With unemployment still at near record highs, the fear is that many looking for work won’t be able to keep up with their mortgage payments.
This is definitely an unfortunate situation, but it is by no means indicative of the situation we face here in the Fort Mill SC area. We’re very fortunate in that people are continuing to move to the Charlotte area and when they do, they’re quite frequently deciding to move across the border to Fort Mill.
I certainly expect this trend to continue, which means a strong Fort Mil SC real estate market.
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Filed under Foreclosed Houses, Market Trends, News Reports by 
If you’re looking to buy a lakeside home at a huge discount, right now might just be the time to act! Of course, that’s if you don’t mind living in north Charlotte NC on Lake Norman.
A recent story run by WCNC news station talked about the glut of lakeside homes that are available in Lake Norman, and many of them are listed at steep discounts. For example and as quoted in the Charlotte Observer,
“It’s 7,000 square-feet,” said broker Jason Noblitt as he looked at pictures of a waterfront foreclosure in Mooresville. “It was on the market for approximately $1.7 million.”
The 5-bedroom, 4 1/2-bath house is under contract now and Noblitt thinks it’ll sell for under $1 million. That’s a $700,000 discount.
“In our current market you absolutely are not going to get what you did in 2006 or even 2007. We need to look at where prices were in 2004 and 2005,” he said.”
And it’s not as if there isn’t competition either. An MLS search showed 470 lakeside homes listed in the Lake Norman area, which means it’s a highly competitive housing market.
Of course on the flip side, if you’re looking to purchase a lakeside home, now is certainly a great time to act!
Down here in the Fort Mill SC area, it’s still most definitely a buyer’s market, but as I’ve always said, if your home is marketed and priced correctly, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t expect to get a fair value for your home.
To learn more about the Fort Mill SC or Rock Hill SC housing market, contact me today and I’d be more than happy to show you exactly what the Fort Mill SC real estate market looks like.
Filed under Charlotte NC, Home Buyers, Life In the Carolinas, Market Trends, News Reports by
While foreclosures themselves can be nasty monsters to deal with by themselves, they’re unfortunately, not the only ugly animal that homeowners facing foreclosure have to deal with. Along with the hassles and frustrations of an impending foreclosure, homeowners also have to be wary of those preying on their weakened financial position.
Scammers absolutely love to prey on the weak so it’s no surprise to see that as the number of foreclosures rise, so too does the number of foreclosure scams.
According to Stella Hopkins of the Charlotte Observer,
“The N.C. Attorney General’s Office handled 448 foreclosure-scam complaints last year, a jaw-dropping jump from 82 the previous year. In 2007, there were just seven.”
The majority of these scams appear to be in the area of firms charging upfront fees for so-called ‘foreclosure prevention help, a practice which has been illegal in NC since 2005. Last year, the NC Attorney General handed out 166 cease and desist orders to firms charging these upfront fees.
Again, according to Ms. Hopkins:
“Working out a loan modification is time-consuming and frustrating. The main federal program is cumbersome. But there’s a lot of free help. See www.fightncforeclosure.org to find a free foreclosure prevention counselor in your area. The site has contacts for other resources, too.
And remember: If you’re facing foreclosure, we want to hear from you. We’re looking this year at whether the $75 billion federal foreclosure-prevention program is really helping people. E-mail me at shopkins@charlotteobserver.com or call direct, 704-358-5173.”
Filed under Carolina Business News, Foreclosed Houses, News Reports by
The I-485 loop that has been the subject of debate for sometime now will apparently be completed using a process never before used in the state of North Carolina. In the plan called ‘design-build-finance’, contractors will help pay for the cost of completing the beltway upfront and will then be reimbursed on the back end.
Typically, most road construction projects follow a ‘design-build’ process whereby contractors are responsible only for designing and building the roadway. In this scenario, they would also join in the financing of the project as well.
This new process supposedly offers a streamlined method for completing the project that has been a hot topic since Gov. Purdue took office last year.
I for one am curious to see how well this process plays out. Call me a bit of a skeptic, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith in a government that’s already operating in the red and current projections don’t look very promising either.
While I do believe in allowing private enterprise to help us correct many of the problems we now face, I’ll be curious to see how the back-end financing portion works out for the participating contractors.
Regardless, I think it’ll be a good thing to have the project completed, now projected to occur around 2014. This 1-485 project has dragged on for waaaaaay too long already and it will certainly help the entire Charlotte area as it continues to grow and expand.
Filed under Charlotte NC, News Reports by
While it’s too early to celebrate the news that the first time home buyer credit that so many people have taken advantage of to get into a new home, the talk of extending the incentive is starting to build.
It appears as if Senators have agreed on the idea of extending the credit, but they haven’t quite nailed down all the logistics of the extension. And while the extension would prolong the $8,000 tax credit enjoyed by first-time home buyers that purchase a new home, it looks as though it might go beyond that to include those that aren’t first-time home buyers.
The new provision of the extension would provide up to $6,500 in assistance to those that have lived in their current residence for at least 5 years.
Again, as of right now most of this is still talk, but as we all know, anytime we can get both political parties in Washington to agree on something, it’s got to be a good sign!
If you’re still in the market to purchase a new home or you’d like to sell your current home, the market is still very warm and there are plenty of homes available for purchase and willing buyers looking to buy.
Contact me and let’s discuss your real estate options!
Filed under Buy Your Dream House, Home Buyers, News Reports by
