SperlingViews - Ocean_City, Maryland

As an Ocean City resident Realtor, I can say the recession has stopped developers building new condos for now. The inventory of recent new condos has driven the prices back to new lows. There are still many fine older condos that are well maintained and have good locations at reasonable prices. Short sales are available. We have excellent city services and good Doctors and healthcare closeby...locals say "there is no bad day at the beach" and we have one of the finest beaches in America.[read more...]

Ocean City is indeed as bad as Virginia Beach in terms of expensive housing. Almost everything here has gone condo, all the little summer cottages that lined the coast at one time are nearly extinct. They have been replaced by hulking, garishly "tropical" painted condos that start out around $400k.And that is usually a one bedroom one bathroom. There really is no charm here no sense of community since everyone usually rents out their property weekly in the summer and the same people aren't in condos from week to week. The place is practically a ghost town in the winter (but with temps in the 20s and the wind whipping in off the Atlantic its no mystery why).The city's town council tries to sell it as a tropical paradise with quaint shops and beautiful beaches. What they mean is full of tacky T-shirt vendors that sell junk like beer bongs and thongs and water pipes,not to mention tons of liquor stores. And step over the drunk passed out college kids that litter the "beautiful" beaches come May and June (they are affectionately called "Junebugs" by the few locals that live here). They hide the fact that burglary and robberies goes up steadily each year because of the party atmosphere influenced by college/high school kids from out of state. And violent crimes have gone up as well. There was a case of a 14 yr old girl being raped by three college aged guys that were visiting O.C from Pennsylvania. And a double murder happened a few years back in one of the condos. It was on Court TV, you can look it up on the internet. To sum it up overpriced, no family town and be mindful of your personal safety in the summer months.[read more...]

Can you tell me if Ocean City, MD is experiencing the same building boom as Virginia Beach, VA where Big Investors are buying up all the small cottages and large very old hotels that had been turned into rental units? In Virginia Beach this is happening and the big investors are knocking down, block by block all the affordable housing, and replacing it with high-rise condos that start at $500,000 purchase price? I'm wondering if the same thing is happening at Ocean City, MD? [read more...]