Money Magazine Reveals What We Already Know: Charlotte Is the 'Best Big-City Bargain' In the Country

ICYMI, earlier this week, Money magazine published its annual package of stories and rankings comprising its "Best Places to Live in America." Among the 2014 lists is the "Best Big-City Bargains," and coming in at No. 1 is Charlotte, which you likely agree with if you live here. Nos. 2-5 are Phoenix, Fort Worth, Boston, and Chicago. The Time Inc.-owned publication describes its methodology for determining the list:

To create this list of best-value big-city neighborhoods, we ranked places with over 500,000 in population on housing affordability, economic strength, home price forecasts, and livability using data from NeighborhoodScout, OnBoard Informatics, and CoreLogic. Then we looked for promising, well-priced neighborhoods in our top 10 locales.

It highlights two thriving Charlotte neighborhoods in particular: Plaza Midwood, writing, "Just 10 minutes by car from the center of Charlotte, this artsy, bike-friendly neighborhood is an interesting mix of the gritty and the pretty;" and Mountain Island Lake, "Convenient to the soon-to-be-completed I-485 beltway, Mountain Island Lake features pretty, spacious homes." I live in the less glamorous section of the Mountain Island area, but about five minutes north of me is the community Money is referring to, which really is a hidden gem in Charlotte (and maybe in five years I'll be able to afford to live there).

In addition to Best Big-City Bargains, Money, in the October 2014 issue, also profiles the 50 Best Small Cities, Best Places to Be Rich and Single, Top Earning Towns, and Best Places to Find a New Job.

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Raleigh the Fastest-Growing City In U.S.; Charlotte 5th

The two largest cities in North Carolina continue to be among the fastest growing in the country, in terms of population percentage increase. This week, Forbes published its list of the 10 Fastest-Growing Cities In the U.S. (and the 10 Slowest-Growing), with Raleigh ranking as the fastest growing and Charlotte coming in fifth. In between them, Austin, Texas is ranked second, Las Vegas is third, and Orlando is fourth.

Forbes explains how it analyzed the data, which was recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Some of the cities' growth have been impacted by economic factors such as the housing market and job sectors. The cities' populations are grouped into their respective metropolitan statistical areas--MSAs encompass the populations of the smaller surrounding cities and towns. So for Charlotte, the MSA includes Gastonia and Rock Hill, among others. According to Forbes:

No. 1: Raleigh, NC, Metropolitan Statistical Area
2012 population: 1,188,564
Growth since 2000: 47.8%
Growth since 2011: 2.2%
Rank in 2011-2012: No. 3

No. 5: Charlotte, NC-SC
2012 population: 2,296,569
Growth since 2000: 32.8%
Growth since 2011: 1.7%
Rank in 2011-2012: No. 9

Forbes ran a bland photo of Uptown Charlotte's skyline. They should've hit up my buddy, photographer Jon Strayhorn of Media Arts Collective, to get a great shot like this.

Cleveland ranks as the slowest growing U.S. city, with Detroit, not surprisingly, coming in a close second, followed by Buffalo and Pittsburgh. All four of these cities have decreased in population since 2000.

Charlotte has ranked high on the fastest-growing cities lists since I've lived here. And over the past year, all it takes is a drive through neighborhoods like South End and Plaza Midwood to see the many new apartments being built, and in south Charlotte where subdivisions are being expanded and/or entirely new ones are being constructed with hundreds of houses (evident in this July 2012 article I wrote for Charlotte magazine).

Rapid population growth is why it's important that a city like Charlotte is forward-thinking in its city planning, particularly as it pertains to roads and public transportation (i.e. light rail and streetcar), as well as job growth and the types of industries city leaders try to lure here.

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You Didn't Build That...A 'House United' Did

In early August, Craftsman announced its House United program, in which half of a house was going to be built during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and the other half would be built during the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, with plans to donate the completed house to a deserving military veteran. I wrote about it at the time on The DNC In The CLT blog for Charlotte magazine. Then last Wednesday, Ty Pennington and crew relatively quietly came into Charlotte to present the house--I say it was relatively quiet because it didn't receive much local news coverage. I learned of the event a few days later when coming across the press release in my email inbox. CNN covered the story the day it was presented to the family (October 17).

Craftsman, Ty Pennington, Rebuilding Together, Sears Heroes at Home, NextGen Home, and Bank of America, along with members of the Republican and Democratic parties all came together to make this project possible. The recipient of the new home, which is located in the Belmont community, is John Jones II, a U.S. Army veteran, and his wife Tanisha and their three children.

