Frank & Karen Baker ® Sunset Beach N/C Brunswick County N/C & Horry County S/C

SUNSET BEACH AND BEYOND REALTY

Karen Baker, RN, BS, ABR, GRI, SFR, ePRO, CRS

Hello ~ Ever since I was a little girl, I enjoyed helping people. My first "real" job was volunteering every free moment available as a "Candy Striper" at the local hospital. Being able to comfort and cheer patients up came naturally to me. Becoming a Registered Nurse was my dream come true. The most challenging part of my nursing career was while working in the Critical Care Area. It was an uplifting and rewarding experience.

Frank Baker, Retired Lt. FDNY, BIC, ABR, GRI, SFR

We relocated to Sunset Beach, North Carolina seven years ago and love the coastal area for all it has to offer. Sea Trail Plantation, with the Sunset Beach less than a mile away was Karen's dream community. Frank was thrilled with the three championship golf courses and knew it was the right choice.

Thirty years later and a relocation from New York to the coastal area of North Carolina, a career change evolved. I wanted to help people in a different way.

My husband Frank and I decided to work together helping people find their perfect lifestyle with the home to go along with it. We did not go back to school to just "become any Realtor".

The world is all about the internet where 90% of buyers search, thus becoming ePRO certified was of the utmost importance.

My goal was to attain my CRS designation with five years of becoming a Realtor which I have accomplished. CRS enlightened me about world of technology, social media, and social networking.

To be involved in the world of the future, you must be involved now.
The focus is the client, what we can do for them, and being able to have the information at our fingertips immediately.

What's a CRS?

The Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) is the highest Designation awarded to real estate professionals in the residential sales field. The CRS Designation recognizes professional accomplishments in both experience and education.

Since 1977 the Council of Residential Specialists has been conferring the CRS Designation on agents who meet its stringent requirements. Currently, there are more than 34,000 active CRS Designees.

Why Use a CRS?

Today, home buying and selling is faster, more complex, and more competitive in every way. Our goal is to make the process a little easier for you. The first step is choosing the right REALTOR®.

Experience - To earn the Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) Designation, every REALTOR® must have significant experience and volume of real estate transactions.

Ethics - Every CRS Designee is required to maintain membership in the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and to abide by its strict Code of Ethics.

A Focus on Home Buying and Selling - To help make the home buying and selling process more rewarding, every CRS Designee must have a proven track record in the business, as well as advanced education in related areas like finance, technology and marketing. Work with the top 4 percent.

Technology Expertise - The training available to CRS Designees includes a strong focus on technology and its applications in the real estate business.

CRS - Certified Residential Specialist considered the "Cadillac" of real estate.

GRI - Graduate REALTOR^® Institute is the mark of a highly trained real estate professional who has made the commitment to provide a high level of professional services by securing a strong educational foundation to better serve and protect their Clients. It is nationally recognized, and is considered the nation's number one professional real estate designation. This designation may only be earned after successfully completing a rigorous educational program that requires 92 hours of live course instruction on topics ranging from marketing and servicing listed properties to real estate law. It is one of the most comprehensive training programs available to Realtors^® today. GRI is recognized nationwide as the standard for real estate professionalism. A GRI has superior knowledge of real estate marketing, and has acquired skills that will set them apart from other REALTORS^®.

ABR - The Accredited Buyer Representative Designation is the benchmark of excellence in Buyer representation. This coveted designation is awarded to real estate practitioners who meet the specified educational and practical experience criteria. The ABR^® designation is designed for real estate Buyer Agents who focus on working directly with Buyer-clients. By attaining the ABR^®, you receive valuable real estate education that elevates your skills and knowledge in the eyes of home Buyers. There is also ongoing specialized information, programs, and updates that help you stay on top of the issues and trends in successfully representing Buyers.

ePRO - is a Realtor^® who has been Certified by completing training endorsed by the National Association of Realtors^® in the specialized area of using the internet to better assist their Clients. If you use the internet, and you are looking to buy or sell a home, it is important that you work with an ePRO. You can trust doing business with them online, knowing that you will receive the information you need, but that you won't be spammed. They respond quickly to your questions, but know enough not to send you unwanted communications. Your personal information is protected, knowing that an ePRO will guard your privacy. You will receive the most up-to-date information available from a professional who knows the intricacies of online navigation. If you are relocating, an ePRO is an absolute must. With the tools to do your research electronically, the entire buying decision can be made online with a competent ePRO who can show you houses online, can share videos, electronic contracts and signatures, email, and any number of other resources that are at your disposal to make your transaction smooth and streamlined from showing to closing.

