Safe to Buy A Home in Charlotte? You Bet… The Real Deal From Case-Shiller and Radar Logic
May 4th, 2008 Categories: Buy A Charlotte Home
Moving To Charlotte? Buying a Home? It’s a Strong Buyer’s market, and at today’s interest rates, your timing couldn’t be better.
Cutting through the doom and gloom, those interested in the reality based world about Charlotte Real estate have reason to cheer…You may have read that Charlotte is the only city in with appreciating home prices in the top twenty markets in the US in February, with prices increasing 1.7% according to Standard and Poor’s Case-Shiller Report on US Housing for February, released last week. The headline of course was the 19 markets in negative territory, and the Case-Shiller Report is on its way to having 7 straight quarterly declines- but Charlotte home prices have remained high. Why? Radar Logic tries to explain it, in their raison d’etre.
“Radar Logic Incorporated, a real estate data and analytics company, calculates and publishes the Radar Logic Daily™ Prices. The prices track housing values for major U.S. metropolitan areas and are the basis of the Residential Property Index™ (RPX™)… This study is based on the premise that there is not a national housing market; rather, each MSA, while having some economic influences in common, is influenced primarily by local conditions.” Local conditions! In its
February Report on US Housing, it reported the following about Charlotte NC:
1) Charlotte is one of two markets in the US with 3 positive characteristics: positive (3.6%) year over year pricing, increasing prices month to month and increasing daily prices in the 28 day cycle.
2) For February 2008, of the 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas examined, three markets show price increases and 22 show declines on a year-over-year basis; however, ten MSAs show price increases from January to February and nine of those show a positive 30-day trend. This is positive news for the US housing market as a whole (CConline)
3) Charlotte ranks 2nd in 2yr appreciation at +4.2%
This is even as I reported that from the MLS, based on average cost per square foot of homes sold- prices fell over 3% in February, see that Charlotte Market Report here.
You’ll need to be a statistician to understand the ways Radar Logic and Case-Shiller report, and the differences, but they both report Charlotte in positive territory, despite my local MLS data. It should be pointed out that they use tax data on closed transactions -somewhat delaying their reporting, but increasing their accuracy.
Why is Charlotte housing bucking the nationwide trends? “There is not a national housing market; rather, each MSA, while having some economic influences in common, is influenced primarily by local conditions.”
I’ll explore those differing “local conditions” in my next post.
Moving To Charlotte? Considering a Move?
You may Search All Charlotte Homes here, or call me direct at 704-351-1519.
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As every Realtor know, real estate is local! What a fabulous opportunity for buyers in the Charlotte area- sounds like a safe buy to me.