Home sweet home?

Pat and Paula Jacques put their two-story home in Stonebridge up for sale in July.

"We had a buyer in four days," Paula Jacques said.

However, that buyer ended up backing out, and they haven't had a nibble since.

Though a transient military community is somewhat immune from the housing difficulties across the nation, selling a home has proven tough for some.

For the Jacqueses, they say their lives are on hold. Pat Jacques works at Coastal Community College in Jacksonville, so Paula Jacques, a teacher, took a job at Swansboro High School, and the couple planned to relocate with their two children.

"Everything is up in the air," she said. "It's really frustrating."

They don't want to commit to buying a house in Onslow County until they know their Havelock home is sold.

Meanwhile, the commute to Onslow County is costing the couple in gas, and they have to have their parents look after their children both before and after school.

"People just don't seem to be looking," Paula Jacques said.

Pat Jacques said he realizes now is a buyer's market.

"I feel like right now is the time to buy," he said. "The interest rates are down and you can get help with closing costs. There are some deals out there."

Perhaps too many, Paula Jacques said.

"There are a lot of homes out there," she said. "Maybe that's part of the problem."

Their four-bedroom, 2,100 square-foot home is on the market for $210,000, already down $7,500 when they originally put it up for sale. They are also willing to put $3,000 toward the buyer's closing costs or toward carpeting.

The overall asking price is in line with what other homes in the Stonebridge area cost, they said.

Still, they have had just a handful of people look at the home this year, a far cry from when they bought the house four years ago.

"Three or four years ago, a house wouldn't last a week," Pat Jacques said. "We would look at a house, talk about it and then call back, and they would tell us it was too late."

Though home sales have slowed, Havelock's unique demographics help insulate the Gateway City from effects of the nation's housing and mortgage slump. Sheila Blazer, a broker associate with First Carolina Realtors in Havelock, explained that the city saw a real estate boom in 2005 and 2006.

"If people's expectations are based on results relative to that timetable, then I think they will be disappointed," she said. "I've always thought we have a good market compared to other areas. I think every market has its own parameters and as long as we've got a military base and people coming and going, we'll have houses for sale and we'll have people to buy them."

Blazer said most retired military service members who settle in Havelock receive home loans from Veterans' Affairs and have stable income through their military pensions. That's a stark contrast to the national subprime mortgage crisis.

The sale price for the average First Carolina Realtors home is a healthy 98 percent of the list price, she said. And 529 homes have been sold in the area since Jan. 1 with an average of 144 days on the market, according to data from the Neuse River Region Association of Realtors.

"People have to be realistic about pricing," she said. "They have to be competitive. There's probably more houses on the market than we've had in the past. Sellers have to be prepared to maybe offer incentives here and there to compete with other homes on the market."

Havelock News reporter Corey Friedman contributed to this story.