Buyers flood Lake Murray development sales event.

It took just one day to sell nearly 90 lots on 125 acres of a Lake Murray waterfront development.

Charlottesville, Va.-based American Land Holdings LLC offered the lots for sale on Oct. 5. at its Palmetto Pointe development off Mt. Willing Road in Saluda County.

Dean Sinatra with American Land Holdings said about 250 people showed up to the event, many with a 10% deposit in hand, to buy 86 out of the 98 lots available. Some of the waterfront lots went for $350,000.

"We had sold a lot of our inventory before noon," Sinatra said. "I've seen nothing like it."

Sinatra said some of the buyers had visited the property prior to the sale and knew which lots they wanted. He said there was a lot of local interest in the property, with about half of the buyers coming from Lexington, Richland, Saluda, or Newberry counties. People from as far away as California and Louisiana also showed up at the sale event, he said.

"There were survey stakes and I guess they figured out where the lot numbers were," he said. "People would show up on boats and pull up. Because of liability, we tried to block traffic coming through the community because of all the construction, and they would find a way around it. We blocked it. We put tape up. They cut it. So we just couldn't keep people out."

Those potential buyers did their homework on more than lots before the sale day. Sinatra said financing partner Security Financial Bank was getting requests to prefinance lots that had not yet been purchased.

"We had builders calling, saying 'What the heck is going on out there? Because we have people wanting us to build homes for them,' and they hadn't even picked out a lot yet," he said.

He attributed the demand to the limited amount of undeveloped waterfront property on Lake Murray. Because of that, and his discussion with lake-area realtors, Sinatra and his colleagues were confident Palmetto Pointe would sell quickly.

"There isn't any product on Lake Murray," he said. "There's no supply of inventory, and there's a lot of people that want to be on the lake."

Robbie Goldman, president and CEO of R & B Construction in Aiken, bought three lots and plans to build custom homes on them. Goldman owns personal property on the lake and was familiar with the site. He also knows how scarce waterfront property is on the lake. He spent 70...