Our roots began in New York, where we raised our two children, Tamzen and Travis.

Frank is a retired LT. FDNY. Karen is a retired RN, BS critical care.

Education and Knowledge are of the utmost importance to provide the highest quality service to our clients.

Only 10% of all realtors have attained the GRI (Graduate Realtor Institute) designation which we have acquired.

We work exclusively with buyers and have acquired our ABR (Accredited Buyer Representative) designation.

We work exclusively with buyers in the Carolina Coastal Areas of North and South Carolina.

Working with us, it's all about YOU, our client, and what we can do for YOU!!

“You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough. You can be everything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.” – Abraham Lincoln

Members

• National Association of Realtors (NAR)
• North Carolina Association of Realtors (NCAR)
• Brunswick County Association of Realtors (BCAR)
• Coastal Carolina Association of Realtors (CCAR)
• Council of Residential Specialists (CRS)
• Real Estate Buyer's Agency Council (REBAC)

Licensed

• North Carolina
• South Carolina
  

Brunswick County, North Carolina

Brunswick Islands Beaches

Five islands, six beaches, three mainland towns and over 35 golf courses sums up the Brunswick Islands, but it doesn't end there. History, attractions, shopping and antiquing abound and we haven't even mentioned boating, fishing and great restaurants.

The 45-miles of south-facing Brunswick Islands, the southern most of all of the North Carolina beaches, have one thing in common; you can watch the sunrise and the sunset over the water, but that's where the similarities end. Each island is different, each beach unique. Find whole sand dollars on the broad expanse of Sunset Beach or watch ships enter the Cape Fear River from Caswell Beach. Oak Island with its parks, canoe and kayak friendly areas and recreation trails is an ideal haven for active nature lovers, while Holden Beach has long been known as a fisherman's paradise.
Serene Bald Head Island renowned as a safe haven for wildlife, water fowl and loggerhead turtles, can be reached only by private passenger ferry with no cars allowed. Ocean Isle Beach offers marinas, shopping and the wonders of the Museum of Coastal Carolina and in October, plays host to the North Carolina Oyster Festival.

On the mainland, Shallotte is the commercial and shopping hub for the area while Southport offers antiques shops, historic homes and the North Carolina Maritime Museumat Southport. Calabash, the "Seafood Capital of the World," has over a dozen restaurants featuring local seafood delivered fresh off the fishing boats.

Brunswick Area BeachesMainland Towns Bald Head Island Calabash Caswell Beach Shallotte Holden Beach Southport Oak Island Ocean Isle Beach Sunset Beach

http://www.brunswickcountychamber.org/visiting-brunswick-county-nc.cfm

http://www.visitnc.com/

Discover The Brunswick Isles Golf Trail

Imagine a golf trail that stretches out along the coast of the Carolinas, offering some of the South's most award-winning golf courses. The Carolinas' newest golf trail straddles the border of North and South Carolina with 450 holes of pure fun. If you're looking to be challenged by the best, this is where you'll find them.

Over the years, award after award has been heaped upon the Trail's courses, from "Best New Course in America" to four-star ratings in "Places To Play".

Three of Golf Magazine's "Top 20 Courses In South Carolina" are part of the new Trail, as are five of Golf Magazine's "Top 20 Courses In North Carolina". And Golf Digest's list of"America's Top 100 Greatest Public Courses" includes three of the Trail's courses. The readers of Golf World chose 14 of the Trail's courses as "Best in the Nation."
Read more about the trail.

Sea Turtles in NC

In May, while flocks of tropical birds are migrating to the North Carolina mountains to propagate their species, some much bigger, slower-moving creatures are arriving on our beaches to reproduce theirs: The ever-fascinating sea turtles.

Five species of them can be found in North Carolina's waters this time of year from Okracoke Inlet southward: the loggerhead, the green, the leatherback, the Ridley and the hawksbill.

