First, kudos to Kerry Hall Singe for continuing to follow the reality beat in regards to local development trends. A front-page story noting that Uptown population is currently 35 percent below booster projections — yet Center City Partners still clings to a 2020 target of 25,000 residents, or 227 percent more than the current Uptown population of 11K — is actual journalism and a public service.

Let’s slice the numbers a different, more telling way: CCP thinks Uptown population will grow roughly 10 percent a year for the next 10 years after being completely flat for the past four years. Why doesn’t the city of Charlotte immediately defund this bunch of lunatics?

Meanwhile, real estate prices have cratered — as we’ve steadfastly told you they would:

A two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit at Fifth and Poplar Condominiums that sold for $427,500 in 2007, for example, is listed for sale at $285,000 – a one-third drop. … Closings for new and existing uptown homes hit a high of 533 in 2006 before they fell to 153 last year, according to an analysis of transactions through the Carolina Multiple Listing Service from 2003 through 2009 by the Charlotte Regional Realtor Association. The listing doesn’t include private sales and some new construction.

Average sales prices rose steadily from about $260,000 in 2003 to a high of nearly $350,000 five years later before falling back to around $260,000 last year, according to the association.

But mostly I enjoyed David Furman back-tracking — back-leaping? — from his previous all-is-well mantra. Recall from January 2008 when Furman spun the implosion of the ultra-luxe One Charlotte condo effort:

It doesn’t have anything to do with the bread and butter of the housing market that is here everyday — the units that range from $200,000 to $500,000.

Or the segment that dropped in value by one-third, you preening peacock of a huckster. Now check Furman’s current spin:

David Furman, one of uptown’s most bullish believers and active developers, remembers the early warning signs in 2008.

His 202-unit, $73 million condo high-rise, TradeMark, was about 95 percent sold when people started having trouble closing.

At the same time, buyers at another condo project, 184-unit Quarterside in First Ward, tried to get out of their contracts, he said. As sales dropped, his company aggressively marketed the building but didn’t get any nibbles.

“I thought, ‘We’re screwed,'” he recalled.

He later converted Quarterside to rental units to cut his losses, one of three condo projects to do so last year. He says the 28-story TradeMark is “stable” and he is renting out some units that didn’t sell until the market improves.

“It was booming beyond what was sustainable,” he said of uptown’s condo market, which grew rapidly in the mid-2000s before tapering off last year. “I still think there is a thirst for urbanism. Downtown is feeling the same pain as everywhere.”

Horsecrap.

Only overbuilt, overhyped areas are feeling the same pain as Uptown condos. You would have to be stark raving mad to offer more than two-thirds of the current asking price for any piece of property inside the 277 belt — assuming you could get qualified for it.

Bonus Nightmare: Emma “Clueless” Littlejohn.