Archive for April 1st, 2009

Charlotte Real Estate, not like all the other kids!

April 1st, 2009 categories: Market Trends

Sure we enviously salivated a bit when Phoenixions, San Franciscans and Las Vegans (vegans well we won’t go there!) were sitting on real estate equity rocket ships – buy a home today, wait a bit and it doubled or more! Charlotte on the other hand plugged along with steady if not stratospheric home appreciations. Now don’t get me wrong we have our own hot areas, Dilworth, Myers Park and Ballantyne and there was a time when Charlotte’s uptown highrise condos were flipping faster than pancakes after midnight at the Athens Grill — pity those days are gone for Athens pancakes and flipping condos – I do miss Athens!

Today in the Charlotte Observer’s Stella Hopkins report Decline slows in area home prices says that while the Charlotte market may be down it is by no means out. Year over year we have seen a 8.2% home value decline while cities like Phoenix, San Francisco and Las Vegas have seen declines over 32% ~ 8.2% it’s kinda like totaling the car into the guardrail versus going right off the cliff! We don’t want to disparage any of our fellow cities, love them all and they’ll come back – but the point needs to be made that too often the national “crisis mode” media does not fairly reflect all housing markets! Real estate always was and always will be LOCAL – housing is a necessity and as Rhonda so eloquently put it this 911 market is turning into a 411 market. We’re here to help!

Authored by Donna Johnston | Discussion: Your Comments Please »