While most of us who live down Brawley School Road spent the winter trying to cope with this weird and very cold white stuff that kept falling from the sky, “Norman” was busy opening what is sure to become the hangout  for Lake Norman locals:  “Shoals  Saloon and Grille…Mooresville’s premier food-drink & fun spot”  in the new Bloom Shopping Center at Stutts Rd and Brawley School.

As you enter Shoals, you immediately feel like you are on vacation.  The fun, whimsical nautical decor with the weathered wooden walls reminds me of hanging out at the lake or beach in the summer.  It feels like it is time to relax.  Shoals Saloon and Grille pretty much demands that you leave your stress at the door!

But, as “Norman” says on their website:  ” Don’t be fooled by the casual Lake Norman atmosphere at Shoals, cuz we’re dead serious about great food, great drink, and great service.  

The food is awesome.  It is like a gourmet Vinnie’s on steroids with an eclectic menu that offers everything from a fresh mozzarella salad with home grown tomatoes to a lump crab “samich” to prime-aged Filet Mignon to their Lowcountry Boil on Sundays.  Did I mention their desserts?  My favorite is “Granny Heron’s Apple Crisp Streusel” but then again, I have yet to try their Key Lime Pie or Chocolate Thunder Brownie A La Mode!  (Of course, their ice cream is made locally at Mooresvilles Deluxe Ice Cream).

 The “Saloon” is wonderfully located in the very center of the restaurant which gives it that “Cheers” type feel where locals hangout while enjoying one of their amazing drinks like “Fidel’s Berry Mojito”,  Martini’s of all kinds, Kentucky Mud Cider, domestic beers or wine. 

Shoals has daily drink specials like Martini Monday Madness when all of their signature martinis are $5.  And, Monday – Friday they offer “5 for $5 Happytizers”.  How about meatball-sirloin-codwich sliders, fried calamari or Gorgonzola baked potato chips at the end of a busy day?

Looking for some fun on St. Patrick’s Day? 

Check out Shoals Saloon and Grille’s   

ST. PAT’S BASH:

Traditional Irish Fare: $5 All you can eat!

Guinness/Smithwick’s/Harp: $3 Pints all week!

Irish Whisky $3

Gorgeous Guinness Girls (6pm-9pm)

World Renowned Bagpiper and Mooresville’s own Live Duo: Wally & Dave

 Don’t forget to check out their Sunday Brunch!

Shoals Saloon and Grille

1098 Brawley School Road

Mooresville, 28117

704.660.1211

Now Open Daily for Lunch and Dinner 

I received an email yesterday from a potential Lake Norman home-buyer from Texas asking me if I could provide him with a 10-year history of sales in The Point.  Explaining that the best I could do due to time constraints would be to send him the raw data, I set out to pull up the numbers by year breaking out waterfront from all of the rest of the properties.  Well, being the data geek that I am, once I saw the raw data I decided I really wanted to make two spread sheets breaking the numbers out by year for my readers: 

The Point

Home Sales: Non-Waterfront

The Point

Home Sales:  Waterfront

*All data is from the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service only and does not include sales that were not conducted through our MLS

When looking at these two charts it is important to remember that The Point  was a brand new subdivision back in 2001.  For the first few years all of the sales were new construction.  You will note that, especially in the non-waterfront sales, many of the homes sold above the listing price which would be due to upgrades requested by the buyers.  There are still a few new-construction homes available but now most of the sales today are resale.

Observations:

• Waterfront home sales data is a bit more erratic than the non-waterfront home sales.  The non-waterfront home sales numbers lay out a nice, clean and steady increase in the price per square foot until their peak in 2006 and then a more dramatic decline starting in 2007.  The waterfront home sales, while also peaking in 2006, do not reflect as clean a trend because they are impacted by the great spread in the individual home prices from about $1 million to over $4 million.  A perfect example is our first quarter of 2010.  There were only two waterfront home sales, one at $1,400,000 and the other at $3,375,000.  The average $ per square foot is obviously tremendously skewed by the $3 million+ sale.
• While our Lake Norman real estate market started to slow down in the second quarter of 2007 which is evident at The Point as well, The Point experienced a dramatic drop is sales in 2008 and has yet to recover. 
• At $150, the average $ per square foot for non-waterfront homes so far in 2010 is actually not too far off of the rest of Lake Norman’s more upscale communities. In fact, I did an analysis for one of my buyers about a month ago which had home sales prices per square footage at The Point up to $650,000 about equal to similar quality homes outside of The Point.
• Finally, note that the average sales price of a non-waterfront home at the Point is actually lower this year compared to 2001.

