Cottages of Camp Creek and Magnolia Cottages by the Sea

[CampCreekLou]

I love Magnolia Cottages! Given similar locations and amenities, I believe the better long term investment will be Magnolia.
Six were sold this year, some as short sales or foreclosures and ranging in price from 299,000-373,000.

There are currently three listed, all around 1500 square feet, 3 bdrm, 3 bath. List prices range from 335,000-409,000.

And make sure you visit Magnolia, and decide whether or not you like to walk under the wall of timeshares they built between you and the beach.

It might not be a big deal to most, but we really thought that was a great neighborhood before the latest construction project.

 

[Paula]

I agree the timeshare building changes the look of Magnolia Cottages. However, it's a nice building (nicer than I thought it would be) so that wouldn't be a deal-breaker for me. The cottages at Magnolia seem so nice as do the cobblestone streets and the beach access seems convenient. Some who wants to buy really should stay in each community for at least a weekend, figure out what trade-offs you want to make, figure out what will make your family/friends happy in terms of quality of vacation/life, and figure out the price you're willing to pay for that experience. It's all about the "fit" and, like clothes, it's hard to tell what fits til you try it on and wear it for a little while. And compare association fees - that was a big selling point for me because those will never go away.

I don't know if Magnolia has a public beach access or a private deeded beach access. The advantage of the public beach access is that it's managed by whoever takes care of public beach accesses (that could be good or bad depending on how well the keep things up). The advantage of a private deeded beach access is that fewer people are on the beach near a private deeded beach access. When we go off-season, we're often the only people on the beach in the morning and for sunset. Absolutely quiet. Whether the beach access/stairs to beach gets kept up depends on the associations/people who use the access - and that could be good or bad - the CCC one has just been upgraded though it went through arough period when there was construction next to it - construction is just about finished and beach access looks better than ever). Also, remember that wherever you are, hurricanes and strong storms will blow your beach stairs away and your association will charge a fee (pretty reasonable overall) to rebuild the stairs. I don't know if there's a cost to rebuilding a public beach access, nor do I know which kind of beach access (public or deeded) tends to be rebuilt more quickly after a storm/hurricane).