Josh’s Farmers Market in Mooresville Lake Norman

If you have reason to be on Williamson Road in Mooresville on Thursday – Sunday you might have seen a crowded parking lot nestled in some trees on the east side of the street just south of Highway 150.  This is where Josh Graham and his wife Alicia own and operate  their popular Josh’s Farmers Market which sells seasonal fresh fruits and vegetables from local growers and from Columbia S.C.

It’s truly like an entire farmers market all under one large tent.  The day I took these photos I bought some of the North Carolina  peaches which were ripe, and incredibly sweet as I have found all of their fresh fruits to be.  What a difference from store-bought fruits!

 Besides seasonal fruits and berries, Josh also has a great variety of vegetables, fresh corn, and of course, several varieties of  juicy red tomatoes, some grown on their own land!

Every week they drive down at 2:00am to Columbia SC to “get the freshest produce” according to a recent article in the Mooresville Tribune.  “There’s not many places that you can go when the squash or blueberries were picked an hour before you buy them” according to Graham.

 Most locals know that the best time to visit Josh’s Farmers Market is  on Thursday or Friday in order to get the best selection before they sell out! 

Josh’s Farmers Market also sells local honey, jams and canned vegetables.

New this year, The Shrimp Connection has joined Josh and is selling  fresh fish which from what I have been told is fantastic.

  While I love the fresh fruits and produce, I can never resist taking home one of their  freshly baked, to-die-for, pies or some cookies and Amish bread.

Josh’s Farmer’s Market is open seasonally and then sells pumpkins for Halloween and Christmas trees in December.

During peak season they are open Thursdays – Sundays at about 10:00am

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Lake Norman Hot Sheet:  July 13, 2009

 There has been so much speculation in the economic news about the U.S. housing market that I decided we needed a reality check.  There is nothing better to shed some light on our Lake Norman Real Estate market than a visit to our Multiple Listing Service.  The above chart is today’s “Hot Sheet” from the Charlotte Multiple Listing Service for single family homes in all of Lake Norman (Area 13).  These numbers represent a real time snapshot of the past two week’s activity.  As always, I have included the past 6 months so that you can put these numbers in perspective.

Here are some highlights:

New listings decreased by 22%…the lowest number this year!  After a peak last month there are consistent signs that our inventory levels are heading downward.  This is one key component of a bottom.  Once our inventory is drop to a 6-8 month of supply we will be back in a balanced housing  market here in Lake Norman.

The number of listings coming “Back on the Market” due to a canceled contract is still extremely high.  Considering our pending and contingent/conditional numbers are dropping, then more homes fell out of contract than went under contract in the past two week.  This is again a sign of the tremendous challenges involved in loans, appraisals and perhaps a lack of buyer’s confidence in the economy and/or housing market.

The number of price changes are back down to our April levels.  This could be simply because the decreasing number of active listings is in line with the decreasing number of price changes when compared to their peak last month.

Pending home sales dropped 18.5% compared to last months high.  If you follow the national housing market you will know that there is always much focus on pending sales since these are sales that are past conditions and contingencies and are waiting to close.  Pending sales are looked at as the best indication of future closed sales.  These have been strong nationally which is one reason why some of the media has been optimistic about the national housing market hitting bottom.  However, here in Lake Norman, all numbers are pointing to the fact that June was perhaps the strongest month we will have this year and that sales will continue to decline through the end of 2009.

The number of closed sales remained equal to last month’s hot sheet.  What I find interesting is that despite last month’s high pending sales of 54, we in fact only closed 44 in the past two weeks.  Last month’s strong pending sales numbers did not result in higher closed sales this month, probably due to the number of contracts that failed to close.

Unfortunately, the number of new contracts, conditional and contingent sales, dropped for the second straight month.  This further supports my feelings that our July and August numbers are going to be lower than June’s.

As always, I will close with a note about our months of supply of active listings.  If we presume that we  will close about 80 sales in July and we currently have 1582 active listings, we still have about a 20-month supply of homes for sale.  It is still a buyers market here in Lake Norman!

Those of us who live down Lake Norman’s infamous Brawley School peninsula know only too well that construction is well under way on the two-year widening project.  The large, orange sign “warning, expect delays”  blinks at us daily although by now we pretty much know what to expect. 

One of my fellow Brawley School friends/clients asked me at lunch yesterday whether I had seen any renderings of the completed project and details as to whether there would be bike lanes, landscaping and other details which I hadn’t.

So, today I made full use of Google and uncovered some fairly well-hidden information on the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s website  and contacted John R Cook, Resident Engineer, Statesville Construction who provided some prompt and exciting information as well.

