Incredible Article About the Charlotte Real Estate Market by Bloomber 

Banks Help Charlotte, North Carolina, Buck Housing Downturn
2007-09-19 00:17 (New York)

By David Mildenberg
     Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- New York financial consultant
Archie Luna will escape a 90-minute commute when he moves next
month to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he's buying a $350,000
house that triples his space.
     ``My work-life ratio has really been pretty sad,'' said
Luna, who takes a train daily from Long Island to Manhattan.
``We can get a house we really want in Charlotte, and I think if
we make the right decision, we'll be sitting on a lot more
equity in 10 years.''
     Newcomers to Charlotte are finding an oasis in the biggest
U.S. housing slump in 16 years. Homes are still affordable
because Charlotte wasn't a target of the speculative second-home
buying common in Florida and California.
     Price gains started accelerating two years ago, driven by
the expansion of Bank of America Corp. and Wachovia Corp., the
second- and fourth-largest banking companies in the U.S. Both
are based in Charlotte and together employ 35,000 people in the
city of 664,000.
     The average closing price for a single-family home in
Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, was $256,937 in
the first half. Prices look like bargains to many people moving
from New York, Philadelphia or Boston.
     ``Most of them think they have died and gone to heaven,''
said Dorothy Munson, president of the Charlotte Regional Realtor
Association.
     Home prices in Charlotte rose 6.78 percent in June from a
year earlier, trailing only Seattle, according to the S&P/Case-
Shiller index. Nationally, prices fell 3.49 percent.
     Luna, 40, who specializes in Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance
software, his wife and 2-year-old son are moving into a suburban
home with four bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms. Its finished
basement is 40 percent larger than his entire Long Island house.

                        Magnet for Jobs

      Finance-related employment in the Charlotte area increased
69 percent in the past decade, as the banks helped attract
thousands of lawyers, accountants, consultants and other
vendors. Both Bank of America and Wachovia are building downtown
office towers more than 30 stories high to provide space for
their work forces to grow.
     The banks ``are a magnet,'' said Robert Eisenbeis, former
head of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who
previously was a professor at the University of North Carolina.
``Charlotte has become a financial center. Charlotte is an
example of a community focused on services with a well-defined
focus.''
     The rising prices are grabbing the attention of big real-
estate developers. Atlanta's Portman Holdings LLC, which put
together multiblock developments in Atlanta, Shanghai and San
Francisco, this month began selling 99 condominium units
starting at $1.5 million as part of a 40-story downtown tower.

                        Trump's Interest

     Developer Donald Trump is considering building condos on
Tryon Street, the main downtown thoroughfare, and may close on
property by year-end, said Ashley Campbell, co-founder of
Infinity Partners, which is working with Trump. Trump declined
to comment.
     Most Charlotte residents prefer the suburbs. Popular
neighborhoods such as Myers Park, Eastover and Dilworth are only
10 minutes from the city center.
     ``I would call Charlotte the new Atlanta,'' said James
Rogers, chief executive officer of Duke Energy Corp., the sixth-
largest U.S. electrical utility, who paid $6 million for a house
in Eastover. `` I think Charlotte will go right through this
housing market turndown without a hiccup.''

                       Two-Song Commute

     Wachovia banker Spence Hamrick recently moved into Myers
Park, where he lives less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from his
downtown office.
     ``It takes about two Top-40 songs and I'm pulling into my
parking lot,'' he said.
     The recent jump in prices is generating more million-dollar
sales. So far this year, 152 homes have sold for $1.5 million or
more, up 35 percent from a year earlier, said Vicky Mitchener,
co-owner of Dickens-Mitchener Associates.
     Agents say that unlike most U.S. markets, sellers in
Charlotte have the upper hand in price negotiations.
     ``Some buyers are having a hard time when they realize
sellers aren't having to negotiate like the markets where they
are coming from,'' Mitchener said.
     Buyers like Randy Staub aren't grumbling. In April, he sold
his condo at Miami Beach's oceanfront Akoya high-rise
development for $860,000, he said. In August, he bought a
suburban Charlotte home more than twice the size for $445,000.
     ``There's no comparison with the value I'm getting here,''
he said.

                    Adapting to Lifestyle

     Some transplants from bigger cities complain that the
nightlife in Charlotte is too quiet and that the city is too far
from the beaches on North Carolina's eastern coast. Others
appreciate the lighter traffic and the opportunity to follow the
National Football League's Carolina Panthers, the National
Basketball Association's Charlotte Bobcats and Nascar teams.
     Charlotte real estate experts say the recent price gains
are likely to continue, without approaching excesses such as
Florida's that resulted in subsequent drops.
     ``We have no shortage of people coming from New York, Ohio,
Michigan and Florida,'' said Pat Riley, president of Charlotte's
biggest real-estate firm, Allen Tate Co.
     The city prides itself on being down-to-earth.
     ``We don't do anything flashy or showy around here,'' said
Karla Knotts, president of the Land Matters research firm in
Charlotte. ``We call it plodding. This is not Vegas or
Florida.''