Diane McDermott, Real Estate Broker, Charlotte NC

In the Beverly Crest neighborhood there are currently 19 Active listings and 2 Pending (under contract) listings. Below is a breakdown of listings by price point:
Beverly Crest Single Family Market Report - Current Listings 4.7.08

The Active listings are actually pretty evenly distributed throughout the various price ranges. However the Under Contract listings are grouped at the top end of price ranges and the price point above $350,000 has been the most active recently.

March 2008 Closed Single Family Listings - Beverly Crest

In March of 2008, 4 listings were closed and the average days on market was 23!!! Those homes most certainly appealed to ready, willing and able buyers. Looking at the current active inventory, 23 days on market is way below the average of 73 for currently available listings.

Single Family homes in the Beverly Crest community continue to sell for quite close to the listing price.

While the $350,000 and up price point may be the most active lately, there are available listings under $300,00 so Beverly Crest does have a number of different price points for potential home buyers.

For a look back at last month's market report: Beverly Crest March inventory and February closed sales

*Statistics based on data from Carolina Multiple Listing Service Inc. as of 4.7.08, information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

 In the Olde Providence neighborhood of Charlotte NC there are currently 13 Active listings and 4 Under Contract (pending, conditional and contingent) Listings:

Olde Providence Current Market Activity 4.7.08  

 There are available homes in each of the various price ranges, with the most activity falling into the $299,999 and below category. This also holds true for the Under Contract numbers - 3 out of 4 currently under contract listings are below the $299,999 mark.
 
 Days on market tells an interesting tale - the days on market is higher for active listings which indicates that homes that are less appealing to buyers are staying on the market longer while the ones that are priced well and pique buyer interest are going under contract. 

 Now lets take a look at closed sale activity for Olde Providence:
Olde Providence Closed Listings March 2008

 One note about that average Days on Market number: one of the closed sales had a 241 days on market number and given three sold listings in the average, that one listing most definitely skewed the average!

 The sold listings for March also indicate that the most active price range in the Olde Providence neighborhood has recently been $299,999 and below.

 Olde Providence is a neighborhood of single family homes, located minutes from South Park and the Arboretum areas in South Charlotte. 
 

*Statistics based on data from Carolina Multiple Listing Service Inc. as of 4.7.08. Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

Starting this weekend, April 5, 2008, Charlotte residents will be able to water their lawns once per week for the first time since last year.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities just announced that the water restrictions are being loosened slightly to allow the once a week lawn watering. Other mandatory restrictions will remain in effect (residential car washing among others).

The once per week lawn watering day ends at Midnight, assigned days are below:

Odd numbered homes will be allowed to water their lawns on Saturdays.

Even numbered homes will be allowed to water their lawns on Sundays.

This is great news for homeowners as the spring season gets underway and marks the first change in water restrictions since September 2007. Now if we can just get some continued rainfall, maybe there will be more good news ahead!

Details on the amendment to Charlotte's water use restrictions can be found at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities website.

UPDATE: 4.18.08, Residential car washing and outdoor water use will be permitted one weekend day per week, Saturday for Odd Numbered homes, Sunday for Even Numbered homes. Midnight is still the cutoff for your assigned day, and Mon-Fri restrictions remain in place.

UPDATE 10/08: For Current water restrictions, visit Fall 2008 Water Restrictions in Charlotte NC

If you leave your garage door openerin plain sight in your car it could be an enticement to criminals. We all know not to leave cell phones, gps systems, anything of value visible when leaving our cars, but the garage door opener was a new one to me.

Recently in South Charlotte, there have been instances where criminals target a car with a garage remotein plain sight, they take the remote and find the owner's address from a registration or other paperwork left in the glovebox, then drive on out to the house to see what they can find. Criminals are creative to say the least!

Unbelievable right? It made me think twice though. The garage remote isn't one of those things that I would have made it a point to hide or take with me when leaving my car. Although when I did have a house with a garage I kept the remote in my bag or door compartment - more to confuse my husband than anything else, he couldn't stand not being able to find the remote when he would drive my car :)

So, if you have a garage remote, think twice before leaving it visible in your car, and it might also be a good idea to just keep any documents with your address with you instead of in an empty car...better safe than sorry.

Size is a major factor in real estate, but the size that really matters sometimes isn't the most obvious. Sure, the overall amount of living space is important, but it's not the only consideration and sometimes can cloud the picture when home buyers and sellers focus on just that number.

It seems as though some buyers and sellers are obsessed with the square footage number:

- Some sellers think their house is worth $x more because they have slightly more square footage than the neighbor who just sold.
- Some buyers won't even look at a house that's any smaller (or larger) than whatever set number they have in their minds, even if the difference is within 5-10% of their minimum/maximum and it has all of their other "must haves".

Square footage is an important consideration (if you need 4 bedrooms, a 1000 square foot house with 4 bedrooms might be just a little cramped!), but it's also important to keep the overall picture in view. Having a rigid minimum or maximum range may just eliminate a house that would really meet your needs, and the only size difference may be a hallway, size of foyer, or some other non-essential space. It's about usable space, not just the amount of space!

When selling your home, square footage matters too, but it's not always as cut and dried as $ per square foot. Functionality, room size, layout, cosmetics all outweigh a minimal difference in square footage - if that extra space isn't usable or critical to buyers, they won't care it's there and won't pay you more for having it!

So, when I say that size matters, that's true but it's not the exact number of overall living space. The size that truly matters is the room size, the use of space, the layout and flow of the home's interior. Going back to the bedroom example, if you have 4 bedrooms but 3 of them are only large enough to accommodate a twin size bed, buyers aren't going to view those as very functional.

This week, Carolina Multiple Listing Service Inc. is changing the way square footage is reported. The new reporting will include a square footage range, with the actual square footage being included after the sale closes. Agents are still responsible for reporting the square footage for all listings, but the new reporting will shift to a range of home sizes for listings that have not closed.

Some houses actually "feel" larger than the square footage number would suggest, due to the layout and amount of usable, functional space. The opposite is also true that some houses "feel" smaller, due to unusable/rarely used space(formal living rooms cut off from the main living area come to mind, long hallways, "sitting areas" in bedrooms all mean less main living space) or more rooms but smaller room sizes.

The other consideration with a square footage "number" is that measuring homes is still done by human beings. Even appraisers who measure homes daily will come up with different numbers, within a tight range of each other but still, the likelihood of getting several exact matches is highly unlikely. Given that, it really is more appropriate to look at square footage as a range, and homes within a range will still have differences as far as number of rooms, specific floor plan (master down, ranch, multi-story) so the number is not the be all end all.

When comparing homes, it's about the range of size, not the specific number. Each house is going to have its own use of space and that is the "size" factor that truly matters - does the layout, style, features and use of space work for the buyer? When that becomes the focus, there's much more to consider than a single number for amount of living space.