Study: Charlotte Short 18,400 Homes

CHARLOTTE, NC — Apartment after apartment are being built around Charlotte but not homes.

“It’s not enough. It’s definitely not enough,” said Charlotte resident Solo Bakayoko.

He’s right. The housing market is scarce. According to a new study by Zillow, it’s alarming. It shows Charlotte is short 18,494 homes based on the current population, a 4% increase in housing need.

Sean Sowers is a realtor with Giving Tree Realty. He says the great migration has put the housing market in a state of influx.

“Not terribly long ago, you could get into a nice little single family home for around $200- $250,000. That price is upwards of $400-$450,000 now,” explained Sowers.

Sowers says what made things worse was big business gobbling up homes off the market for a price, homeowners couldn’t refuse.

“During the pandemic era, we saw a lot of Wall Street investors, a lot of big hedge funds, corporate money coming in and just buying up single family homes like crazy and converting them to single family rentals,” Sowers said.

That’s caused a lack of houses on the market. Low supply and high demand has priced out first-time home buyers, who must continue to pay rent, potentially for years to come.

“Even just looking at houses, seeing like $500,000 for a house, that should be way lower than that. It’s really sad. You know, a lot of people can’t afford that and it sucks,” said Charlotte resident Janiyah Wynn.