"Although five of the eight marine turtles make use of these waters," writes John Rucker in his Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year, "almost all the nesting effort is made by the most common sea turtle in the region, the loggerhead, which weighs from 170 to 500 pounds and is the largest of the hardbacked sea turtles...[Also] at this time a flight down North Carolina's 26-mile-long Topsail Island can reveal as many as a dozen feeding leatherback turtles, even though it is thought that there are fewer than 1,000 females worldwide."

How the loggerheads in particular find their way here every year from places as far away as the Azores and the Canary Islands has always been one of nature's most intriguing mysteries. But a study by a University of North Carolina team of scientists sheds fascinating light on the subject.

Professor Kenneth J. Lohmann and his colleagues studied hatchling loggerheads to see if they could track changes in the earth's magnetic field. They discovered that the turtles' migration routes and navigational skills seem to be hard-wired into their brains from birth. In fact, tests showed that the hatchlings have the ability to sense the direction and strength of the earth's magnetic field with a kind of internal compass.

For example, when they were exposed to a magnetic field similar to one that occurs near Portugal, all the hatchlings paddled south (which in that area would serve to keep them in warm, nutrient-rich water). They did this, remarkably, without having ever been to sea.
"Our results provide direct evidence that young sea turtles can in effect exploit regional magnetic fields as open-ocean navigational markers," wrote Lohmann and his colleagues in the journal Science.

Given the enormous odds against them - including being preyed upon by foxes, raccoons, ghost crabs and even dogs when they're in the egg stage; and sea birds, crabs, sharks and other carnivorous fish when they're young - how do these sweet, tranquil creatures continue to survive?

One important reason is the "turtle friendliness" of North Carolina's beach communities.

Writes Rucker, "All along the coastline of the Carolinas is a network of turtle projects in which volunteers are assigned sections of beach to walk. Devoted, serious-minded volunteers working under licensed leaders, locate their nest sites, ‘adopt' nests and then stand guard over them as the incubation period nears its end in approximately 60 days. When the two-inch-long baby turtles emerge from a nest and head pell-mell down the beach, the proud and excited ‘nest parents' are there to clear a path, making sure no tire tracks will entrap them, no predator will eat them before they reach the water and no floodlights from beachfront homes will confuse them."

The hatchlings begin to appear in July, with the peak hatching period being September.

Turtle patrols can use volunteers, but remember, working within the existing turtle project network is important. As Rucker says, "Untrained volunteers working on their own can actually frighten off turtles attempting to nest."

Here are links to some of the turtle projects on our coast:
Caswell Beach Sea Turtle Watch

Holden Beach Turtle Project

Ocean Isle Turtle Project

Pea Island

Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project

Sunset Beach Turtle Project

Testimonials

"Some people touch our lives so briefly, while others leave a lasting impression and are never forgotten. Thank you" Berkley and Deborah Speed

"Thanks for all your hard work" Reese and Cayce Patterson

"We're so glad we hooked up with you folks. You guys are the best" David and Vicky Parsons

"Thanks again for all the time you spent with us, As overwhelming as it was, you two made it fun" Dave & Rose

Karen & Frank Baker are the best. They are very knowledgeable with the area & showed us many homes. When we made up our minds which one we wanted, they got us the best deal on it. We were very satisfided with them. After the purchased was made & we moved in, they were still there to answer any questions or problems that we might of had. Like I said, they are the BEST. Ernie & Carol G.

"The Bakers treated us like family during our whirlwind weekend of looking at houses. Prior to our on-site visit to Sunset Beach they created a portal and populated it with properties that met our ever-evolving criteria. By time we arrived we had a good feel for what we could afford and what was available that met our criteria. The Bakers, especially Karen, were able to make sense of what we thought we were looking for and eventually matched us with a house that we ended up purchasing -- Karen called it the "This is it" house and she was right. We are loving our 2nd home and appreciate how painless Karen and Frank made the process. All the paperwork was done seamlessly and quickly and the closing went off without a hitch. The Bakers do not believe in the hard sell -- they gave us the knowledge we needed and the guidance we needed to make our dream a reality. Steve & Jean