Credit where credit is due — the UPoR slammed shut the case on Charlotte’s housing crash. We had a crash, we continue to have one. Sure, it took about two years of Meck Deck jumping up and down and screaming about it — while getting called crazed and irresponsible for doing so — but that is what we are here to do.

Most deranged was the notion that because Charlotte did not have the speculative run-up of a Vegas or SoFla the housing market here could not crash. But if you knew that so much of Charlotte’s wealth was utterly dependent on the hot-check era of Countrywide-Golden West with BAC and Wachovia bringing wads of cash to town along with wholly fraudulent lending practices for Charlotte’s booming burbs — something had to give. And it has:

“The public has no idea how bad the residential real estate market is,” said Bernard Helm, whose market research firm studies home sales in the Charlotte area. “If you want to know why the economy is not picking up, take a look at the condition of the residential real estate market.”

Slight correction — the public knows; public officials — elected and appointed — were in denial probably right up until last month.

Two years ago, the tax assessor’s office estimated county home values might average 20 percent higher than the 2003 property revaluation. Three months ago, the office lowered that to 12 percent, then to 8 percent or 9 percent. Last week, its estimate was 6 percent to 8 percent.

“This has been a colossal tragedy,” said Mecklenburg revaluation team leader Chuck Hicks.

His group knew foreclosures would soar and property values would fall in the second half of 2010, after federal tax credits for first-time buyers expired. But unlike big bank failures or other busts in the economy, home prices “come down to Main Street and hit the average Joe in his home – the one thing he hopes to have equity and net worth in.

“Until those market prices come down, there simply will not be a demand from buyers. The market is going to continue to do its dirty work until that happens.”

Hicks seems to have been one of the guys hardest hit by housing reality. Recall several months ago Hicks was still holding out hope of ignoring distressed sales in all but the hardest hit neighborhoods. The data show — as we said it would — that distressed sales practically define the local real estate market today.

If we drill down a bit we can see the tremendous downward pressure distressed sales have put on the local housing market, pressure that county appraisers just could not continue to ignore. I took a look at the 28270 zip code both because I know it and it was not hit particularly hard by the crash, it more or less represents Charlotte’s middle to upper-middle burbs. Bang — 95 distressed sales in 2010 alone.

Of that number, 35 are foreclosures which have not settled — meaning there is no sales price for them. At all. The banks may just wind up shifting them to another owner willing to make some kind of payment. How do you assess value then? It is very, very hard.

But even more telling is that of the 60 remaining sales, 41 of them — or two-thirds — were at prices below their 2003 tax value. I guarantee no one in the county tax office expected that. Some numbers were just stunning:

  • A $366,000 2003 tax value selling for $111,000 in 2010.
  • $177,000 for $14,000
  • A $127,000 and a $136,000 for $4K each

That is a real estate bust, people. Get over it.