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Exactly … I love it when people say, that happened in the not so desirable areas where these houses sold for 150K, In my area everything was 500K, and its not happening here … wrong answer … Its not happened yet … or you’re looking the wrong way …
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NC is pretty friendly to people from CA and to forigners. I am both. They may not like yank’s … but dunno. Never been one.
Now to answer your questions from the top.
1. NC schools are bad. Ballantyne (providence high) and myers park cooked their books to make themselves 1 and 2 is the recent murmur. professionals may ahve bought there, but the informal survey I did, seems to point to the fact that they bought for “appreciation”. Here is the kicker, The area in the north side, near the new 485 is going the same way now. Long story, but I think the over 400K for tract built is BS. 400K is your custom log home on 5 acres territory in NC.
2. No idea about you and SC. But they have strict rules sorta anti Home schooling. Anyway …
3. Acreage and horses. Try lincoln county. Allentate.com and seatch for lots and land in lincoln county (area 14) I know every inch of that place, stay in east lincoln, preferably in the 73/16 corridor.
4. University area is the area north of Harris blvd, between I77 and NC27. Davidson while a beautiful town isn’t quite included, neither is huntersville. Parts of cabarrus county is though.
5. Southern area has recently run up in $$. In 2 years they went from 250K average to 450K, and they all sold very very fast, with houses getting put up express speed. Now its happening in the north. I’d say 3000 sqft for 350K is BS in Charlotte. 200K is a stretch.
6. Screw condos. This aint New York.
7. Custom home builders. I know a plenty. Modular or stick built ??? any preference. Both can be beautiful, I’d say if you want 1 story, do modular, 2 story site built.
8. Definetly, we are trampling the entire environment, and worse, we’re not building roads either. They will grant permits to build 3000 houses, 15 miles up a 1 lane road, no problem. heck they did it in weddington. And not just 3000, more like 15,000. Commute from hell.
9. Nope, we dont have public transhit. South side (ballantyne) is getting a light rail, been happening for 5 years, and 1 year after its done, the LR will come to Huntersville and gastonia. Why ??? the railway lines are already there in that part. And this is why they are getting a light rail. So that other people can use it and they can drive on the empty 485 and 77. Its for other people to use. Get it. Yea.

In your position – I’d do lincoln county all the way, but just for giggles, rent somehting in Ballantyne. You’d get a 500,000 house for 2,000 a month (OK fine, bubble hasn’t hit charlotte. Next year I think) We need serious 12% interest rates, cos it was a small bubble.
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This will speed the crash. Why ??? The foreclosure process takes 30 to 180 days depending on the state. The for sale sign can go up in minutes, and when whole neighborhoods go up for sale, with no one paying mortgages, banks will take a huger loss to get it off their books. Of course that sets the high water mark for the rest of the sales, who will all get under it progressively … till the market crashes in 1/2 the time it will if it was foreclosed on. States with a sudden death law for foreclosures (short period like 1 month) will crash less relatively than long death states.
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Now does that mean they’d have to charge 15%+ for the loans they give out to cover their costs and turn a profit ???
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I live in Charlotte and work and BofA.
The McMansions in the south are BS. Ballantyne and Pineville. Total bogus over priced and over built.
I would rather buy 5 acres of land in SC and build myself a modular or a steel framed house over that.
I am partial to Lincoln county, and I also like cabarrus county, and I really like the university area. There is a decent Hovninian development off eastfield road and prosperity church. Let me see if I can dig up a link. Here.

http://khov.com/Home/NC/AC1/_Properties_AUTH.htm?Region=NCCHRL&Brand=KHV&Search_Type=Communities&State=NC&PerPage=25

In charlotte Beazer just earned themselves a bad rap. Centex in spite of my complaints are good and have been JDpowered to #1 5 years running.
A 3000 sqft house with a 2 car gar will cost you 200K brand new, and ~10% less if its under 5 years old. Pay any more than that and you risk losing a lot more if it crashes.
The Myers park and old charlotte area have good schools, but have recently been exposed for kicking out bad students and calling them transfered to improve their results.
Centex has some good priced developments too (McIntyre, larkhaven, etc) basically 200K for a tract built 3000 sqft, or 300K for your own design on your own 2 acre property in the county. Primo Land costs under 40,000 an acre.
If you want more detail ask, I like charlotte but I think that south area is primed for a crash, and uptown condo’s have already had lots of walk out’s as per the word on the street.
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Submitted by bob007 on March 20, 2007 – 11:28pm.
good neighborhoods in LA might hold the value. But the trashy neighborhoods will fall.

