Is 2019 a Good Time to Sell a Home in Metropolitan Charlotte?

Timing can be “everything” in many aspects of life.  Anyone who started a business just before the Great Depression of the 1930’s probably did not see much success by no fault of his own.  Timing worked against him.  A child born in the United States during the Baby Boom of the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s likely grew up at a time of prosperity and security.  Most investors in the stock market buy on “the dips” and sell into “the rallies”—which means they buy targeted stocks when prices are heading down and sell as prices are shooting upward.  To the extent that it can be controlled, the timing of events, decisions and actions can have a huge impact on success or failure.  The same consideration certainly applies to the purchase and sale of real property—whether the property is the seller’s principal residence or an investment.

In the metropolitan Charlotte area, the inventory of resale homes, townhouses and condominium units remains low.  Buyer interest remains high and mortgage interest rates remain near historic lows.  All of this, combined with a generally strong national economy, has continued to drive market values of resale homes upward significantly.  In some cases, home values have nearly doubled from their lows less than a decade ago, during the Great Recession.

Will this steady and sometimes dramatic increase in property values continue?  It shows no immediate signs of stalling, although it does appear to have decelerated in the last six or eight months.  Some analysts suggest that housing values have risen too rapidly and created a “bubble” that may burst in the near future, causing values to rapidly fall.  Of course, no one can predict the future.  I personally doubt the Charlotte real estate market has entered a bubble.  But I do see some slowing of the rapid price appreciation seen in recent years.

So is 2019 a good time to sell a home or investment property in the Charlotte area?  Just as some investors attempt to wring out every dollar of potential profit by waiting for the stock market to peak before selling, some sellers of real estate may be tempted to wait until values have peaked—and the only way to know prices have peaked is by waiting for prices to begin reversing and heading downward.  Selling into a market whose momentum is moving downward is a mistake many investors make.  So, to answer the question, 2019 is probably a very good time to sell a home or investment property.  I have institutional investor clients who have come to precisely that conclusion and are currently selling properties they bought during the recession and rented for several years.

                                            

There is no way to predict when the current Charlotte real estate market will peak.  But current economic circumstances—low inventory… buyer demand… low mortgage interest rates…have created an environment very favorable to sellers.  Timing can be everything.