Corolla, NC
We found our happy place… Welcome to the Hill Cottage!
We bought a beach house! And it’s the best thing we’ve done for our family in years! The timing was equal parts terrible and amazing. Terrible because we closed on the house in March 2020 the week Outer Banks shut down to visitors and non-resident property owners. For two months we owned a house we couldn’t rent and couldn’t even use ourselves.
On the other hand, the timing was amazing because when restrictions were lifted, visitors flooded to rent private beach homes as a safe option to get away and we had a fully booked summer high season. There was also an influx of second home buyers scooping up all the inventory and driving prices up. We know we would never have been able to get our house for what we paid for it if we had waited.
We made the decision to buy a beach house in September 2019, made two trips down and saw less than 10 homes, some in person and some over FaceTime. The agent we were working with –who is amazing!--encouraged us to take our time and experience a full cycle of the market to get familiar with the inventory. We’re way too impulsive for that! We saw our house and fell in love with the efficient layout and old school charm.
Our best advice if you’re thinking about buying a beach house is to go for it! We have created so many incredible memories at our house already and find so much joy in sharing it with the people we love. We’re still figuring out the right balance between renting the house and keeping it for ourselves and that dilemma is becoming particularly relevant the deeper we get into our phase one renovation: A dream kitchen and main level designed by our Property Collective partner and Corolla village second-home neighbor, Lauren Liess!
We started an Instagram account for the beach house! Follow @hillcottageobx where we’re catching everyone up on the story of our house hunt and dream renovation!