Get ready for the Christmas season and enjoy beautiful Myrtle Beach during a quieter, more unhurried time of year during November!  There are quite a few interesting things to do this month along the Grand Strand.

Performances
The Carolina Opry’s Christmas Special lasts all November and December. This holiday show features music, comedy, and dance all themed around Christmas and the holiday season. Another winter classic, The Twelve Irish Tenors, will be performing at the Palace Theatre this winter as well.

Concerts
Myrtle Beach is lucky to have a professional orchestra, The Long Bay Symphony Orchestra. They will be performing their concert series this month on November 8 at Myrtle Beach High School. And don’t miss the Youth Orchestra’s fall concert on November 19th, also at Myrtle Beach High School.

Christmas
It’s never too early to start enjoying Christmas at Myrtle Beach! Broadway at the Beach holds its Christmas tree lighting on November 7th, while Market Common will have its own tree lighting on November 27, along with free carriage rides starting November 28 every Saturday until Christmas. Little River will be holding a Christmas Market with a parade on November 28th.

And don’t forget, we offer plenty of Myrtle Beach winter rentals for those who want to beat the rush and get a great deal!

As many of you know, North Myrtle Beach used to be comprised of four separate cities, Crescent Beach, Cherry Grove, Ocean Drive and Windy Hill. When North Myrtle Beach was incorporated in 1968, the names still stuck with us. And now, in an effort to distinguish NMB from MB, each street sign along Hwy 17  is in the process of being color-coded with the name of the beach below the street name.

The are many North Myrtle Beach condos and hotels that still describe their location using these markers. “It’s located in the Ocean Drive section,” they say.  So this addition will help tourists familiarize themselves with the sections of North Myrtle Beach.

According to the story on WMBF News, Cherry Grove signs are red, Crescent Beach is taupe, Ocean Drive is blue, and Windy Hill, well, we don’t know quite yet.

This past November, not only did the country vote a new President into office, residents of Myrtle Beach also voted and passed  a one-cent sales tax, to be paid by all consumers, tourists and locals, to fund facilities for education. This one-cent sales tax will provide funding for Horry County schools, Coastal Carolina University, and Horry-Georgetown Technical College over the next 15 years. One cent doesn’t sound like much. But 1 cent on the dollar equates to a 1 percent sales tax increase.

This local option sales tax will offset the property tax levied by the school district for debt service.  The tax will most obviously provide a revenue stream for building needs of local public schools and the two schools of higher education, Coastal Carolina and Horry-Gergetown-Tech, but will also provide opportunities for more collaboration between the public school system and the two  institutions of higher learning.

Specifically the local option sales tax will:

“Add a revenue source for debt service”;

“Rolls back debt service millage on all property including houses, businesses, vehicles, land, and personal property”;

“Generates over $1 billion for school facilities for K-12 public education and the county’s two post secondary schools”;

“Broadens the base of tax payers by allowing everyone, including non-residents, to help pay for school facilities”;

The impetus for this local option sales tax is multi-fold, but one of the main factors for adapting this new tax structure is the the accelerated growth of our local educational community. Of the 85 school districts of South Carolina, Horry County has sen the most rapid growth and is the third largest school district overall. Horry County schools have added 10,000 students in the past decade.  The anticipated growth rate would see 17,000 more students over the next decade and a half.

Coastal Carolina has seen similar growth and is currently the fastest growing four-year university in the state accounting for more than 60 percent of enrollment growth of all state-wide comprehensive  institutions of higher learning. Horry-Georgetown Tech is similarly the fastest growing two-year public university, almost doubling enrollment over the same ten tear span.

As with all tax proposals there are many points to be considered, questions to be answered, and difficult tax language to be understood. Here are a few FAQ’s:

What will this penny do?

The penny will allow an additional revenue stream allowing the school systems to retire existing debt for school construction and emerging building needs for the rapidly growing school system. Property owners will be relieved of some of the tax responsibility to provide for our educational system, allowing the masses of people who visit and vacation here along the Grand Strand the opportunity to contribute to these escalating costs.

How much money will the sales tax generate?

Current conservative estimates have this local option sales tax generating over a billion dollars for our growing educational system over the 15 year life span of the tax.

What will be taxed?

The one cent sales tax would apply to most all taxable goods and services that a consumer currently pays tax on at the time of purchase. Exempt from this sales tax would be groceries, gas, and prescription drugs. As well most weekly or monthly recurring payments like mortgages or rent, childcare and insurance are not subject to current sale taxes. This also means an additional 1 percent tax added to Myrtle Beach vacation rentals as well.

There are a few additional FAQ’s that you might want to explore in further detail in order to educate yourself about the new tax law that will go into effect next month. Please feel free to view the full PDF.

CondoLux just finished up with their new 2009 rental guide and has made it available for download BEFORE it even goes to print!

New this year in the guide is an extensive Myrtle Beach condo rental section from the new CondoLux office in Myrtle Beach. The new office already has a large inventory of resorts to choose from, including Paradise Resort, Atlantica, Bay View, and much more.

You can download the PDF rental guide from here: Click This Link

You may also request a printed rental guide for when they become available on that page as well. They will be printed soon and shipped out soon!

If you are looking for a new selection of Myrtle Beach condo rentals, you’re in luck. Real estate might be hitting a low, with the economy right behind. Not to mention the stock market taking a huge dip as well. However, there is one constant that remains true every year. People are still coming to Myrtle Beach for their vacation! Knowing this, CondoLux Vacation Rentals has expanded into the Myrtle Beach area to provide some of the best luxury resorts in Myrtle Beach.

CondoLux, who for over 23 years has been an industry leader in vacation rentals in North Myrtle Beach, has opened a new office in Myrtle Beach, offering some of the top vacation rental resorts and condos the area has to offer. Some of their top resorts include: Bay View, Paradise Resort, Sands Ocean Club, The Atlantica, Grande Shores, The Breakers.

The new office opened only a month ago, but they already have a large list of Myrtle Beach condo rentals for next year. Guests can check-in at the office on 21st Avenue North in Myrtle Beach and go straight to their condo, all within a very short drive.

“CondoLux already offers some of the best condos and beach homes in North Myrtle Beach,” said David O’Connell, who is overseeing the new office in Myrtle Beach. “Now with this office here, guests have a choice of either North Myrtle Beach or Myrtle Beach rentals through CondoLux.”

That means more of a variety for guests to choose from. The new office will offer luxury Myrtle Beach condo rentals, golf packages, and real estate sales. Along with a new office, the company also launched a fresh new website www.myrtlebeachluxuryrentals.com to display their Myrtle Beach properties.

Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach are two seperate cities, often confused by tourists as being the same. Generally speaking, Myrtle Beach has more attractions, but North Myrtle Beach offers a quieter atmosphere with less congestion along Ocean Blvd during the busy season.

Myrtle Beach has been voted as a “Top Family Destination” by Ask.com, “Overall Value For Money Destination” by Golf Digest, “Top 10 Places for Families to Visit in the U.S.” by Yahoo!, and the list goes on and on.  Popularly known as the Grand Strand, the Myrtle Beach area actually encompases 12 cities with over 60 miles of beach that was voted as “World’s Best Beach” by Yahoo! Travel.

For more information on Myrtle Beach Paradise Resort or any other Myrtle Beach condos mentioned, please visit www.myrtlebeachluxuryrentals.com or www.condolux.net.