As soon as we finished renovating our home, we knew we wanted to do another one. I love old houses, especially Victorian style ones, and I hate when they get torn down. So in a perfect world, we’d find an old, affordable Victorian home to fix up and save.
In an even more perfect world, that house would be downtown Raleigh so I could easily walk there whenever I need to.
Logically then, we’ve focused most of our search on historically designated homes throughout North Carolina as well as older but not necessarily historically designated homes around downtown Raleigh. See here and here.
I was shocked to realize that the perfect world is not very affordable.
So I’m still keeping an eye out for the perfect opportunity, but we’ve also expanded our search. More specifically, we’ve been considering the greater Charlotte area.
According to a Zillow report based on a panel of 110 economists and real estate experts, Charlotte will be among the hottest housing markets of 2020. Charlotte received the second-highest net score, trailing only Austin, Texas.
And it was the only city among 25 analyzed where none of the panelists expect underperforming growth in home prices compared to the national market. In fact, 59% of survey respondents expect the Charlotte market to outperform in the year ahead.
This is supported by the National Association of REALTORS® who identified Charlotte among the top 10 metro areas for the next 3-5 years based on domestic migration, housing affordability for new residents, consistent job growth relative to the national average, population age structure, attractiveness for retirees and home price appreciation, among other variables.
So from an investment perspective, Charlotte looks promising. It also supposedly offers a lot as a place to live.
U.S. News analyzed 125 metro areas in the United States to find the best places to live based on quality of life and the job market in each metro area, as well as the value of living there, and people’s desire to live there. Charlotte was ranked #20 best place to live in 2019. This ranking isn’t as high as Raleigh & Durham (#10) or Asheville (#16), but it’s pretty good nonetheless. And Charlotte offers a better value than similarly sized metro areas when you compare housing costs to median household income.
The median home price in Charlotte is $213,983 (U.S. News), which is a price we would love to target for a fully renovated home, but we’d definitely prefer to buy cheaper. Which is to say, we’re looking in the suburbs, where I’m told you can get more house for your money.
We’ve got a lead on a fun project but I don’t want to share too much until we know for sure that it’s going to work out. I’ll share more when I can.
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