Surprisingly since you won’t see this statistic in the Charlotte Observer…  I hope this will make you happy if you have a home you are thinking of selling! (Red added for emphasis.)
Daily Real Estate News  |  April 10, 2008

Top 10 Best Cities for Home Sellers

Four factors are widely seen as affecting whether a housing market is a good one for sellers: job growth, amount of new construction, vacancy rates, and credit availability.

Forbes magazine used a variety of resources to determine how the country’s 40 largest metro areas fared according to these measures. The result is this list of top 10 cities for sellers:

1. San Jose, Calif. Because of a tough regulatory environment, new home construction dropped 63 percent last year.
2. San Francisco. When the conforming loan limit recently jumped from $417,000 to the maximum $729,750, that made credit much easier to get for many of the city’s home buyers.
3. Salt Lake City. The 3 percent annual job growth rate, paired with a declining inventory of existing homes and one of the nation’s sharpest declines in construction made this market a good one for sellers.
4. Austin, Texas. Texas is very affordable, plus the city has the nation’s fastest job growth at 4.1 percent.
5. Kansas City, Mo. The number of unsold, vacant houses dropped by 40 percent last year.
6. San Antonio, Texas. Jobs are growing by 3 percent and construction starts have dropped by 42 percent.
7. Denver. The 49 percent drop in construction starts paired with the 2 percent rise in new jobs are good news for sellers.
8. Providence, R.I. Vacancy rates at 1.6 percent combined with a 42 percent cut in inventory help sellers.
9. Charlotte, N.C. Moderate prices and strong job growth bode well for sellers.
10. Seattle, Wash. Strong job growth and a 42 percent decrease in new home construction are good news for sellers.

Source: Forbes, Matt Woolsey (04/07/08)