*Compiled from the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service’s data, this chart enables you to focus on your specific price range(s) rather than use the broad-brush approach thus allowing you to size up your competition and better position yourself.

How to read this report:

• First choose a price range.
• The next column provides the actual number of listings sold in this price range in the  4th quarter of 2011
• This is followed by the percentage this price range represents of the total number of listings sold
• Next is the number of active listings in this price range
• This is followed by the percentage this price range represents of the total number of active listings
• Finally, the last column represent the absorption rate or the number of months of supply for each price range based upon the number of listings divided by the number of sales.

Some Findings:

• Sales of Lake Norman homes when compared with the amount of inventory remain strongest in the lowest price ranges.  The $0 – $399,999 price range represented 62% of Lake Norman home sales and only 40% of the active listings. Properties up to $399,999 currently have an absorption rate of 6.3 month which is a perfectly balanced housing market!
• The second strongest price range this past 3 months was $900,000- $999,999 which represented 2.94% of Lake Norman home sales AND 2.68% of our active listings with 10.5 months of inventory.
• Our weakest price ranges in the past 3 months were the $500,000?s, $800,000?s and homes over $1,000,000.
• 9.66% of our home sales were at or above  $800,000 compared to 12.92%  last quarter and 14.3% in the 2nd quarter of 2011.  We had 1 closed sale over $2 million this quarter compared to 7 in the 3rd quarter, 6 in the 2nd quarter and only 1 in the 1st quarter. Our luxury housing market certainly slowed down in the fourth quarter and seems to do best in the spring and summer.
• Our overall Months of Supply dropped slightly to a respectable 11.5 due in large part to our shrinking inventory of homes for sale. To put this year in perspective, in the 4th quarter of 2009 we had a staggering 46.4 months of supply of homes for sale in Lake Norman!

As a buyer, the chart above will show you where you might face the stiffest competition and at what price ranges you might see opportunities.  As a seller, you can look at the Lake Norman real estate market’s activity by price range and if you are right on the cusp of, for example, a $500,000 listing price, it would clearly be prudent to price your home in the high $400,000’s  where there were nearly twice as many properties sold (and more buyers) and comparatively less competition.

Just for fun, I also created a sales chart by price range for the past year:

Please note that in all of the price range charts I am actually using data from the 15th of the month so these numbers won’t match perfectly with the monthly or annual sales numbers I provide.

OTHER ARTICLES of  INTEREST 

Lake Norman Relocation Resources

Lake Norman  Sports Resource Guide

Lake Norman, Our Inland Sea

Lake Norman Where to Find Fresh Produce Stands and Farmers Markets

What You Need to Know About Buying Real Estate In North Carolina

Fresh Sushi? Hush Puppies? The Scoop About Relocating to Mooresville Lake Norman

How to get the Lastest Lake Norman News, Events and Coupon Savings!

Lake Norman Foreclosures, Short Sales and Green Homes…Search HERE

If you live on Lake Norman I don’t have to tell you that our lake levels have been uncharacteristically low since late summer; dropping down to 95.0′ on September 17th which is a full 3 feet lower than our  summer “target” levels of 98 feet.  And, you most probably have also noticed a sudden increase starting on November 16th bringing us up to our current level of 98.7 feet! 

I must admit I am baffled as to why Duke Energy, who manages our Lake Norman water levels, decided to drop them fairly suddenly during a time when our “target” levels were 98 feet and we were not in a drought.  One guess is that they were worried about the potential for Hurricane Irene’s high rain levels.  If any of you all know more, please leave a comment!

For those of you who are new to Lake Norman, the very best resource regarding Lake Norman water levels bar none is Duke Energy’s Check Lake Norman Water Levels website  which Duke Energy updates daily.  On this site you can get the actual lake levels of all 11 lakes that are part of the Catawba River System as well as the “target”” Lake Norman water level for that day, the minimum , maximum, range and any lake message updates.  They also provide a schedule of flow releases and other related data.

Lake Norman is a result of the damming of the Catawba River back in 1963 when the Cowans Ford Dam was completed.  It is part of Duke Energy’s power resources and provides electricity to the Piedmont Carolinas by using the McGuire Nuclear Station and the Cowans Ford Hydroelectric Station at the south end of the lake and the Marshall Steam Plant on the west side at Highway 150.  The water levels are controlled by Duke Energy and normally vary less than 5 feet.

The maximum level is called “full pond” which is 760 feet above sea level. Duke Energy considers full pond to be the “the point at which the water begins to spill over the flood gate spillway.” You will sometimes hear waterfront homeowners refer to the “760 line”.

On the Lake Norman Water Level charts, full pond is considered 100.0 feet.  Duke Energy purposely lowers water levels seasonally to anticipate rain or melting of the winter snows that feed the entire Catawba River system.

If you want to see today’s 13-Month Lake Level History chart for Lake Norman  on Duke Energy’s website you can see the daily water levels for the past year.

All I know is the lake looks awesome!

