrtle Beach market might need more land to make it a reality. Builders agree that the supply of land plots for custom homes is shrinking. Jason Repak, president of the custom home design and construction firm Hudson Builders, said the number of available plots along the Grand Strand is dwindling, with most lots only available in the Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island and Georgetown area.

“No one has built a custom neighborhood or community in probably 15 to 20 years. So you are seeing custom home lot inventory significantly reduced,” he said. “You’re starting to see home sites become more and more rare.”

The question becomes, what happened?

How Myrtle Beach area custom home builders road the golf course development boom

Bruce Carrell’s seen the Grand Strand change considerably in his time along the Grand Strand. Carrell is the president of the custom home design firm The Carrell Group. He first moved to the area in 1985 and received his building license in 1987, creating an average of about 20-25 custom homes yearly.

His time in Myrtle Beach also coincided with a boom in an industry adjacent to home-building. According to NBC Golf Pass, 38 golf courses were open in the Myrtle Beach area by 2011, but the number had ballooned to 110.

For Carrell, this boom in golf course construction was an opportunity, as plots of unused land along the links were ideal tracts for building custom homes. Carrell’s firm built as many as 50 custom homes in a year at its peak.

“When I started, there were literally thousands and thousands of lots cut up around golf courses. A tremendous amount of golf course growth (in the) 60s, 70s, and 80s; someone would put a golf course, then they put all these blocks around it, sell the lots, and that helps pay for the golf course,” Carrell added. “It’s kind of a business model, and consequently, there were a tremendous number of small home builders like myself working in the marketplace.”

The courses were also an attractive amenity for homeowners, providing significant green space for residents without having to tend to it themselves. The apex of this philosophy was the Grande Dunes area, where golf courses plus other amenities included considerable land for custom homes.

Carrell’s firm built the first home in the Castillo del Mar section, which sold for more than a million dollars in October 2000. In 2024, Carrell has designed between 200 and 300 units in the Grande Dunes area.

However, Grande Dunes was one of the last custom home-designated communities, Carrell and Repak said, and since the symbiotic relationship between golf courses and home builders has dissipated somewhat. The new golf course boom slowed in the early 2000s, and soon, links started closing as the golf industry entered a recession that ended in 2020.

Without new golf courses and the corresponding plots of land, the supply for custom home construction has slowly fallen, says Carrell. Closed courses also sometimes get re-developed, but typically not for custom home-building purposes.

What do custom homes look like in the Myrtle Beach, SC area?

Most homeowners are responsible for decision-making when building a custom home. Customers often have to make decisions they previously didn’t have to, and many options are available, Repak said

“If you care about square footage but want to minimize your cost, there are some levers that you can pull in the build process to make that happen. If you say, ‘Hey, I don’t really care that my house is that large, but I really want high level, fit and finish, and I want super-premium appliances and cabinets and counters.’ We can do that as well, “He added. “When buying a custom home or having a custom home built, it is the ultimate level of control over the fit, finish, and budget of what you’re getting in your home.”

Repak claimed that Hudson Builders receives between 15 and 20 requests for custom homes yearly. Usually, customers are families with teenage or adult children, either transitioning into being empty nesters or preparing for retirement. Of course, the tastes of these customers change with time, and while each home is different, some trends emerge.

Repak said paver decks, outdoor kitchens, and metallic fixtures featuring champagne bronze or matte gold are popular requests. Furthermore, once out of fashion, dedicated office spaces have returned in popularity due to hybrid work schedules. Repak added that the predominant style in custom homes today is usually a modern farmhouse aesthetic.

According to the home improvement publication The Spruce, Modern Farmhouses combine American pioneer architecture with extensive porches, exterior siding, and interior designs in mostly neutral colors like beige, brown, grey, and others. Yet, while modern farmhouse is the predominant style, tastes could certainly change once more. Repak said that warmer-colored wallpapers are becoming more popular recently.

“First, it was contemporary. Then, it’s shifted over to craftsman, then it shifted the modern farmhouse, and now we’re kind of morphing into the next change,” Repak added.

However, while Repak and Carrell agree that the plots of land for their industry are going away along the Grand Strand, the trend might be nationwide, too. In February 2024, the National Association of Home Builders published an analysis of Census data that suggested custom home building nationwide has dropped considerably since the mid-2000s, peaking in the early 1990s.

While NAHB’s findings indicated that the sector somewhat recovered after the Great Recession, the industry is still far below its previous highs. Carrell said business practices changed after the economic collapse in 2008.

Before the recession, the burden of financing a project usually fell on the builder initially, he said. Builders used lines of credit to fund the construction of a custom home project, while the buyer would put a deposit down and pay the rest off after their home was completed.

“When everything tanked (during the Great Recession), there were a lot of people out there speculating essentially speculating with the builder’s lines of credit, and they just walked away,” Carrell added. “They just said, ‘I’m not going to buy it.’ And we owed a horrendous amount of money to a number of banks that we never really intended to.”

After the recession, Carrell said the responsibility of financing a project shifted from the builder to the buyer. While the industry might be in decline, it probably won’t dissipate, though. Lots remain available throughout the Grand Strand, Repak said, and re-modeling and re-building homes could also serve as an opportunity for new business.

Communities with semi-customizable features and furnishings could also serve as a new frontier. Indeed, Carrell partnered with national home builder Epcon Communities to build a 66-unit patio home neighborhood where residents can’t develop their abodes but can add personalized features, The Sun News reported in January 2024.

However, the future of custom home-building neighborhoods could reside inland. As Myrtle Beach becomes more developed, the rest of Horry County could serve as the next specialty-designed home marketplace. Brie Bender is the director of brokerage operations at BRG Grand Strand Real Estate and president of the Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors.

For Bender, who also sells real estate in Florida, providing a community with property amenities is enough to build a neighborhood around it.

“If somebody decided tomorrow that Gallivant Ferry was the place to be, and they created a master plan, you can promote anything, as long as you have the services that consumers want,” Bender said. “Everything in Florida is an hour to the beach, and now it is the hottest place to be. It’s all a matter of if somebody sees the value and the opportunity in an area.”