Ty Pennington with John and Tanisha Jones. Credit: facebook.com/craftsman.

After completing his military service, which included two tours of duty in the Middle East, John and his family relocated from Goldsboro, North Carolina to Charlotte where they initially found themselves homeless, according to a press release. With assistance from the American Legion, the Jones family was able to secure rental housing and assistance from the state. John is currently unable to work because of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but is receiving treatment to be able to someday return to work. "Support our troops" is often used in rhetoric, so it's great to see it actually happening.

Click here to see photos of the project on NextGen's Facebook page.

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Happy Birthday Cam Newton!

Cam Newton turned 23 years old today. It has to feel awesome to be that young, that rich, and that successful with such a bright future ahead.

The Carolina Panthers quarterback said and did all the right things his first year in the NFL and in Charlotte. I'm not sure if he's celebrating his birthday here or in his hometown of Atlanta, but I would think he would want to spend time breaking in the condo at The Trust he recently purchased in Uptown.

Cupcrazed Cakery in Fort Mill made these cupcakes in honor of Cam's birthday.

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'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' Returning to Charlotte Area, Volunteers Needed

Production for ABC's acclaimed Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is returning to the Charlotte area in December, with local builder Bellamy Homes selected to oversee the construction. The builder and the show are currently organizing the local efforts and you can get involved.

To get the community excited about this opportunity to build a new home for a family in need, there will be a pep rally on December 1, 7 p.m. at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont (only 20 minutes from Uptown Charlotte). The event will be hosted by KISS 95.1's Otis and Brittney of The O Show, and you'll meet the builders and members of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team. The Carolina Panthers' TopCats will also be on hand and there will be ticket and prize giveaways. Admission to the pep rally is free but seating is limited. Get more details at www.bellamyhomes.com/extreme-makeover-home-edition.

The actual location of the build will be announced on December 11. You can get involved as a volunteer--the project needs more than 3,000 volunteers for general labor, food servers, and clean-up workers, as well as skilled trade professionals. The reason so many people are needed is because the entire build will be completed in one week, and all products and labor will be donated by partnering trades and suppliers. The episode will air next year in a two-hour broadcast on ABC. Get more details at www.joinextreme.com/nc.

The most recent time I recall Extreme Makeover being in Charlotte is 2008, when the show built a new home for the King family in the Windsor Park neighborhood. As you can see in the before-and-after photo below, and as is usually the case, the new home was a drastic improvement.

[Source]

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Verizon Commercial Spotlights Charlotte, Energy

I saw a cool new TV commercial tonight in which Charlotte, specifically its Uptown buildings, is the star. Verizon has rolled out a national campaign to promote how its "network of technology, people, and ideas" is benefiting businesses and communities. In the commercial featuring Charlotte, it highlights how the city is using "Verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and monitor costs, making communities greener."

The creative premise of the commercial shows a series of Uptown buildings being honored as employee of the month inside their respective offices. Those include the new UNC Charlotte Center City Building and NASCAR Hall of Fame, among others. Watch the video below.

If you visit the Verizon website dedicated to this campaign, verizon.com/plus, and click on the "Energy" tab, it takes you to several resources, including white papers and case studies on smart grid and cloud technology. There's also a link to Envision Charlotte, an initiative led by Duke Energy's Smart Energy Now program that uses digital grid technologies to display real-time energy data throughout Uptown, to create awareness and encourage behavioral change. The goal of this initiative is to cut energy use in Uptown by up to 20 percent by 2016. Several major corporations and organizations have partnered with Duke Energy on this, including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Verizon, Mecklenburg County, the City of Charlotte, and others.

Plans for Envision Charlotte have been in the works for the past year, and the campaign officially kicked off last Friday (click here to read The Charlotte Observer article). Below is a video from last year, in which former President Bill Clinton announces Envision Charlotte at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting. He's joined on stage by Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, Cisco CEO John Chambers, Mayor Anthony Foxx, and Charlotte Center City Partners President Michael Smith.

All of this strengthens the momentum Charlotte has been building over the last few years to grow its energy sector. Several local leaders want the city to be known as an energy hub as much as it is known for banking, and the motivation behind energy is propelled by the possibility of job creation, in addition to environmental sustainability.

