Every month I like to report and interpret the Greater Charlotte, NC real estate market data for the past months’ activity.  For August 2009, overall there were 2,221 residential units sold (condo, townhome, house, etc.).  This is flat from the previous month in July 2009 with 2,223 units sold.  Pending status (under contract) is right at 2,434 for August which is up slightly from July 2009.   What is interesting to note is when the Pending status increases and stretches out from month to month, its a direct indicator of the longer processing times in the mortgage industry.  In my business we have seen delays in 2 categories.  The first being First Time Home Buyers and the second being short sales.

A lot of the First Time Home Buyers have been seeking local or government down payment assistance and/or applying for FHA loans.  We’ve noticed that these agencies are experiencing delays in processing the down payment assistance money.  In the short sale market, lenders are both overwhelmed with case loads and they are redistributing resources on loan modification programs which is delaying processing of the short sales.

Drilling down a bit, in Mecklenburg County the north part of the county had the most sales in August with 174 units sold with an average sales price of $183,727.  The Uptown Charlotte market has declined in sales tremendously only producing 12 sales in August with an average sales price of $347,391.  The following are the sales numbers for August 2009 for some of the surrounding counties:

Union County =       208 sales (avg. sales price of $267,172)
Cabarrus County = 153 sales (avg. sales price of $196,313)
Gaston County =      144 sales (avg. sales price of $127,517)
Iredell County =      107 sales (avg. sales price of $144,289)

The Lake Norman area had 91 sales (avg. sales price of $413,056)

Hopefully you found this useful.  As always, feel free to give us a call at 704-885-0488 if we can help you with your real estate needs or click here. Take care,

Mike Moulton

Bee Home Solutions, Inc.