I am pleased to announce that I will be building in the newly developed Stevens Grove neighborhood off Reverdy Lane in South Charlotte. This neighborhood will ultimately comprise approximately 45 new houses that will be built by three custom builders. The houses will start in the $800K’s and will be in the most desirable South Charlotte school district (Elizabeth Lane Elementary, South Charlotte Middle School and Providence High School). Construction will begin in January of 2016 on the first homes (Phase 1). Once the...

  For those people  looking for lots in the Providence High School area there have been few options recently. However, Ken Dowd is in the process of developing 6 lots at the southern end of Bellmeade that will be called Deerfield. These lots are the first phase of what will eventually be a significantly larger development that will be accessed off Alexander Road across from Brackenbury Lane. The first 6 lots are priced from $149K to $195K and will be...

With all the uncertainty in the Homebuilding industry today it is especially important for anyone considering hiring a contractor to make sure he is financially stable. Since that is a difficult thing to measure I suggest to people that they ask potential contractors for their licensing level. A contractor with a “Limited” license need only have $17,000 in working capital to his name. He is limited to working on projects not to exceed $500,000 in total cost. While this restriction...

There has been a continued interest in lot purchases recently. As many of you know The Forest has experienced considerable activity with 5 lots purchased in the past 6 – 8 months. Four of those buyers are in the design phase presently with plans to commence construction during the next 6 months.  Additionally, the only two remaining lots in Reverdy Glen have sold. One has a house under construction and the other has recently gone under contract. That buyer plans...

I recently inspected another crawl space for a friend, in response to an outrageous quote from a local company to fix his “problems with mold, water infiltration and poor air circulation.” This company used numerous scare tactics in their report to promote the conversion of his crawl space from the current “vented” system, to a “conditioned” crawl space – all for a mere $10,000 or so. Most of these expensive solutions are unnecessary to solve the typical crawl space problems....

For years now I have been bothered by the whole “Green Building” movement; not because the cause is an unworthy one, but because those in the building industry have not really changed anything, other than their marketing campaigns. Instead of making real changes in the way they construct their homes, most builders have simply figured out a way to put an environmentally sensitive face on what they have been doing for years. Rather than looking long and hard at the...

When thinking about our economy and a potential rebound, many economists continue to portend that we need to restore some of the lost manufacturing jobs that have migrated overseas during the last 10 -15 years as it has become increasingly cheaper to produce our goods in other countries. Only 9% of America’s non-farming jobs are classified as manufacturing. This number has continued to dwindle and most of us recognize that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to falsely prop up a...

One of barriers to any recovery in the upper end housing market is appraisals. I’m sure we all know people who have war stories to tell about low appraisals on their houses – for sales or refinancing purposes. This is mostly prevalent in the higher priced neighborhoods because so few houses have been sold, and of those, a large percentage are due to distress situations. I recently learned of a former client who had their house appraised for refinancing reasons....

Now is a great time to buy a lot. Prices on lots have fallen further than prices on homes, creating an ideal opportunity for anyone interested in building, rather than buying an existing home. I have been trying to keep up with most of the available lot inventory in the South Charlotte area and can help steer you toward specific opportunities, if interested. Send me an e-mail describing what you are looking for (price, location, large, small, desired surroundings, etc.) and I will give...

As we emerge from this housing depression I believe there will be a strong demand for multi-generational housing. That is, housing that provides a separate, private living space designed to accommodate everything from an elderly parent to a rebounding college graduate child, to a live in nanny or rental tenant. This space need not be detached (although that would be ideal), just separate enough to enable someone to get away from the rest of the family and escape to their...