There are three pretty obvious indicators as to where the next real estate housing boom is going to be around Lake Norman:

• Follow Crescent Communities as they evolve around the lake

• Keep up with news about traffic, road widening and improvements (both town and state)

• Know where the latest Lowes, WalMart or Harris Teeter have been or are being built.

As you may know, Crescent Communities. a division of Duke Energy, originally owned most of the land around Lake Norman when it was created in the early 1960’s. If you follow the planning and creation of their highly touted residential communities you will notice they started first on the southeast side of Lake Norman in Mecklenburg County; the closest Lake Norman area to Charlotte. The Peninsula in Cornelius was followed by The Point and The Farms in Mooresville.

As they ran out of waterfront property, Crescent Communities reached across Lake Norman and created the housing communities of SailView in Denver and NorthView Harbor in Sherrills Ford. This fall, Crescent Communities broke ground on their latest residential community Falls Cove in Troutman which is north of Mooresville on the east side of Lake Norman.

Once each of these residential communities was established, traffic and the need for road improvements grew quickly. Unfortunately, there is a significant lag time from when the first housing communities were developed to the implementation of traffic plans:

• The I-77 still needs to be widened north of Exit 23 and is in the long-range planning for the state
• Cornelius’s main thoroughfare to the Peninsula Community, Catawba Road’s widening just broke ground this month
• The widening of Brawley School Road, the only access to The Point and The Farms is slated to break ground officially in October
• The widening of Hwy 150 to Sherrills Ford is in the planning stages

The good news is that the latest housing developments are occurring simultaneously with at least some road improvements. The improvements of Hwy 16 make the commute from Denver to Charlotte an acceptable alternative to Cornelius and Huntersville and a bit better than Mooresville. Denver is truly one of the hottest Lake Norman communities right now!

Finally, let’s look at the retail and restaurant growth which is nothing short of spectacular. It started in Cornelius and Huntersville (where it is still going gang-busters); spread to Mooresville and is now thriving on the Denver side of Lake Norman as well as at Troutman’s Exit 42 both of which have new Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores as well as other retail and restaurants. There is a new Harris Teeter at the intersection of Hwy 16 and the 73, and at Hwy 150 and Perth Road (on the way to Sherrills Ford).

While home sales are relatively slow around Lake Norman, don’t expect this to last too long. I would pay particular attention to residential real estate in Denver and Troutman and even Sherrills Ford. Read Charlotte Observer’s Red Dirt Alert and visit this blogsite to keep up to date with the growth and development and it won’t be long before you will find Lake Norman’s newest real estate hot spot!

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