Charlotte Metro Home Prices in Free Fall (It's Breathtaking!) (foreclosed, rental)
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That is, they are ringed by New South suburban development built for transplants with money in their pockets. Wake might even have had a more extreme buildup than Mecklenburg because White people are afraid of the Durham school district. .
Wake has the size difference as well, nearly 900 sq miles = Mecklenburg + much of Cabarrus. And above a certain income level, everyone is a little snooty regarding the Durham school district. I know non-white people - black and other - who cheerfully pay through the nose to stay in Chapel Hill - and they do have the dough to do it - who wouldn't be caught in Durham for anything.
As someone who has led a vary solid middle class life, a little self indulgent at times, and who has also been fundamentally bankrupt for periods of time, the morality and ethics of either stance are easy to mock or attack, but really, it's good to have a cushy life. Feels good. Especially when your work and education went into the very thing.
Maybe I'm just a snob who fell face first into comeuppance. I know I'm not alone. I will, however, admit it. Certain degrees of snobbery aren't necessarily bad things either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yantosh22
However as noted in many other topics, these places around the NC metros are not really that representative of the true South. In most parts of the South there isn't an economic collapse because there was never an economic boom in the first place. They were poor (relatively) before all this stuff happened and will be poor afterwards. They have also gotten along fine and will continue to do so because it's much cheaper to live in a places like Orangeburg, SC than anywhere near Charlotte. People don't lament something they never had in the first place. Your comments on poverty, though I wouldn't use that word in this case hit the nail on the head. Most Southerners know how to live with a whole lot less and be quite content with it.
The real adjustments will be coming from those in the metros who will soon be joining them and who will lack the lower cost of living options and perceptions.
And you can find that without even leaving the triangle.
East Durham, for example.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro: I once had a friend who briefly worked for the chamber of commerce and had the pleasure of meeting with some town movers and shakers circa a decade ago, and came away with the solid opinion that those folks were utterly convinced that there were no poor people here (whadda they all commute in, environmentally unfriendly gas guzzlers, from Graham?), or that they would like for there to not be any poor people here. Either way, this should be the Marin County of North Carolina - the kind of places nationally lauded for green space and domestic partnership ordinances that erupts in cataclysmic protests over a scattered-site affordable housing development: the Berkeley that decided it wanted to be Mill Valley instead. This friend polished up her resume, landed another job and bought a townhouse in the new city - she couldn't afford one in Chapel Hill.
I appreciate my neighborhood. There are dope dealers, a whorehouse, crackheads who dance down the middle of the street at high noon; I have seen people shoot at each other. NEVER in my life has this been a general part of the mis-en-scene of my neighborhood. It never - not for one microsecond - has been a sensible, logical, intelligent way to live. But it keeps the place un-gentrifiable, and how many places can you say that about?
If prices really nose dive in places like this - frankly extremely, extremely unlikely in an insular enclave like Chapel Hill, I don't know how people would react. There would be no historical precedent. Now Durham, Cary and Raleigh - and Charlotte - are a bit less walled off from the remainder of the human it's another story. We do have precedents - less places like Orangeburg, than places like Flint, Wheeling or Saginaw - or even worse - some sort of cross between the two.
I hope it keeps going down because I plan on buying soon. I want to live in a desirable area but I don't want to spend a ton on my first home.
I don't think the OP is being negative I just think he/she is pointing out the obvious. I don't think we are close to the bottom yet..
I agree that the OP wasn't being overly negative, and actually appreciated the data and the time he took to compile and post it.
I think we must have missed some "issues" going way back with some of those seemingly on the "Let's crush yantosh22" bandwagon... Some of these comments have been rather brutal.
It's not like the housing boom from 2000 to 2008 was backed by anything real. I always joked about gold being in the foundations because houses that were 40 thousand were going for 120K overnight.
The correction is the doomsday IMO.
It's rather ironic to me what you said about there being gold in the foundations during the housing boom because I was an estimator for a concrete foundation company during the entire boom. We all kept waiting and waiting for it to end because it was simply incomprehensible that it could go on another year, and yet-- it did--- year after year after unbelievable year. People in our industry were making money hand over fist. In fact, "builders" who wanted in on the deal were materializing overnight. I called them "accountants by day and builders by night"... as nearly EVERYONE fancied himself a builder or general contractor during this time period.
Bottom line--- it was all about greed--- pure and simple. From politicians wanting votes, to home buyers wanting more than they could reasonably afford, to the bankers telling them, "Sure you qualify for a $400,000 mortgage on a $50,000 a year salary!", to those in all facets of the building industry spiking prices just because they could, and on to the realtors who were driving the market prices up, up, UP while lining their pockets with a disproportionate piece of everyone else's pie...