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JCSU Breaks Ground on Mosaic Village

On Friday I attended Johnson C. Smith University's ground breaking ceremony for Mosaic Village, the university's ambitious project to help revitalize the northwest corridor along West Trade Street and Beatties Ford Road. Mosaic Village is planned as a mixed-use development that will include 300 student apartments, retail space, and a parking deck. It's being constructed at 1601 West Trade St., which is next to The Arts Factory, JCSU's first off-campus facility that opened last fall. The ground breaking for Mosaic Village was actually followed by an official ribbon cutting for The Ats Factory and attendees were given a tour. This was all part of JCSU's Founder's Week Celebration.

JCSU broke ground on Mosaic Village on Friday.

This project is the latest effort in JCSU President Dr. Ronald L. Carter's vision to lead his historically black university beyond its traditionally closed gates and to not only improve the community around it, but to also strengthen the school's connection to Charlotte as a whole. Carter says he'd like to see Mosaic Village opened in 14 months, but that won't come without challenges, including a $4 million funding gap that the university has asked the City of Charlotte to assist with.

Below is video I captured from Friday's ground breaking ceremony. There were a lot of people in attendance showing their support, including Mayor Anthony Foxx, City Councilman James Mitchell, Charlotte Center City Partners President Michael Smith, members of the Griffin family who own the land, and plenty of community and business leaders, alumni, and neighborhood residents. It's not often that you see such a variety of people coming together on this part of town.

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Remember Trump Charlotte?

In a recent interview with WCNC, Charlotte's NBC affiliate, to promote the new season of Celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump did what he does best. He took the opportunity to plug a potential business venture. "By the way, I’m looking at some property in Charlotte," The Donald said. "I like Charlotte a lot. It’s a great place and I’m actually looking to buy some specific property in Charlotte."

I wonder if this specific property is the same one he was interested in about three years ago before the recession hit and several of Uptown Charlotte's planned condo towers got placed on the back burner or scrapped altogether. (Though a couple of projects like The Vue forged ahead.)

Back in 2008, the idea of Trump Charlotte had the city buzzing. Could it be reborn?

In fact, the website for Trump Charlotte is still up at TrumpCharlotte.com. It showcases the original plans for two side-by-side towers in Uptown. One tower has floor plans to include residential units and a hotel. The other is an office tower with a couple of floors of retail space. There hadn't been any news on this project in a long time--and it's not easy to tell when the website was last updated--so it was natural to assume that Trump Charlotte wasn't going to happen. But the real estate mogul's got us speculating again, and it could be an entirely different project if it happens.

Trump's quasi-announcement comes on the heels of last week's announcement that work on The Park condo in Uptown is resuming and will be completed by August 2012. After work stalled two years ago when the original builder filed for bankruptcy, leaving a shell of a building that's become an eyesore, a new developer is turning it into an exciting high-rise with condo units, a hotel, and rooftop restaurant. If real estate projects are coming back online, Charlotte could be getting her swagger back.

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Living in Charlotte Can Be a Little 'Stressful'

A new study released today ranks the stress levels of America's 50 largest metropolitan areas. Conducted by Portfolio.com and Bizjournals (which are both owned by Charlotte-based American City Business Journals), the study analyzed 10 factors to compute its rankings: unemployment, income growth, poverty, deaths from circulatory-system diseases, amount of sunshine, unhealthy air, robberies, murders, commuting, and housing costs. When you total it all up, Detroit, not surprisingly, ranks as the most stressful city in America.

With number one being the most stressful and 50 being the least, Charlotte ranked 18th. We were middle of the pack in most of the individual categories, but we did place second worst in change in metro per capita income, -5.68 percent, only behind Las Vegas's -6.17 percent. But Charlotte fared well in the all-important stress-level category of average commuting time to work at 25.11 minutes, compared to New York City's 34.55 minutes and Washington D.C.'s 33.23 minutes.

The Top 10 Most Stressful Metropolitan Areas in America are:

1. Detroit
2. Los Angeles
3. Cleveland
4. Riverside, CA
5. St. Louis
6. New York City
7. New Orleans
8. Chicago
9. Birmingham
10. Miami-Fort Lauderdale

Raleigh places an impressive 47th, meaning it's not very stressful at all to live in North Carolina's capital. Salt Lake City takes home the coveted prize of least stressful city at 50th.

Click here for more on this study.

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Michael Jordan Buys Charlotte Home

After putting up a couple-hundred-mil-plus to become majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats earlier this year, Michael Jordan said he would also be buying a home here. It would show both his commitment to the team and the city. He's now made good on that promise, purchasing the top floor of The Trust, one of the most exclusive condo buildings in Uptown. The seven-story building houses Chima Brazilian Steakhouse on the first two floors and is in a prime location, just a block away from Jordan's office and the Bobcats home court at Time Warner Cable Arena.

