As of 12:01am ET this morning work on The Vue, a 51-story condo project in uptown Charlotte NC was halted because apparently the contractor hasn’t paid its bills.  Whoops!

According to the Charlotte Observer today,

“At the worksite, at Fifth and Pine streets, workers streamed out of the tower at the shift’s end Monday, carrying an assortment of items, such as ladders, buckets and drills, which workers often leave overnight. Workers with four subcontractors, along with half a dozen Griffin employees, said they had been told that work may stop because of unpaid bills. Employees also removed R.J. Griffin signs from fences and used cranes to hoist portable toilets and other heavy equipment to the ground from The Vue’s upper floors.”

While it’s highly unlikely the work stoppage will last long simply because I seriously doubt the Charlotte city leaders want such a large real estate project just sitting unfinished, it definitely points to the fact that the regions real estate market isn’t completely out of the woods yet.

While home sales have picked up in the lower price brackets ($100-150K) things are still a little slow in the upper price ranges.  That’s not to say house aren’t selling, it just means they’re not selling as quickly as they did prior to the current economic downturn.