The Elizabeth neighborhood near uptown Charlotte is beginning to recover from the real estate slump we’ve seen over the past couple of years in Charlotte as a whole. While it wasn’t hit too hard, its nice to see it starting to show signs of recovery. Take a look at the graph below. Just a year ago, the average amount of sales in the neighborhood per month was a little over one. That number has steadily grown over the past twelve months to its current average of two sales per month.

With the next graph, you’ll see the average price of homes sold in Elizabeth over the past year. This too shows that average prices are increasing from an average of $405,574 a year ago to $456,666 in the past three months.

Although appraisers compare features, updates, square footage, and other items when preparing a true appraisal, a basic value of home prices can be found by comparing price per square foot. If you look at the graph below, its obvious that with the average price of homes sold increasing, it led to the average price per square foot of homes sold also increasing.

Lastly, the average amount sellers have discounted their homes to get them sold has decreased from 7.42% a year ago, to 5.34% in the past three months.

One of the best times to buy real estate is at the bottom of the market or as it begins to rise from the bottom. Looking at the line graphs above of Elizabeth real estate, it looks like now is a prime time to buy. Are you curious about what homes are for sale in Elizabeth? Follow this link to see all homes on the market in Elizabeth, including distress sales (foreclosures, bank owned, REO, short sales, etc.)

If Elizabeth is a neighborhood you would like to keep an eye on to compare to the stats above, follow this link and sign up for automatic email updates at the link near the top of the page.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you are considering a move in the near future, analysts are saying that now is the perfect time to buy real estate. The economy is beginning to recover and we are coming out of the bottom of the market.

Take a look at the video above to see Meredith Viera of the “Today Show” interviewing Ron Insana, author of “How to Make a Fortune From the Biggest Bailout in U.S. History.” He makes excellent points about why it’s such a great time to buy.

Its been a while since I have posted an entry to my blog, so I thought I would start the new year off by introducing my readers to a cool new money saving website that I stumbled upon. Groupon.com is a website that allows retailers to offer consumers a special deal on their product. The “deal” is only given once enough consumers have agreed to participate. For example, one of my favorite bagel shops, Owen’s Bagel & Deli in Southend (very close to Uptown Charlotte) is featured as today’s special “groupon.” They are offering a 53% discount with a $15 coupon for the price of $7. After 20 people bought this coupon, the special became “active.” Now all of those 20 people will get the deal and any others that buy the groupon today. As I am writing this post, 175 people have already bought the coupon. As you can see, this is a win-win for both Owen’s and their customers. The customers get tasty bagels at a discount, and Owen’s gets additional business that they might not have otherwise had.

I’ve been watching the Groupon.com website for a couple of months now and have seen deals on things like:

Manicure/pedicure
Driving 8 laps in a NASCAR Nextel Cup car at Lowe’s Motor Speedway
New Years Eve Party Package at the Westin Uptown
1 Year membership to the Harvey B. Gantt Center

The deals are varied, but usually very good. Subscribe to their website and you will get an email each day with the newest “Groupon!”

For readers of my blog that don’t actually live in Charlotte, don’t worry, Groupon.com has these deals for other cities across the country. Check out their website to see if your city is included.

A large section of First Ward in Uptown Charlotte that has been vacant for years has finally begun redevelopment. The new center city UNCC (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) campus is well underway. Designed to look like a stack of books, the twelve story, 143,000 square foot building will include a 300 seat auditorium. It will be home to graduate programs for numerous fields of study.

Yesterday I attended a meeting presented by the Deputy Chief Economist of Freddie Mac, Amy Crews Cutts, PhD. In this meeting, Amy talked about the national economy and housing market. She was very encouraged that we are turning the corner on the recession and climbing out. Below is the Powerpoint presentation that she gave. I thought others might find it useful, so I wanted to share it with you. If you have any questions about the material presented, don’t hesitate to email or call me with questions. Enjoy!

Are you wondering if that home or condo you are considering buying in Charlotte is really a good deal? Now you can compare it to recent sales in the neighborhood. You can even search within a specific mile radius of the property you are considering purchasing.

If you are a “do-it-yourselfer” and want to do some research before talking to your Realtor, follow these steps:

Search for property here: Charlotte Real Estate Search
Click on the property you are interested in researching
Click on the “Research” link associated with that property
Next click on “Market Check”

This sequence of steps will give you the address, sale price, and sale date of the most recent neighborhood sales. The “Market Check” tool will also map the properties automatically so that you can see where the sold properties are located in relation to the property you are researching.

Are you looking for something fun to do this weekend? Then come explore “Taste of Charlotte” on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Over 30 of Charlotte’s restaurants will cover Tryon Street with their food booths. I snapped the picture above with my phone this afternoon while crews were working to set up the food booths.

This festival will take place on Tryon Street between MLK Jr. Boulevard and 6th St. If you would like to attend, here are the dates and times:

Friday, June 5 from 11:00am - 11:00pm
Saturday, June 6 from 11:00am - 11:00pm
Sunday, June 7th from 11:00am - 6:00pm

Admission is completely free, but to take advantage of the food offerings, you will need to purchase tokens either online or at the actual event.

This week I was able to get a fully functional property search tool set up on my website. I’m still in the process of integrating it into the search buttons on the website, but the search screen itself works flawlessly.

With the search tool, you can save searches to be notified if something new comes on the market in your search parameters. It also has a cool function called “deal sniffer” that tells you what the average price in a certain area is so that you know if the property you are researching is a good deal or not.

Take that all of you negative nelly’s in the media! I’m sure everyone is just as tired as I am of hearing from the local media all the doom and gloom about the economy and local real estate market. I realize that to sensationalize headlines and articles means more newpapers sold or more viewer of the local news, but it really hits a point where these media outlets are causing a self-fulfilling prophecy of a downturn in Charlotte real estate home prices.

Well, to disprove some of the negative articles and headlines you might have seen recently, I want to make you aware of an independent source that ranks Charlotte, NC real estate third in the nation behind only New York City and Washington, D.C. This independent source is known as the “S&P/Case-Shiller home price index” and in the real estate world it is THE authority on housing trends throughout the country.

For buyers and sellers of real estate in Charlotte, this time of year (Feburary) is when the market traditionally, really heats up. Just as it has in the past, the market is picking up. Because there is more inventory of homes on the market, buyers do have more to choose from, but the Charlotte real estate market continues to be relatively strong compared to the rest of the country.

For more details take a look at the Forbes article on MSN.com.

As I reported last week, Ikea set up a temporary room at the corner of Trade and Tryon to help promote their store opening on February 18th. I stopped by to take a look and its amazing how they made such a small space seem pretty roomy. If you get a chance, swing by and take a quick walk through their temporary room. It will be open today until 6 p.m. and tomorrow 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.