While there was no gold in them there foundations (though you may have thought so if you knew how much concrete prices rose during that period... more greed)--- it WAS a gold rush of sorts. Everyone saw the chance to make their own little fortune off the backs of anyone else making a fortune, and so the cycle went--- until the universe corrected itself as the universe invariably does.
It had to happen. The only wonder was that it took so unfathomably long to do so. Sadly--- the "recovery" may take equally as long with prices never completely "correcting" at all since they were so very "incorrect" to begin with.
It's rather ironic to me what you said about there being gold in the foundations during the housing boom because I was an estimator for a concrete foundation company during the entire boom. We all kept waiting and waiting for it to end because it was simply incomprehensible that it could go on another year, and yet-- it did--- year after year after unbelievable year. People in our industry were making money hand over fist. In fact, "builders" who wanted in on the deal were materializing overnight. I called them "accountants by day and builders by night"... as nearly EVERYONE fancied himself a builder or general contractor during this time period.
Bottom line--- it was all about greed--- pure and simple. From politicians wanting votes, to home buyers wanting more than they could reasonably afford, to the bankers telling them, "Sure you qualify for a $400,000 mortgage on a $50,000 a year salary!", to those in all facets of the building industry spiking prices just because they could, and on to the realtors who were driving the market prices up, up, UP while lining their pockets with a disproportionate piece of everyone else's pie...
While there was no gold in them there foundations (though you may have thought so if you knew how much concrete prices rose during that period... more greed)--- it WAS a gold rush of sorts. Everyone saw the chance to make their own little fortune off the backs of anyone else making a fortune, and so the cycle went--- until the universe corrected itself as the universe invariably does.
It had to happen. The only wonder was that it took so unfathomably long to do so. Sadly--- the "recovery" may take equally as long with prices never completely "correcting" at all since they were so very "incorrect" to begin with.
Much wisdom in this post! I was sitting back in wonderment, too . . . there was some discussion about it on the boards, as well and when I voiced my concerns and predicted a crash (based on the subprime and ALT-A loans and derivatives market) . . . I was lambasted-by all but a few people who could see it coming, too.
THe crash was inevitable to anyone who had studied the financing instruments and the derivatives market.
There were some folks who made some big bucks while the getting was good, though, lol. Just too bad it ended up spelling financial disaster for millions (homeowners as well as workforce due to job loss b/c of the crash).
But as we have been speculating . . . who knows when it is gonna end? I think we surely have gotten to nearly the bottom on prices. I would think the lowest it will go here in Charlotte would be 1998 or so levels. Surely?
whichever phrasing you prefer to use...
and allowing that few pockets here and there will always be exceptions...
when the average or typical or median settlement prices are at about 1998 price levels
(before all the craziness started) that'll mark the bottom.
be VERY leery of any chart or graph that doesn't show the run from that period...
they just aren't telling you the whole story.
whichever phrasing you prefer to use...
and allowing that few pockets here and there will always be exceptions...
when the average or typical or median settlement prices are at about 1998 price levels
(before all the craziness started) that'll mark the bottom.
be VERY leery of any chart or graph that doesn't show the run from that period...
they just aren't telling you the whole story.
That is what I am thinking, b/c that is the last set of data b/f the world started getting contaminated with the deluge of subprime and ALT-A loans. That is why I chose 1998. Is that why you chose that year, too? I would really like to know. Thanks!
Do those include foreclosures or shadow inventory?
It doesn't... it's simply the data that CMLS hosts for monthly statistics: All of MLS and Single Family Residential
There's also a big hole where they didn't report on it for a while. lol
I didn't comment because I'm really not sure what to make of it... Although it seems to me this area peaked in the Spring of 2008 - which makes some kind of sense because the feeder areas peeked earlier then that.
But as we have been speculating . . . who knows when it is gonna end? I think we surely have gotten to nearly the bottom on prices. I would think the lowest it will go here in Charlotte would be 1998 or so levels. Surely?
I won't end until there are some significant structural changes in the US economy that creates real jobs and not those supported by some sort of taxation. Housing follows wages or rather household income. Housing rose significantly over the last decade wages did not so there is still a long ways to go before it's done. It shouldn't be much in the speculation dept. to determine that people who don't work are not looking to buy. However it's worse than this......
There is another big time bomb called the FHA loan. There is a sweet spot being held open by the federal government in the 200K to 450k range by these now irresponsible loans. When they are finally forced to kill this program, there will be a collapse not to be believed. It hasn't happened because the politicians that can change it, are scared to death of it. However if they don't, investment will still flow into this black hole and force more people out of work. Either way, it's a whole lot of bad.
It's not really a speculation. The math behind it doesn't lie.
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Some of these comments have been rather brutal.