Related Articles

Lake Norman Real Estate: Lake Norman Flooding Unlikely 

Lake Norman, Our Inland Sea

Lake Norman Relocation Resources 

For 15 years there has been a planning effort among state and local officials to create what is being called the Red Line project; a 25-mile commuter train that will run east of I-77  and link Charlotte to Harris, Eastfield, Hambright, Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and end at Mount Mourne in south Mooresville.

To me the benefits are obvious: cutting traffic on I-77 and helping commuters who work in Charlotte but wish to live in the Lake Norman area.  Opponents of the plan unfortunately include a large chunk of Iredell County elected Officials and several Cornelius town board members who balk at the taxes, proposed development along the line and feel it will benefit just a few.

This past Wednesday, November 30th, consultants outlined a 5-year plan to build the Red Line Regional Rail which included a formal partnership among local governments, the state and Charlotte Area Transportation System.  According to an article by Christina Rogers in Cornelius.net, “Under the proposed plan, the partners would cooperate by setting up a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) which would govern construction and operations costs: 25% from CATS, 25% from the state of North Carolina, and 50% from local governments….The plan…fleshes out how the towns would meet their obligation, and it won’t mean increased taxes for individual homeowners….Instead, under th proposed plan, towns would pay for the rail through revenues expected to result from the increased value of property along the rail line.”

There is a ton of detailed information about the Red Line on the Cornelius News.Net Blog.  They have some great links including this one of the map:

http://corneliusnews.net/Documents/2011/113011%20Red%20Line%20Business%20Plan/RLRR%20Corridor%20Map.pdf

Want to get involved or learn more?

There will be a 4-hour public meeting on December 13th from 10:00am – 2:00pm at the Charles Mack Citizens Center in Historic Downtown Mooresville.  You can also learn more at the Lake Norman Transportation Commission’s website.

Please share with my readers your thoughts, experience or any feedback from these meetings!

Additional Articles 

Economic News Provides Insight into the future of Lake Norman Real Estate

Lake Norman and Charlotte Remain at the Top of  the List of Places to Live

A Glimpse Into Post Recession Lake Norman Real Estate

Lake Norman Area is Growing and Improving Despite the Recession!

Lake Norman Real Estate: Is Mooresville Really Bucking the Recession?

Lake Norman Real Estate: Wow! A Lot of Good News!

The article went on to say that “Although affordability has increased….housing demand remains depressed with existing home sales back to 1998 levels.”

Of course, I had to see if these is true of our Lake Norman real estate market and here is what I found:

* Note that our 2011 numbers are through today and I expect them to equal 2010.

Insight Summary

• If you look at the Sales column, you can see the dramatic rise, fall and recent leveling out of the number of single family homes sold in Lake Norman (MLS area 13) since 1998.
• The second easiest column to explain is the average Days on Market which shows a fairly consistent time until the past few years.  Imagine that back in the early 2000′s it took less than 2 months to sell a property!
• What is fascinating but a bit more complicated is the average sales prices and the average dollars per square foot columns. Overall our average sales prices in Lake Norman really haven’t dropped that much yet this is counter intuitive to our experiences of the past 4 years.  (Unfortunately I can’t get the median prices from our MLS which is what most national statistics use).  The average sales are particularly skewed here in Lake Norman because of our waterfront homes which can sell as high as $6 million.  It doesn’t take too many very high end sales to impact the average sales numbers dramatically.  As you can see, over all our prices have only dropped about 5% from our highs in 2006/2007.

Through a Statistical Analysis Module I am able to get charts using our MLS data from 2005 to October 2011. I can’t copy them here but I can email you copies if you are interested. Here is what I learned:

• The median sales price in Lake Norman went from a low of $260,000 in January 2005 to a high of $$350,000 in 2007/2008.  Our median prices since then have followed a jagged line between $350,000 down to a low of $315,000 in November of 2009. Lake Norman median prices for home sales have actually increased since September of 2010 and stand at $330,000 as of the end of October.
• In contrast, I looked at the same median sales price chart for ALL of the Charlotte Multiple Listing Service and it resembled a pyramid; starting low in January 2005 and increasing steadily up until the first quarter of 2008 after which it dropped consistently until January of 2010 but not quite as low as the beginning of 2005.  Since then they have remained at about the same price.  Our entire MLS dropped significantly lower than Lake Norman and in a more predictable fashion.

My overall conclusion for these statistics is that Lake Norman truly is a unique market which can’t be discussed with a broad brush approach.  In order to truly understand our Lake Norman housing market if you are buying or selling a home you need to narrow your focus to your specific property type, location and price range.  Hopefully my monthly and quarterly sales analysis will provide more valuable insight for your purposes.  (See the right hand column on the home page of this website where is says “Topics” and click on “Market Reports” to access all of the reports available.

Questions? If you want copies of these charts please email me: diane@dianeaurit.com.

More Lake Norman Real Estate Sales Data:

Lake Norman Real Estate’s October 2011 Sales Analysis

Lake Norman Real Estate’s 3rd Quarter 2011 Price Range Analysis

OTHER ARTICLES of  INTEREST 

Lake Norman Relocation Resources

Lake Norman  Sports Resource Guide