Charlotte Living:
What Charlotte Homeowners Say

Fox News Anchor loves Variety

Morgan Fogarty, a weekday morning anchor and reporter on “Fox News Rising,” always accepted she’d have to move to different markets to succeed in television.

But transferring to Charlotte was a pleasure for the Washington, D.C. native who grew up in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

“I had been to Charlotte to visit friends and really liked it a lot, so it was one of the top choices for me,” she says. “Everybody says it, but it’s really true – Charlotte is a big city with a small-town feel. You can go out to a sophisticated club one night and to the farmer’s market to buy locally grown vegetables the next morning. It’s a young city with plenty to do.”

Ms. Fogarty, 27, moved from Fredrick, Maryland in February 2005 and settled in Steele Creek, a community southwest of Charlotte near Lake Wylie. The mortgage on her three-bedroom home in Yorkshire is cheaper than rent for her tiny apartment in the D.C. suburbs.

“I was so impressed that the real estate down here is still reasonable compared to where I was in the Northeast,” she says. “It’s amazing what you can get for your dollar here.”

In fact, the Charlotte area’s overall average home sale price edged up just 1 percent between June 2004 and June 2005. Nationwide, the median home price shot up 13.6 percent in the same period. Analysts say the fact that Charlotte isn’t in a hyper-inflated market protects homeowners from the often-touted real estate bubble and can be attributed to abundant land and a competitive homebuilding industry.

Small Town Feel Near Big City Amenities

Iowa native Tracey Brown moved to Charlotte about 10 years ago for a job with a healthcare consulting firm, The Lash Group. She settled in Steele Creek to be close to her job near the Charlotte Coliseum, but recently built a custom home in Ashton Oaks, a gated community within The Palisades.

Located on the Mecklenburg County line southwest of Charlotte at Lake Wylie, The Palisades will one day include 2,000 homes, as well as a community retail center with a supermarket. Amenities include a golf course, fitness center, swimming pool, soccer fields, an equestrian center and several miles of jogging trails. HomeArama, Charlotte’s premier custom home tour, was held at The Palisades.

“I looked at moving uptown or to the Dilworth/Myers Park area, but it was just too crowded,” says Ms.Brown. “I also looked at Weddington and Waxhaw, but the commute was not appealing. The Palisades really offered anything I could get anywhere else, but it still had a small-town feel. It’s a community unto itself and it’s a place we could settle in and really grow with.”

Ms. Brown recommends Charlotte to newcomers for its laid-back feel in a business-friendly environment.

“Being a small-town girl from the Midwest, I can appreciate the rural feeling here,” she says. “I like the fact that in Charlotte you can still get all the features of a larger city, yet you have the opportunity to get outside and still feel like you’re in a small community. It’s not cut-throat like some cities and it’s not overly competitive. It’s very conducive to families and more and more, single people.”

Mild Climate, Four Season Appeal

Rick Spath came to Charlotte single and stayed to marry and raise four children. A cruise director on the luxurious Crystal Serenity who has spent more than 25 years at sea, Mr. Spath, 49, has sailed around the world several times and visited more than 130 countries. Even though he could live anywhere in the world, the New Jersey native settled in Weddington.

“I love it here for several reasons,” he says. “You have four seasons with no drastic winter. I don’t think there’s a better family-oriented community than the Weddington area. Charlotte is growing in a positive way. And I can’t see a better location -- halfway between New York and Florida, a couple of hours from the mountains and a couple of hours from the beach. It’s absolutely fantastic.”

Rural Views, Jack Nicklaus Golf

Weddington residents Bob and Karen Gourlay moved to the Charlotte area from Atlanta a little over a year ago. The Gourlays, who are in their early 50s and recently retired, built an 8,000-square-foot custom home at The Club at Longview, a gated community overlooking a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course. Longview was developed by Mel Graham, the nephew of famed evangelist and Charlotte native, the Reverend Dr. Billy Graham.

“Once I saw the land and the golf course, that was it for me,” says Mr. Gourlay. “…It’s been really nice to get out and walk the dog, to talk to our neighbors, to work out, play golf and go have dinner at the club. We see a lot of deer and we have a raccoon that visits. We look out our windows and see trees, fairways and the silo. To us, Longview is the place we’ve come home to. It just feels like home.”