WCNC reporter Michelle Boudin took a tour of The Trust, showcasing the unit that's for sale beneath Jordan's. His unit is under renovation. See Boudin's report in the video below.

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Charlotte's a 'Healthiest Housing Market.' Or Is It?

Lists come out all the time, ranking cities in everything from best places to live to those with the fattest people. But when it comes to cities lists that involve financial and economic data, people really take notice, especially in an economy like this. Yesterday, an AOL News article listed the Top 10 Healthiest Housing Markets for 2010. The Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord metro area ranks third on the list.

Yay! Hooray! But before you alert the boosters and the city leaders send out press releases, read the brief description it stated about our market.

"Last year housing prices in this financial center (Wachovia and Bank of America) were already stable, incomes were up and new household formation was among the highest in the nation. With an unemployment rate around 5 percent, the area is projected to add 2 percent more jobs this year."

Wrong! "With an unemployment rate around 5 percent..." Uhh, maybe that was our unemployment rate in 2000 because it's certainly not in 2010. The latest report from the N.C. Employment Security Commission states that the unemployment rate in the Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord area is 12.8 percent (109,789 residents were unemployed in January).

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Bring the (Faux) Dancers Back!

FOX Charlotte just had to mess things up. Thanks to the story they aired Tuesday night on the shadow dancers that were being projected through a window at The Circle Apartments in South End, the property managers have apparently gotten nervous about the media scrutiny. The Circle had been using a projector and light show inside one of its empty units in an effort to draw attention that they hoped would attract new tenants. I think it was clever marketing that was also harmless entertainment. Plus, it provided a cool view from the light rail. There are hundreds of new apartment and condo units sitting vacant around South End and Uptown thanks to their untimely openings during this recession. If you have to pimp some of those units out, go for it!

See the news video below.

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Is Elizabeth 'Falling Fast'?

Between going to a couple of networking events and a board meeting this week, there have been a few instances when this economic recession has been the subject of conversation. But that, unfortunately, has become as common as talking about the weather. The focus usually shifts from unemployment to budget cuts to the housing market. And it was the talks about the housing market that reminded me to post this link to an article I'd come across a few days ago.

Last week, Forbes.com published its list of "America's Fastest-Falling Neighborhoods," evaluating the 25 largest cities in the country to determine which neighborhoods experienced the biggest year-over-year price drops. To qualify for the list a neighborhood's median sales price had to be above $150,000 and have more than 10 sales.

Some of the neighborhoods that have been hit the hardest during the past year according to the list are: Greenwich Village in New York with a median price of $1.08 million, a 45 percent year-over-year decline; Glassell Park in Los Angeles with a median price of $225,000, a 50 percent decline; Greektown in Chicago with a median price of $212,000, also down 50 percent; and Penn's Landing in Philadelphia at $423,000 for a 51 percent decline.

Also making the list, which I found surprising, is Charlotte's Elizabeth neighborhood. According to Forbes.com, Elizabeth's median home value fell 37 percent during the past year to $272,000. It seems very odd that this neighborhood would've experienced such a sharp decline, but since the data is based on home values and sales from Trulia.com, it's likely that Elizabeth's data has been skewed by the decrease in condo prices.

This Victorian-style house in Elizabeth is representative of the character you'll find in the tree-lined neighborhood.

I just did a quick search on Trulia.com for Elizabeth and I found more condos for sale than single-family homes. Plus, many of the single-family homes were listed for well above $500,000 and are two or three times more than the $272,000 median price Forbes cites. Again, the Forbes position must likely be due to condos, which are the type of homes where prices had started to get out of hand in Charlotte.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of talking about the economy and am ready to hear some good news about it. At my board meeting last evening, one of my colleagues, who'd just come back the night before from a summit in D.C. that dealt partly with the economy, stated that the number of job losses per month has started to decrease. That should've been good news, except my reply was that there are now fewer people working to even get laid off.

Click here for the article on Forbes.com.

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What the Article Didn't Tell You About NC Music Factory

Charlotte Observer reporter Sarah Aarthun wrote an in-depth article for yesterday's paper on the new venues opening at the NC Music Factory ("New uptown entertainment complex takes next big step"). Aarthun does her homework by not only chronicling the development at the complex, but she also details the impact two new music venues opening there--Uptown Amphitheatre and Fillmore Charlotte--might have on other local live music venues. The article mentions the setbacks the developers Rick and Noah Lazes have faced during the last few years in turning the massive old textile mill into an entertainment complex. But it stops short of making one very important point that I'm going to make here: It's too late for the NC Music Factory to fully become what the developers envision because it's taken too long to come to fruition, so the EpiCentre became what the NC Music Factory was supposed to be.