Its all related. If trashy neighborhood drops in 1/2, the good ones will also drop in 1/2.
Real estate is all local, yes but when the credit tightening happens its is a national event. Heck I would expect the higher priced to get hit worse due to the fact that its a larger risk the bank will be taking and its going to be harder for people to come up with the larger 20% or whatever will be needed soon.
In effect, I expect them all to crash, and it will start with the entry level houses and spread to the entire spectrum.
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Juice … big difference between other countries India especially and the US (not sure about europe but India for sure) …
We do not study what we like, we do not study what comes easy, we do not study to be entertained and most importantly, we do not have a choice of what we study till we are very very old (in US stdent years).
We need to study everything under the freaking sun till we are done and finished with grade 10. We get the whole kit and caboodle. The 4 years of physics, 4 years of chemistry and 4 years of math before we ever get to tell OK … I wasnt to study commerce and accounting and economics or ohysics, chemistry and math. That stage in your life, nothing is easy. Its death either way. We expect to work 40 hours a week studying if we want to make it. That is other than the 40 hours a week of high school.
IIT aint no big deal, any engineer undergrad from India will completely cut american graduates to pieces on the basis of fundamentals alone. Of course we cant make it a week in the woods or pick up drunk women in bars … but hey … trade offs right … software and coding … that we know.
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Its just my intuition at work here, or maybe not …
But do houses in remote areas and with weird useless features like heated and cooled door knobs or motion detecting mirror lights tend to go waaaay up in price over the less glamorous but practical houses like close to job centers and simple basic good areas but nothing in cool factor in markets that are shooting up. And the reverse happens in down markets. Aka useless remote crap crashes, and the well located and practical ones hold up far better.
The comparison I’d make is, stock of webvan and Pets.com were selling for much more than Bank of america or dupont in the tech boom. Its a fuzzy analogy but I cant think of any better.
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If you’re living the american dream and we are just nip picking (is that a new kind of foreplay ???) why are you running to Senator Dood for a bail out …
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I would compare the detroit auto industry almost directly to the Silicon valley’s software industry. I often felt that San Jose and the surrounding area is the next detroit. Export jobs to China and India and sell RE for millions using funky loans. Sounds good.
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Here is another anecdote.
There is a region of charlotte NC – in the south called Ballantyne. Its characterised by over priced tract built homes and seriously conjested town houses on tiny lots and the commute from hell (as close as hell gets in charlotte) as well as being 2-4 miles from trailer city South carolina. The houses there are 400K and up in a town where you can buy a similar sized house similar distance from the center of the city for under 150 anyday of the week.
There is 5 of my co workers that live there (prolly many more, but 5 in calling distance) and 4 out of the 5 intend to sell their house in 2-3 years you know, after it appreciates 20% YOY. I was telling them about bad designs (roof that will collect water in 1 Orleans house and a similar design in a Toll house as well as other issues and they all go, yea I’ll be out of here by the time trouble hits. Of course charlotte has switched the high $$ to the north side now as usual, where 485 is about to come through.
Am I crazy or are these clowns flippers who got in in 2007 and 06.
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IIT and MIT are not really competetors. There is no “if you cant get into MIT, you’d get into IIT”. Here is why …
MIT under grad is for students who will be able to pay up and study there and usually limited to students in the US.
IIT is only for students in India and you need to write an entrance exam or be a Government nominee (AKA son of a govt big wig and there are only like 10-15 seats in the pool of 3000) and be a graduate of a 12 year education not counting kindergarden including math, physics and chemistry and be under 21 years of age. I dont know of how many students will be considering this or that, not many I can assure you. Maybe a miniscule 1-2 a year.
IIT undergrad courses teach a lot of theory and some of it very obscure and irrelevant. So much so that they are usually deemed fit only for research, Saying they dont know how to hold a wrench. Also an undergrad course was 175 credits as opposed to the 120 that is standard in US. They like to breed book worms.
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They will stop building, and on a related note, their families pitched in by saying, they are going to go without air as well …
I’d bet … they will sell the lots to some bottom feeder builder, usually someone who is a splinter group that broke off from another bottom feeding builder, and they will go in and build for 1/2 the previous price. Its already happenng in miami condos. Someone is building and selling them for 159,000.
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India is fast reaching that point. IMHO, its already passed it for educated professionals.
About the only type of engineers that come from India and manage to live well here are software engineers. Guess what, In india civil engineers like me, mecanical, electrical, all sorts of engineers can work and live well. Add the benifits of home town, family, friends and the whole quality of life issue it leaves the US in the dust of late.
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There you have it folks …
Impac is the next stock you need to be shorting or buy puts on …
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