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Each week, WFAE's "Morning Edition" hosts get a rundown of the biggest business and development stories from The Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter.

Were you waiting for Charlotte home prices to fall? They went up even more

Erin Keever
/
WFAE

If you’re looking to buy a home in Charlotte, you’ve likely got your work cut out for you. According to the Canopy Realtor Association, the median home sales price in Queen City in September was $335,000 — an increase of nearly 20% from January.

Some would-be buyers are rethinking whether it’s the right time to get a house. Others, though, are going all-out to get their dream homes.

“We’re talking about putting in bids that are tens of thousands of dollars above the asking price, waiving inspections, putting down big, nonrefundable deposits,” The Charlotte Ledger’s Tony Mecia told WFAE “Morning Edition” host Marshall Terry on this week’s installment of BizWorthy. “I mean, there are all sorts of financial gymnastics that they have to jump through in order to try to get these houses.”

The tactics are working for some people, but Mecia says that’s just making it harder for others — especially first-time home buyers.

“There are a lot of people who are being shut out of that process,” he said. “Some of them, as we wrote in the Ledger this week, are pulling back and saying, ‘OK, wait a minute, we’re just going to ride this out. We’re going to wait for a little bit. We’re not going to play these games and wait for the market to get back to a little bit more normal.’”

One big reason home prices are shooting up in Charlotte: There just isn’t much inventory.

“At the most basic level, it’s supply and demand,” Mecia said. “You have a limited supply, and you have a lot of demand. You have a lot of people who are moving to Charlotte, a lot of people wanting to buy that first house or move to a new house. But the construction of houses hasn’t kept up with that demand.”

You can listen to the full conversation between Terry and Mecia above. Here’s a quick look at what else they cover on this week’s BizWorthy.

  • The Lowe’s Design Center Tower in Charlotte’s South End neighborhood is under contract at a record price — roughly $900 per square foot.
  • Wells Fargo officially spun off its asset-management business, and it’ll be headquartered in — you guessed it — Charlotte. 
  • Charlotte is in the running for a medical training center. That’s very different than the medical school that’s headed to the Dilworth neighborhood, but it could still have a big impact. 

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Marshall came to WFAE after graduating from Appalachian State University, where he worked at the campus radio station and earned a degree in communication. Outside of radio, he loves listening to music and going to see bands - preferably in small, dingy clubs.