HIGHEST

2049 Sherwood Avenue, Charlotte

Sold price: $1.7 million
Square feet: 4,057

Listing agent:
Eddie Lynn Finch, Cottingham Chalk Hayes
Selling agent:
Valerie Mitchener, HM Properties

Beautiful grounds and landscaping highlight this home in the Myers Park area, and they are one of the main attractions that selling agent Valerie Mitchener credits with helping seal the deal.

As owner of Charlotte-based HM Properties, Mitchener said she spent about eight months working with the eventual buyers.

“They are friends of mine who recently moved back to the Charlotte area,” she said. “The location for this home was great. It is a particularly popular street in that area and is in a good school district.”

Listing agent Eddie Lynn Finch, a broker with Charlotte-based Cottingham Chalk Hayes, said the home almost sold itself.

“This was one of those clients who had both good tastes and the money to implement those tastes, so the house was beautiful,” Finch said. “The house had a monochromatic color scheme and minimalist decorating with classic artwork on the walls. What she had was wonderful, but sparse.”

Finch said the four-bedroom, five-bath home was built in the 1920s, and the seller spent time and money on a backyard restoration that included a fountain running the width of the yard. The home included 0.3 acres of land.

Listing the house was pretty easy for Finch, who lives right next door to the home.

“We moved into the neighborhood in 1984 and this is the fourth time I’ve seen the house change hands,” Finch said. “But this is the first time it ever even needed a listing agent. The other owners just did it for sale by owner. The house is so popular it was only on the market for one day with me.”

Finch said she and her business partner – fellow Cottingham Chalk Hayes agent Carol Miller – are seeing more activity in the $1 million to $2 million property range in the last three months than compared to the past two years.

“People are just tired of being in their cage and being inactive in everything, so they’re looking at homes and making offers and buying things,” she said. “I think we will see a slow down around the election and then it will start back up again next spring. I’m not going to second-guess it; I am going to capitalize while we can.”

LOWEST

620 Pinoca Street

Sold price: $12,000
Square feet: 867

Listing agent:
Tony Smith, Wanda Smith and Associates
Selling agent:
Kirk Sipe, Springsteed Realty

When Tony Smith first saw this home, he knew it needed a lot of work. But as a Real Estate Owned (REO) listing for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he also knew it was going to sell pretty quickly.

Smith, broker-in-charge at Charlotte-based Wanda Smith and Associates, said HUD listings are like catnip to investors in the last few months, and many are bought with the idea of making repairs and then renting out the home.

“I knew it was going to go pretty quick, and it sold in seven days,” Smith said. “But this home was purchased by a local non-profit group who are going to repair it and offer it to someone who is in a kind of neighborhood stabilization program.”

Smith said the two-bedroom, one-bath home was built in 1925 and has a tax value of about $42,200 according to Mecklenburg County records. Real estate website Zillow.com lists the home as having a $19,000 value and a suggested rent of $632 a month.

Smith said the home needed significant repairs on all major systems including the roof, the walls, the heating and air conditioning system and some plumbing work. He said the house had some exterior damage and needed “a total facelift” as well. The selling description clearly pointed out the home was being sold “as is” with the seller being obligated to make no repairs.

Selling agent Kirk Snipe of Charlotte-based Springsteed Realty did not return calls for comment for this story.

“We work with non-profit groups all the time on selling these HUD homes,” Smith said. “This was an old mill house that needed some work, but now it will go to a needy family so this is an important part of what we do with REO listings.”

Smith said he didn’t have to do anything differently or make special considerations when working with the non-profit buyer, whom he declined to name.

“Now it is completely in their hands,” he said. “And it will be a good buying opportunity for someone in one of their programs.”

801 McRae Ave., Wadesboro

Sold price: $103,500

Square feet: 1,340

Cabarrus County

4230 Berry Hill Court, Concord

Sold price: $294,800

Square feet: 2,861

Gaston County

1237 Kennett Ave., Gastonia

Sold price: $285,000

Square feet: 2,734

Iredell County

115 Landover Lane, Mooresville

Sold price: $610,000

Square feet: 2,409

4611 Hawkes Bay Court, Denver

Sold price: $410,000

Square feet: 3,687

Mecklenburg County

2312 Wellesley Ave., Charlotte

Sold price: $860,000

Square feet: 3,482

Stanly County

5987 Morris Woods Drive, Stanfield

Sold price: $370,000

Square feet: 2,793

Union County

8417 Cheverny Drive, Waxhaw

Sold price: $515,000

Square feet: 4,200