Two music venues are opening this month at NC Music Factory.

The EpiCentre has become the center of nightlife in Uptown.

This is just my opinion based on what I've seen with this project since I moved here nearly four years ago. I believe the Lazeses are working hard and it's apparent that they've invested a lot of money, plus I want to see the Music Factory succeed because it will make Charlotte an even more exciting place. But here's the reason for my views. One of the first articles I wrote for Charlotte magazine included an interview with Noah about the Music Factory. He took me on a tour of the complex and it was clear that there was a lot of work to be done. This was in August 2005. He was telling me about all of these great things that were going to be opening "next summer." He was naming a lot of restaurants, bars, and nightclubs and while I don't remember the names of most of them, I'm pretty sure I remember him mentioning Dale Earnhardt Jr. If any of you've been to the EpiCentre then you know that Dale Jr. opened Whisky River there in April 2008, the first nightlife venue to open at the new Uptown entertainment complex. I believe this is one of the places Aarthun is referring to when she mentions in the article that "In recent years, potential tenants have chosen to open elsewhere, unwilling to wait for completion of the development." But the article doesn't say who those potential tenants were.

The tour Lazes gave me nearly four years ago could've been a tour for the planned EpiCentre, in terms of the types of venues that were being talked about going there. I don't know who had their plans first, but Lazes was already a couple of years into construction before Afshin Ghazi even had the old Charlotte Convention Center torn down so he could build the EpiCentre on the land. As the saying goes, it's not how you start but how you finish. And today, the EpiCentre is one of the most talked about and envied entertainment complexes in the Southeast.

Lazes has faced a lot of scrutiny and has had his share of doubters over the years, and I guess you could say that I'm doing the same here. But I'll also point out that Ghazi had his share of nonbelievers, too. I interviewed him for a quick update on the EpiCentre for the January 2008 issue of Charlotte magazine ("End Coming") and talked about how he was proving his naysayers wrong. The main difference between the developments with Lazes and Ghazi, though, is that about three years after breaking ground with construction, Ghazi had the EpiCentre filled with more than 20 restaurants, bars, nightclubs, a movie theater, bowling alley, and hotel. Lazes has only opened office space, a music rehearsal hall, a nightclub, and now, this month, two live music venues after about six years of construction at the Music Factory. Plus, Lazes is trying to forge ahead in the midst of an economic recession--the Music Factory's website lists Butter Lounge, Crobar, and Wet Willie's among the venues that are scheduled to "begin opening in 2009." I would be surprised if any of those actually opened this year.

The NC Music Factory will eventually take shape, but I doubt if as originally planned. Then--with it and the EpiCentre--we'll have to see if Charlotte can support two visions of the same dream.

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Urban Living on Display

Charlotte Center City Partners is presenting an Urban Living Showcase this weekend to show you the many residential, dining, nightlife, and entertainment options in Uptown, Midtown, and South End. They held a premiere party last evening at the MetTerraces at the Metropolitan complex in Midtown that I attended. Just from taking a tour of this new development I can tell you that you have a lot to look forward to if you choose to tour some of the more than dozen properties being featured, including Ashton South End, Catalyst, The Arlington, The Trust, Trademark, and more. It's cool to look inside beautiful condos and penthouses and see how some people live.

I took a few pictures (pardon the quality; I used my camera phone) from inside one of the condos at the Met. On the second floor they had an empty unit open that served as the reception area, and on the fourth floor was a fully furnished unit with the same layout. It was like looking at a before and after.


The Urban Living Showcase is a free event on Saturday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. You can go on a self-guided tour or have one of the trolleys take you around. Visit www.findyourcenter.com for more details.

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Fantasia Keeps Her House

It's been widely (and embarrassingly) reported that singer Fantasia Barrino was in jeopardy of losing one of the two houses she owns in Charlotte. She borrowed $65,000 in 2006 to pay taxes on her Piper Glen home and after she defaulted on repaying the loan, the lender won a judgement to auction off her house. The auction was scheduled to be held today by the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office, but Fantasia reached an agreement with the lender over the weekend to keep her house off the auctioning block.

This is the 4,500-square-foot home Fantasia owns in the Piper Glen neighborhood in south Charlotte.

