(2019) estimate the price of a hypothetical one acre of residential land in each county in the United States. Figure IV.3 charts their estimate of the price of one acre of land in the central county for each MSA. We use the central county for each MSA because Davis, Larson, Olinder, and Shui (2019) do not report data at the MSA level, but only at the county level. As a result, we use the countylevel results for the economic center of each MSA. For example, we use Mecklenburg County for Charlotte, Buncombe County for Asheville we, and Wake County or Raleigh. Figure IV.3 shows that, relative to regional competitors, Charlotte’s land prices are in the middle. They are significantly higher than Asheville, Columbia, and Greensboro, but are significantly lower than Charleston and Wilmington. Given the preponderance of coastal resort properties in those two cities, it is perhaps not surprising they have higher land values. What is somewhat surprising is that Raleigh has residential land values that are nearly $40,000 higher per acre than Charlotte. However, the gap between Raleigh and Charlotte has decreased a lot. The difference was $75,000 per acre in 2017. This graph also shows that Charlotte’s land price growth rate over the period 2017-2018 was robust at 13.5%, which is similar to the Greensboro land price growth rate, and significantly higher than those of Ashville, Charleston, Columbia, Raleigh, and Wilmington. It was only significantly lower than the rate in Spartanburg.
The State of Charlotte Housing Report 2020
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