Charlotte Market Appreciates

Written by Blake Miller
Monday, 31 March 2008
Looks like Charlotte's real estate market really isn't all that bad. (Coincidentally, we reported this in our April 2008 issue.)
Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller announced last Tuesday that, according to January figures, Charlotte home prices were up 1.8 percent from a year earlier. (Portland and Seattle had been in a similar position as Charlotte until now; both cities are down on a year-by-year basis.)
Here are the declines throughout the country, according to Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent for the NYTimes:
Detroit -21.2%San Diego -21.1%Phoenix -20.8%Las Vegas -20.8%Miami -19.7%Tampa -18.2%Los Angeles -18.1%San Francisco -15.8%Washington -15.2%Cleveland -12.1%Minneapolis -11.7%Boston -10.9%Denver -8.0%Chicago -7.2%New York -7.1%Atlanta -6.9%Dallas -6.3%Seattle -5.6%Portland -4.1%
Looks like our beloved Charlotte is fairing quite well in spite of the negative media nationally and locally on the supposed decline in the real estate market (come on, how often have you heard on the evening news and in the local paper how BAD the housing market is and yet they never address the areas of the country that aren't affected). The decline, according to my sources, is not really a decline, per se, but rather an evening out. The market here has been steady but any slight decline and many feel the market is going down hill. Turns out, the "recession" and downturn in the real estate market elsewhere has not (knock on wood) hit the Queen City.