Charlotte Housing Prices

This article appeared in today's Charlotte Observer. For months we have been hearing nothing but bad news as national trends were reported rather than local numbers. Go Charlotte!

Charlotte bucks housing trend
Home values grew while other cities saw declines
J.W. ELPHINSTONE
Associated Press

Housing prices in Charlotte and Seattle enjoyed the biggest gains over the last year, according to data released Tuesday, rare good news from a sector widely battered elsewhere in the country by foreclosures and swooning home valuations.

In a Standard & Poor's index measuring housing prices in 20 metropolitan areas, only five cities gained ground.

Charlotte and Seattle tied with an increase of 4.7 percent compared with the same time last year. However, S&P data showed the pace of that increase was slowing.

Atlanta (0.4 percent), Dallas (0.2 percent) and Portland, Ore., (2.2 percent) rounded out the winners.

Overall, U.S. home prices fell 4.5 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the sharpest drop since S&P began its nationwide housing index in 1987 and another sign that the housing slump is far from over, the research group said.