Here are some things about Charlotte, North Carolina Real Estate that may help you with your move:
For some reason everyone wants to move here, guess there is a lot of open space. A nice long summer and short cold spells in the winter. Maybe we’ll even have some snow one day. Cool huh! Sometimes they close down the schools if they just call on snow. And you better get your bread and milk in advance for the store shelves will be empty when the weatherman mentions snow. Of course it snows here at least once or twice each year and we actually see some, and sometimes it will cover the grass. In 98 we had 20 inches at one time, an all time record. Monroe, NC about 30 miles east of downtown Charlotte was closed down from Sunday until the next Friday. In the Weddington NC area some places had 24 inches of snow, Amazing huh! Of course the snow was gone by the next week. It just won’t stay cold enough here to last. And we are all just like big kids when it snows, we all want to go out and play in it.
Here’s a link to the Charlotte visitors bureau http://www.visitcharlotte.com/default.asp
Here’s a link to the Charlotte Chamber and you can find out more then you want to know there!! Much more. http://www.charlottechamber.com/home.cfm
You like NASCAR? we’re the home of about 90% of all the big time race teams. Most of the drivers live on the lake (Lake Norman with over 500 miles of shoreline and lots of deep water and million $+ homes. www.lowesmotorspeedway.com
Maybe you like the beach and all it has to offer, well Myrtle Beach is just 3 hours or so south. http://www.mbchamber.com
Old town Charleston, with it’s civil war history, old slave market, and Battery around the south tip of the city is just 3 hours south also
http://www.charlestoncvb.com
The mountains skiing hunting hiking fishing, its all just a short drive from here. We’re a big city in the middle of the country. You can drive 10 minutes in any direction from the almost completed I485 beltway and see cows, chicken houses, horses, and farmers. What this means is the new homes are being built everywhere.
Some say Asheville is the mountains! The Biltmore house is there http://www.biltmore.com only the largest house in the USA or so they say. Or downtown Asheville with all the artists and quaint shops and stores http://www.ashevillechamber.org But I really feel like the ski area around Boone http://www.boonechamber.com and Grandfather mountain http://www.grandfather.com (from my grandpa Sharpe’s house it really looks like a grandfather laying down. It’s about 2 hours to the Boone area and about 2.5 to Asheville.
You just might want to check out some of the mountain lore and stop to see the Brown Mountain Lights between Boone and Morganton on Hwy 181 I saw them once
http://www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/bmtn.html really a cool trip, only sometimes you have to go several times to see them, If it’s cold enough tonite they might be out.
There are a lot of things in Charlotte also Discovery Place http://www.discoveryplace.org/home/discovery_place-home.asp
The http://www.blumenthalcenter.org Blumenthal Theatre downtown.
And the Mint http://www.themintmuseums.org
And the list goes on, you’ll never believe the number 1 tourist attraction is a mall, Concord Mills about 2 miles from the Lowes Motor Speedway. #2 is the Blue Ridge Parkway between Boone and Asheville http://www.blueridgeparkway.org
But in most cases about 20 minutes from the central city area or uptown, downtown, or center city as they call it today. About 100K people work downtown, so a lot of traffic heading that way and most of the homes within a couple miles of the downtown loop are above 500K. and higher. We are Building 25 condo projects in the center city area starting from the low 200’s up to some penthouses in the millions. But in the 20 minutes or so drive you can find a nice home 2000 square foot home with a two car garage priced around $200k and less in some neighborhoods.
The explosive growth of the city is south, actually south and east. If you look at the city as a clock with center city as the middle and 12 o’clock N toward Lake Norman and up I77 and south at 6 o’clock and I77 South, then the massive growth has been between 3 and 6o’clock with most toward Weddington at 5 o’clock. Now traffic is a mess in the south area so people are starting to look a little more North. But the south is where the growth is and every body wants to live.
Our schools are a mess, only around 120K in Charlotte Meck Schools. http://www.cms.k12.nc.us
We just hired a new superintendent Peter Gorman He might make a difference but has quite a battle on his hands with status quo!!
Many people with school age kids either move to one of the surrounding counties all with great schools, or put their kids in private or Christian school. But North Carolina is the #1 Home Schooling state so lots of parents also home school and there are lots of activities they can do, from sports to math and science together.
But should you decide in live in Mecklenburg, then living in the areas from 3 to 6 o’clock will give you the best schools. As good as you can get anywhere! Also the school board has approved a new High School near the Palisades www.thepalisades.info and it will make the area around Lake Wylie a great place soon, for the elementary and Middle schools are great already.
The school info site I use is www.schoolmatters.com also www.ncreportcards.org http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/go/NC
Also sports is a big thing here, many attended ACC schools. Duke, and University of NC at Chapel hill are both just a little over 2 hours away with NC State another 15 minutes. Wake Blue or the color God colored the sky blue http://www.unc.edu
But I always say I bleed “Red” like everyone else for I went to NC State http://www.ncsu.com
Maybe you remember Jimmy V http://www.jimmyv.org
We are building light rail from center city down the 6 o’clock to Pineville, NC and it’s causing quite a stir in real estate prices. It has made it much easier to find parking for the Panthers and Bobcats games, just park somewhere on the light rail line and then the train stops beside Bobcats arena, and not too far from Panthers statuim.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_lrt_cha.htm It was opened right after Thanksgiving 07 and the ridership is much higher then expected.
Both the Panthers http://www.panthers.com/home and Bobcats http://www.nba.com/bobcats/bobcats_intro.html have stadiums in center city. Plus they are trying to build a AAA baseball park there, but many hope to wait on a major league team
I was raised 50 miles north of the center city in a small town called Stony Point, never been a traffic light, never. And I was born in Statesville just another 10 miles or so north of Lake Norman. My public high school senior class was so big there were 25 of us that graduated and we attended classes from the first grade thru 12th in the same building. I had 3 cousins and 10 other in my class and we were together all 12 years. All our parents knew each other and me and mom had the same first grade teacher (Mrs Sloan). But things are starting to change now with more and more Charlotte North Carolina Real Estate buyers willing to live an hours drive from downtown.
Wake Forest (Played in the Orange Bowl in 06) is about 2 hours north. And of course we have little old UNCC University of North Carolina @ Charlotte here.
People around here bleed one of two colors either dark blue Duke http://www.duke.edu or light grow up that way, about 20 minutes north of Lake Norman, but it’s still country.
There are nearly 30K homes and properties for sale in the MLS so we’ll need to narrow your search a little before your visit.
Plus I have some special deals worked out at a hotel just off I485 and Independence Blvd (Hwy 74) They have a continental breakfast and double room suites that are great for families.