Ask any Realtor active in the Lake Norman residential market how business is and they will collectively smile and say great.  But, are the current Lake Norman sales evenly distributed around all 4 counties that share waterfront land on Lake Norman?

Over the past few years I have created sales charts focusing on all of the largest of the Crescent Communities on Lake Norman to provide insight into the different areas surrounding Lake Norman including:

• The Point, The Harbour at The Pointe and The Farms in Mooresville ( down Brawley School Rd)
• The Peninsula  in Cornelius
• Sailview in Denver
• Northview Harbour in Sherrills Ford
• Falls Cove in Statesville

Here is one fresh off the presses:

A couple of numbers stand out immediately, particularly the Months of Supply.  The Point, The Farms and  North View Harbour are well below last year’s and just slightly above a truly balanced real estate market of 6-8 months of supply.    Look at how they have improved compared to last June 2011:

• Another striking difference is the number of conditional properties.  (Under contract but not closed).  We currently have 30 conditional properties compared to 10 last June.
• While still trailing the communities on the east side of Lake Norman, Sailview and Northview Harbour have improved significantly.
• The Farms remains strong but what is a truly positive sign for Lake Norman is that a number of  NEW construction homes are now selling in The Farms after years of being almost non-existent.
• Finally, it is important to note that the average $ per square foot has dropped in every community but one.

Sales are up, prices are down and the number of distressed properties, if you read my February Sales Analysis, only represent 7.5% of our active homes for sale in Lake Norman.  I had multiple offers on my most recent waterfront listing and it sold above the asking price in less that 12 hours!  So far, 2012 is far exceeding my expectations.  Now would be a really good time for serious Lake Norman buyers to get off the fence before it is too late!

 Related Articles

Lake Norman’s Luxury Community The Point : Is it leading Lake Norman’s real estate recovery?

Is ‘The Point’ Lake Normans Ultimate Luxury Home Community?

The Harbour at The Pointe; A Popular Lake Norman Subdivision

Lake Normans waterfront communites: North Shore and Pine Isle

The Farms; A Crescent Community with a Country Feel

Awwww, another day in paradise here on Lake Norman!  I took this photo at dusk from the dock of a property I listed this past Saturday which sold with multiple offers in 3 hours! Yes, our Lake Norman housing market is improving.  (I’ll write a separate post about this sale).   Last month’s calendar photo was a main channel view.  This photo is of a very wide cove which opens to the main channel.  The homes in the photo are located in Connor Quay, a small luxury gated community adjacent to The Peninsula in Cornelius.  The benefit of a location like this one is that you have stunning views including sunsets but you are off the main channel far enough to be spared from the wear and tear on your dock and the noise at peak boating times in the summer.

This photo was taken just a bit later and I turned towards the main channel but I was standing in the exact same spot as the photo above.

To make your desktop calendar, go to the round button at the top of this site’s home page entitled: “Lake Norman Calendar”. Click on this button and up will come this image of my Lake Norman photo wallpaper calender for March 2012. All you have to do is right click and select “set as background”. If you would like a copy of this photo without the calendar, just send me an email.

FREE $25 GAS CARD!

I need your HELP!  I would love to use one of your favorite photos depicting life here in Lake Norman.  (Optimum size is a landscape photo about 2MB or about 1600 x 1200 pixels). I will give a $25 Gas Card to anyone who provides a photo that I use as one of my monthly calendars.  If you’d like to submit a photo  or an idea for a future calendar, please send it to…

diane@dianeaurit.com

Articles of Interest

Lake Norman Relocation and Resource Guide

Lake Norman Sports (Participation) Resource Guide

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

Relocating to Lake Norman

The Point, with its 13 phases and about 900 home-sites is arguably the most well-known and popular luxury community on all of Lake Norman.  It has been fascinating to watch how the recession initially impacted its home sales and the progress it has made since then. In fact, the numbers today would indicate that The Point is actually leading the Lake Norman real estate market’s recovery.

Back in September of 2008, (see my article: Lake Norman Real Estate:  The Point, A Case Study, Part 2  ) The Point looked like this:

• 123 Active Listings
• A whopping 41-months of supply of homes for sale compared to the overall Lake Norman housing market’s 28-months of supply
• The average days on market for the 9 properties sold was 428 DAYS!

Now fast forward to today and The Point looks like this:

• 38 Active Listings (One third of the amount in 2008)
•  7.86 months of supply of homes compared to over 12-months of supply in all of our Lake Norman housing market
• The average days on market for the 29 properties sold in the past 6 months was 178 days

What a remarkable turn around during a very tough national economic slowdown!  What is so interesting is how The Point went from being significantly worse than our overall Lake Norman market in 2008 to today when it is a bit better off than our overall real estate market.

Here are two charts, one for waterfront homes and one for off-water homes to provide you an overview for the past 10 years.  Keep in mind that 2011 is not completed:

Waterfront Home Sales in The Point 

*Note that the while the number of homes sales this year to date are lower, the average price and $ per square foot are siginificantly higher.

Non-Waterfront Homes Sales in The Point

*Again, while the number of sales is down, the average price and days on market are improving.

This is yet another sign that our Lake Norman real estate market is improving.  Low inventories are key to this trend and they are continuing to fall not just in The Point but throughout our Lake Norman area.

Additional Articles

Before buying a Lake Norman Waterfront Home, See it by Boat!

Is ‘The Point’ Lake Normans Ultimate Luxury Home Community?

Relocating to Lake Norman

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

Mooresville on Money Magazine’s List of Best Places to Live

Lake Norman, Our Inland Sea

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

My reason for creating this Lake Norman Real Estate blog from the its inception in May of 2007  was and still is all about providing you with as much information and data as possible to help you make an informed decision when buying or selling a home in Lake Norman.

