Where to Invest in Real Estate in Charlotte?

As a property manager in Charlotte with investor clients, we are often asked where the best places are to buy local investment properties.  

 

When I was a young real estate investor in 2004, I bought my first two investment properties on the same day from HUD.  Both were relatively cheap and I figured they’d be easy to cash flow.  I admittedly did not really know what I was doing.

 

One was a condo in a relatively contained area.  The other was a house in what could be labeled a “war zone”. 

 

I hated this house.  If I was smarter, I would have outsourced the property management.  One of the main issues is that it would just get broken into a lot.  So every time it was vacant, I was praying that I didn’t have to have the windows and doors repaired again.  The house was really old and somehow the utility bills were really high, which added to the vacancy pain.

 

One day I was stopping by the house and noticed a man with a shopping cart full of old window screens walking in the neighborhood.  I didn’t give it much thought (like I said, it wasn’t a great area) until I reached the house and noticed something a little off about the (formerly) screened-in porch.  I ran back to my car to find the guy with my screens.

 

He was still on the street.  I pulled up behind him in my car and he kept walking.  I got out and walked quickly to catch up to him.

 

“Excuse me, sir?  I think you may have something that belongs to me.”

 

No response.  He kept walking away at his measured pace.

 

“Yeah, I’m sure of it- those seem to be the window screens from my house up the block.  Mind if I take those back?”

 

He stopped, turned around, grunted, and then lunged at me with a knife.  Fortunately, he missed due to my cat-like reflexes (OK, not true) and the fact that he was drunk and slow (thank God!).  He then kept walking away.

 

I followed him in my car and called the police.  He smartly cut across a field and was never seen again. 

 

As I left the scene with my tail between my legs, there was nothing left to do but go back to the house and re-shoot the front porch pictures.  Then I logged into my computer and changed the rental ad copy from “Awesome House with Screened-In Porch!” to “Awesome House with Open-Air Porch!”.

 

Oh, how I hate(d) that house!

Fast forward approximately 13 years… the Charlotte press started fawning over this “new” area of Charlotte that was having all of this awesome new development.  Price values were skyrocketing; it was the next big thing.  As I clicked through to read further, the area they were referring to was very familiar…  No way… The smart money wanted to be in the vicinity of “that house”. 

 

A popular calculation is that 66 people are moving to Charlotte every day.  The Charlotte-Metro population is set to go up 50% in the next ten years.  And all of these newcomers need a place to live. 

 

As a real estate investor, the short-term prognosis on where to buy in Charlotte is a crapshoot; an efficient market should have already built this into the current prices.  However, due to population forecasts, the long-term prognosis of where to invest is much surer.  “That house” (or any house in the city of Charlotte) will probably be a good investment you’ll love if it’s held long enough.

 

Happy Landlording!