Fantasia bought the home in question in 2004, a few months after winning American Idol. It's assumed that her relatives now live in the house because she bought a second, larger and more expensive home in Charlotte in 2007.

This 6,200-square-foot home Fantasia owns in Charlotte appeared in a 2007 episode of MTV Cribs.

While some may poke fun at Fantasia's financial troubles, I say don't throw stones if you live in a glass house. True, she's wealthier than most of us and is famous, but celebrities are feeling the effects of this economy just like the rest of us. While some everyday folks are struggling to keep their homes, some rich people are having problems paying for their second or third homes.

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Trading Players, But How About Houses Too?

As I'm watching the pre-game coverage of the Charlotte Bobcats-Detroit Pistons game, a thought occurred to me: It must suck to get traded during the season. As you may know, the Bobcats shook up their lineup this week with a five-player trade with the Phoenix Suns. The Bobcats sent Jason Richardson and Jared Dudley; the Suns sent Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, and Sean Singletary. And the Bobcats also signed Juwan Howard, who wasn't playing in the league at the time.

With all these players being moved around, I can only imagine the toll it takes on their personal lives. Sure, they get paid big money and some of them may be happy to go to a new team, but they--and their families if they have one--are uprooted overnight. It's easier when a player is traded during the offseason because he has time to move and get to know his new city. But when it happens a month and a half into the season like this, they have a lot of games to play and don't get much downtime playing three or four NBA games a week, with half of those being on the road.

If I was one of the players in the Bobcats-Suns trade, I'd see if one of the players I'm replacing is willing to trade houses with me, assuming I liked his. Most of these players have big, expensive homes, and in this economy it may be difficult selling the houses they're leaving.

Take Jason Richardson, for instance. He was traded to the Bobcats in June 2007. With a long-term contract in place, he did what most would do and bought a house in Charlotte. But now, a year and a half later, he probably has no use for it. I doubt if he settled in enough in Charlotte to want to keep a permanent home here. But he may have to for a while. Not only would it probably be difficult to sell the $2 million house quickly, but the value of it has probably dropped, as have most houses this year, which means he would lose money on it. J-Rich could probably easily take the loss, though, but the house will likely be tough to sell regardless of the price. (I wish my nickname was J-Rich. And since my last name is Holliday and not Richardson, that would mean I'm wealthy.)

Jason Richardson will likely be selling his $2 million, 6,000-square-foot, SouthPark area home soon. Any takers?

So J-Rich, here's some advice: Holler at Boris Diaw or Raja Bell and see if you can check out the houses they left in Phoenix. Let them tour yours and you just might strike a deal.

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The Most Powerful People In Charlotte

Charlotte magazine presents "The Power 50" in its November issue, on newsstands now. The issue features a list of the 50 most powerful people in Charlotte, along with a few other interesting tidbits as to who the men and women are who run this city.


Click here to see if you (more likely your boss) made the list.

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House Swapping—I Don't Know

You may be familiar with the concept of house swapping. If you're not, I'll fill you in. It's when a person trades his/her home for another person's home. People often do it when they're having difficulty selling their home, and it's common that the traders are moving out of state. So, say if you took a job in Richmond, Virginia and had trouble selling your home in Charlotte, you'd look to see if there was a homeowner in Richmond who was looking to sell his home to move to Charlotte. If the property values were similar, you might make an even trade. If not, one party would throw in some cash to make up the difference.

When I first heard of the concept, I thought it was strange. But in this struggling economy in which the housing market is hurting, it not only makes sense but it has become the only option for many people. On Charlotte's Craigslist, there's a housing swap section. You'll find posts that say: "Looking to trade Lake Worth, FL residence" or "Looking to relocate to Charlotte from Tampa." In addition to Craigslist, which some people probably use because it's free, there are dozens of websites devoted to house swapping (for a fee).


But I'll tell you what blows my mind: the fact that people are swapping homes for vacations. In these temporary swaps, you would offer up your home to a person or family for a specified period of time to stay at their place. I could see someone wanting to stay at my house during race week, but they would need to live somewhere like Miami for me to be interested. This is something else that's being done more because of the economy. People looking to save money on vacations by not having to spend on hotels are swapping homes. I imagine they would also save on food since they would have full use of a kitchen as opposed to eating out during the entire trip.

One of the popular websites to do a home exchange, as they're also called, for a vacation is Digsville.com. I don't think I could do this type of swap, though. There are too many crazies in this world. I wouldn't feel comfortable having strangers live in my house for a week. Who knows what they've done while you're gone? Some sicko might even install hidden cameras.

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