While I don’t talk a lot about our Property Search feature, I chose the company providing this program because they are local, innovative and provide great customer service.

Two of my favorite features are the “Neighborhood Analyzer” and “Research” tools.  I have discussed the “Research” tool in previous articles but as a reminder, once you do a home search and have specific property results, click on any of the properties for the details page.  Once on the details page you will see the word “Research” in bold dark red  just to the right of the listing price. Up will pop three options:

•  DealSniffer Compare this listing to others in the area
  Market Check  Look at homes recently sold in the area
  Neighborhood Analyzer Recent neighborhood market trends

Once you have clicked on “research” and found these three option, Just click on any of these to access more data about the property and it’s competition

Now, go back to the Lake Norman Real Estate’s home page and click on the round button “Search for Homes”.  You are now on the home page for a home search.   At the top right hand corner you will see a small logo with bars:  If you click on this icon you will go immediately to the Neighborhood Analyzer.  From there, just put in a neighborhood and you will get results like this one I just did for The Point:

This Neighborhood Analyzer feature has just been “overhauled” by my service provider and now includes:

• Average prices of both list and sales
• Homes sold per month
• Current inventory
• Interactive map with all currently active and recently sold properties
• Statistical data regarding listing and sales prices.

Pretty cool isn’t it?  As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated.  I will pass them along to my IDX company!

Related Articles 

Lake Norman Waterfront Real Estate: What is Available in YOUR price range?

Lake Norman Real Estate:  Waterfront Home Price Update: Part 1

Lake Norman Relocation Resources

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

For those of you new to Lake Norman real estate, Crescent Communities represent some of the largest, most upscale planned communities on Lake Norman.  Originally the real estate arm of Duke Energy when Lake Norman was first created in the 1960′s, ”Crescent Resources is (now) a real estate development and land management company”.  They still have active sales offices for The Point & The Farms.

On August 26th of last year in I wrote an article with an update about the financial health of Crescent Resources, LLC and a spread sheet real estate analysis of the most notable Crescent Communities on Lake Norman:  How are Lake Norman’s Crescent Communities Faring in 2010? I did the same real estate sales analysis today to provide you with some insight into our 2011 activity in these same Crescent Communities:

* As always these numbers are compiled from the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Services

For the sake of comparison, here is my chart from last August:

There are both stunning and unremarkable contrasts between these two reports.  Here are the highlights:

• Active Listings have dropped 8.5% overall with only minor variances by community. Note that Falls Cove has dropped to near zero as they were the hardest hit by the recession.

• Conditional/Active Due Diligence contracts in total are again almost identical.  However, in 2010 The Point and The Peninsula represented 73% whereas today they are only 40% of the total. Very recent sales have been spread fairly evenly across the board.

• Once again The Point leads in Pending sales contracts but I was quite shocked to find none in The Peninsula or The Harbour.  With 6 pending sales The Farms has clearly picked up significantly which will be reflected in other numbers as well.  (New construction returned in the newest phase of  The Farms early this year.)

• It is not fair or meaningful to compare the total closed sales since my analysis last year was over 2 months later in the year than this one.  That said, it is important to note the relative decline in sales in The Point, The Harbour and Sailview and the uptick in The Peninsula, The Farms and Northview Harbor.

• The Months of Supply column is where we see some note worthy numbers.  Overall the Crescent Communites’ months of supply of homes for sale increased from 16.8 to 19.2.  The Point, The Peninsula, The Harbour and Sailview all have significant increases (which is not good) while The Farms and Northview Harbour have experienced significant improvements. Keep in mind that 6-8 months of supply is our goal in a balances real estate market.

• The Days on Market numbers improved this year in all 7 communities.  Once again The Harbour came in with the best numbers.

• The % of the sales price versus the listing price were remarkable similar in every community except The Harbour. I took a closer look and two  high-end waterfront homes in The Harbour sold for significantly less than their asking prices this spring which weighed heavily on their numbers.

• The average $ per square foot for sold properties are always greatly impacted by the number of waterfront luxury estate sales.  This is particularly evident in The Point and The Peninsula but is true of all of the waterfront communities.  So far in 2011 The Point and The Peninsula are almost identical which reflects an improvement in The Point and a decline in The Peninsula.  The Harbour, Sailview and Falls Cove also experienced declines.

So how do these Crescent Communities compare to the entire Lake Norman real estate market?  Together they have experienced a 20% decline in sales compared to 10.7% decline in all of Lake Norman.  We have, through May 30th of this year, a 19-month supply of  homes compared to the Crescent Communities 19.2 however clearly The Point, The Peninsula, The Harbour and Sailview are experiencing weaker sales and  have higher inventories of active listings resulting in higher numbers of months of supply.

The biggest winners so far in 2011 are The Farms and Northview Harbour.  

The weakest links have been The Harbour and Sailview.    However, I would be remise if I didn’t point out that when I did a detailed sales analysis of The Point at the end of March of this year their months of supply stood at 13.5; significantly below the 25-months based upon the current number of active listings (10 more) and the average sales per month in 2011. 

Our Lake Norman real estate market is a bit like a yo-yo right now with no consistent, reliable trends to latch on to which is why I do analysis like this one to provide some insight into real time activity in Lake Norman.  I’m looking forward to doing my monthly Lake Norman Real Estate Hot Sheet on the 21st!

Related Articles About  the Lake Norman Real Estate Market

The Point in Lake Norman: An 11-Year Real Estate Sales Analysis

Lake Norman Real Estate’s May 2011 Sales Analysis: Not Much to Celebrate!

Lake Norman Real Estate’s 1st Quarter 2011 Sale Analysis by Price Range

Lake Norman Waterfront Homes: What is Currently on the Market in your Price Range?