 There are currently 28 waterfront homes in The Point for sale through the MLS and 41 non-waterfront active listings.

As an interesting side note, the estate in the photo at the top has been actively listed for 1050 days. (It was first listed on 1/26/07).  The initial list price was $3,595,000.  About two years ago I had a buyer who entered into negotiations but failed to get the sellers down to even $3 million.  It is now listed at $2,695,000 and is an absolutely stunning property in the coveted  ”The Village” neighborhood in The Point. 

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Lake Norman Luxury Real Estate Market: The intimate private community of West View

Lake Normans Cornelius: From small village to posh suburb

Lake Norman’s February 2010 Single Family Housing Statistics

 Just as I thought, our February Lake Norman home sales were nearly flat when compared to 2009.  After four consecutive months of substantial increases in our Lake Norman home sales, February is serving as a wake-up call; reminding us that hear in Lake Norman, as opposed to other areas in the country,we are far from being out of the woods when it comes to our housing market.

• Active Listings dropped 17% from a year ago.  While any drop in inventory is good news in this market, our inventory seems to have stabilized when compared to last month.   I have noticed a number of active listings being withdrawn from the market or being allowed to expire. Are these going to become part of our “shadow’” inventory and reappear as actives as soon as there is more confidence in our housing market?   Right now, based upon our February sales, we are back up to a 27.1 month supply of active listings.  This is not good news. Remember that 6-8 months of supply is considered a balanced housing market.

• Contingent Sales remain very low.  These are the homes under contract that are contingent upon the buyer’s home selling.  Clearly, Lake Norman sellers are much  less willing to accept contingent offers than they were last year. 

• Conditional Sales increased 123%!  These are homes that  just went under contract and still have financial and inspection conditions. Homebuyers were definitely out looking and buying in February. This would seem to bode well for our March sales being at least a little higher than February’s.

• Pending sales are a healthy 23% above last year.    These are the contracts that are past inspections and are just waiting to close.  These are a good indication of future sales and substantiate that our March closed sales should exceed February’s and perhaps even those of March 2009.

• The number of closed sales were almost flat with a 4% increase over 2009.  Our four consecutive months of increases has ended, at least temporarily.  Note that our average sales price increased by 7% and the average days on market dropped by 6%.  This does not mean our prices are increasing.  Rather, it means that our higher priced listing sales are improving. Because of the nature of our Lake Norman housing market, we really can’t use the average sales price to determine if our prices are increasing or decreasing because our inventory ranges from under $100,000 to $5 million.  Our average prices vary with the price range that is selling.  One or two $million plus sales can skew our average prices substantially.

6-Year Comparison of Lake Norman Home Sales By Month

* Please note that all of my numbers come from the Charlotte Region Multiple Listing Service and will not include sales that took place outside of our MLS.

**I have made an adjustment of  the totals reflecting the ACTUAL  sales  every month in 2009 and 2010 and the totals in the prior calendar year.  The columns may not add up but I do my best with what I have to work with!

Summary

Our February home sales were actually rather disappointing.  The next few months are going to be critical.  We are entering our best season for home sales in our Lake Norman communities.  If we don’t see a substantial jump in the number of home sales, then it may be 2011 before we can expect to see signs of our recovery.

Lake Norman Relocation Resources

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

Lake Norman Real Estate: How Walkable is Your Neighborhood?

Lake Norman Real Estate:  What Does the Closing Attorney Do?