Here are the Brawley School Road Widening Project Highlights:

• Widen to four lanes with a median south of Southfork Rd to Talbert Rd
• Sidewalks will be built on both sides
• Sharp curves will be straighten (We can see this just from the grading that has already taken place)
• The median will prohibit left turns into and out of individual properties along the project

The Design and Public Hearing Maps are available from this website as PDF files so you can see in great detail what the process will involve and what the end product will look like in 2011.

Mr. Cook, in response to my inquiry, provided unexpectedly good news:

• There will be bike lanes!!!  (This is such great news.  Finally we will have safe cycling in our community!)
• The median will be grass.  There are no details yet regarding landscaping. 

If you would like more information, John R. Cook can be reached at #707.876.3543.

Short term, it is a bit of a pain in the neck but the end result is going to be well worth it!

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Lake Norman Real Estate’s Growth and Development Update 2009 

Brawley School Road Widening to Begin October 27, 2008

Lake Norman Real Estate: The McKendree Road Neighborhoods

The Silent Majority of Lake Norman Real Estate

Relocating to Mooresville Lake Norman; Subdivision or No Subdivision?

• 2-week snapshots called Hot Sheets for up-to-the minute Lake Norman housing data
• Monthly sales reports which compare it to the previous year and prior month
• Quarterly sales reports which provide two separate reports; an overview of the 2nd quarter and then a break down by price-range.

IMPORTANT FINDINGS

• Our current inventory of active listings has actually dropped by 11%.  While they are still too high, this is certainly a move in the right direction.
• The number conditional sales (those that just went under contract) are dramatically higher than last year however the average price has decreased and the average days on market has increased 44%.  Please note the average sales price last year was very high due to several high sales that skewed the figure.
• The number of pending sales (those that are ready to close) dropped by 17% but the average price and days on market are almost the same as last year.
• The number of closed sales this past quarter dropped 23% versus the second quarter of 2008.  The average price dropped 3% but the average days a home was on the market increased by 43%.
• Our number of months of supply of homes increased from 19.9 to 22.8.  Even though our inventory has dropped, our sales dropped even more which results in a higher number of months of supply.  As always, keep in mind that a balance housing  market should have between 6-8 months of supply so we current have three times as many homes for sale as we should have.  We are definitely still in a buyers market!  However, it is nice to see some higher numbers in conditional and pending sales.

2nd Quarter 2009 Lake Norman Home Sales By Price Range

*All statistics are from the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service

This report is probably the most useful for both home buyers and sellers.  This is because it enables you to focus on your own price range and size up the competition, the strengths and weaknesses and trends that might help position you best for your future purchase or sale.

For example, let’s say you are planning to buy a home in the $600,000 – $1 million price range.  While that price range in general is very weak, the homes priced in the $700,000s and the $900,000s have over twice as many months of inventory than the other price ranges.  Knowing these are particularly weak, you might look for greater discounts when making your offer.  When there are 64 homes on the market in the $900,000s and on average only one sells per month, you can imagine these sellers must be getting pretty anxious.

On the flip side, if you are a seller in this same price range and are on the fence about pricing your home in the low $700,000s or the high $600,000s, clearly you should price your home in the $600,000s where you have a much larger pool of buyers and the least amount of competition (months of supply, not number of homes).

This past quarter, 67.3% of all of the Lake Norman home sales were under $500,000.  Only 12.5% of our Lake Norman home sales were $700,000 or higher yet that same price range represents 31.4% of our active listings.  As has been the case for several years, our higher end homes sales are extremely slow.

So, pick a price range and take a look at the number of sales, the number of active listings, the average days on the market and the months of supply.  This report provides you with the data to focus on your price niche.

RELATED ARTICLES

 Lake Norman Real Estate:  Why is it so hard to buy a home right now?

Lake Norman Real Estate:  The Big Picture

Lake Norman Real Estate’s May 2009 Sales Analysis

Lake Norman Real Estate’s April 2009 Sales Analysis

Lake Norman Real Estate’s 1st Quarter Sales Analysis

 Lake Norman Home Buyers, Stop Searching for Homes

July in our beautiful Lake Norman area means warm weather, warm water and outdoor living of all kinds.  Picnics, whether on a boat, in one of our beautiful parks, or in one’s own back yard, are the perfect way to relax and enjoy summer at the lake.  This is why we all love living here!

To make this your desktop calendar, go the right hand column on the home page you will see this photo.  Click on this smaller image of my Lake Norman photo.  A larger version of the calendar will come up.  Then, right click and select “set as background”.

While I have great fun taking pictures of Lake Norman, I would love to use one of your favorite photos depicting life here in Lake Norman!. If you’d like to submit a photo for a future calendar, please send it to…