Real Estate Information

The Ritz Carlton opened its first LEED hotel in Charlotte on October 1, 2009. The Ritz has been long awaited as the city continues to bring higher levels of accomodations to the area.

Some may ask, what is LEED, and why does it matter to me.  LEED is a rating system that provides standards for environmentally sustained construction. For example, the Ritz has a green roof with 18,000 plants that help provide building insulation and cools the air through water evaporation from the plant leaves. The building uses 30% less energy than a conventional hotel. They even donate unused food from the hotel to the Second Harvest Food Bank.  Not only is this the first LEED hotel in Charlotte, it is also the first LEED hotel for Ritz Carlton.

The hotel has 146 guest rooms, a bi-level Penthouse Spa and Wellness Center with Pilates classes, a saline pool and treatments using organic products. They have a casual dining modern American Steakhouse, called BLT Steak, which features prime cuts of beef and fresh fish.

The Ritz is located conveniently downtown, adjacent to the Bank of America Corporate Center and one block from the Charlotte Bobcats Arena.

I’m often asked if this is a good time to buy a home.  Some clients are concerned that home prices may fall further than they have already.  They are assuming that the best course of action is to wait for the bottom in the market and then buy.  The problem with this approach is that you don’t know where the bottom is until you see it in the rear view mirror, meaning until you’ve missed it!

Home prices are one factor in determining your cost of ownership, but so are interest rates and financing availability.  Even though interest rates have gone up in the last six months, they are still near historic lows.  Since your monthly mortgage payment is a combination of paying down your principal and paying the interest owed, if home prices come down a little further but interest rates go up, it could cost you even more to service a mortgage on an identical home!

While a home is a major investment, it is also the center of your personal life.  It’s important to live in a home that reflects your taste and values, yet is within your financial “comfort zone.”  To that end, it may be more important to lock in today’s relatively low interest rates and low home prices, rather than to hope for a further break in prices in the future.

Please give me a call if I can be of any assistance in determining how much home you can afford in today’s market.