Lake Norman Real Estate’s Waterfront Home Sales Analysis December 2009

Lake Norman Real Estate: Are Foreclosures Driving Our Market?

Lake Norman Real Estate:  Why is it so hard to buy a home right now

Despite what you may read in the news, if you drive around the Lake Norman communities you will see active construction sites, albeit, not nearly as many as a few years ago.  And, behind the scenes developers are busy modifying their plans due to the change in the local and national economy but many are still moving forward in some form or another.

In Part 1 of this series, I focused on new or nearly completed developments, businesses and road widenings.  Today I am going to provide some additional updates on some of the largest, long-term developments that I first introduced several years ago:  Lake Norman Real Estate’s Growth and Development Update,  Lake Norman Real Estate’s News Update March 2009 , Lake Norman Growth and Developement Update October 2007.

• Langtree at the Lake: I am happy to report that this exciting $880 million resort is still moving forward!

I ran into Brad Howard (Brad, along with father Rick are the lead developers and visionaries of this project) at Starbucks several weeks ago.  He enthusiastically shared with me new renderings and maps on his laptop along with some changes to their timeline.  The first actual groundbreaking will be for the Embassy Suites Hotel and conference center this summer. Mooresville town commissioners recently approved Langtree Properties request to move this portion of the development to a larger tract which will afford higher visibility and and more acreage. They also approved shuffling “around the uses and intensities of the approximately 137 acres on three tracts of Land at Exit 31 on Interstate 77  that will be developed in phases as part of the project” according to recent article in the Mooresville Tribune. To learn more and see a great video about Lake Norman go to:  Langtree at the Lake

• Key Harbour:  This huge project, which was supposed to be the largest-ever housing development in Catawba County, “stalled months ago” according to the Charlotte Business Journal.

 ”That’s no surprise, given that the recession has shut down new development across the region.  But, the apparent collapse of plans for Key Harbor, a 700-acre community with frontage on Lake Norman, is proving costly for more than the developer” the article went on to say.  It turns out that “the county has been stuck with the bill for the infrastructure that was supposed to be repaid by Atlanta developer Key Harbour Communities”.  This project was one of four planned in the Sherrills Ford area along Lake Norman with a capacity for 1,950 homes on 2200 acres.  “To date, work on all 4 communities is stalled.”

• North Carolina Research Center:  Despite the recession, 3 building, a parking deck and a central energy plant are all complete.

The campus has been open for about a year and ultimately 8 universities will have research centers on the campus and Rowan Cabarrus Community College is currently building a 60,000 sq ft facility designed to focus on training the work force for companies and organizations locating to the campus at the site of the old mill in Kannapolis.  The focus of this exciting project, the brain child of billionaire David Murdock, is nutrition, human health and agriculture.   Clyde Higgs, vice president for business development with Castle & Cook, said that “he hopes the Research Campus will become a part of every day speech, like Silicon Valley in California.”  To learn more:   North Carolina Research Campus

• The Legacy Village in Mooresville:  Although caught off guard by the recession, some housing is completed and available.

When I attended the initial groundbreaking ceremonies for Legacy Village back in 2006, our Lake Norman real estate market was hot and the initial phases of Legacy Village were pre-selling quickly. Well located near the Lowe’s Corporate Headquarters and Lake Norman Regional Hospital, this development is now partially built but looks to be having difficulty selling their existing inventory of housing.  While no commercial buildings are complete other than The Learning Experience, their website does announce the planned ground breaking of a new Home2 Suites by Hilton this year with an expected opening in 2011. 

• Augustee/Village at Lake Norman:  Cornelius granted them a one-year extension to secure financing.

Originally named The Village at Lake Norman, Augustee developers were foreclosed on by a Detroit-based pension fund last August, 2009.  Then in November of 2009 the town of Cornelius granted the new owners, Building Union Investment and Local Development Fund of America Trust, an extension of their deadline until Oct. 31, 2010. See photos provided by  WSOC News

Part 3 of this series will provide updates on our smaller Lake Norman residential and commercial real estate development.

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