Couple chooses to build home after exhaustive search in competitive market

WEDDINGTON, N.C. — Philip Lee and Olympia Ming decided to build a new home after giving up on finding an existing one in the current housing market.

The couple is relocating to the Charlotte area from Indianapolis in the summer but finding their home in Weddington wasn’t easy.

For three months, they looked for a home that was ready to move into; but the couple found those homes are in high demand.

“It was kind of striking because if you watch the news, you would hear the market is slowing down, rates are going up, but that is not the case for us,” Lee said.

The housing market in the region is still tight.

LINK: AFFORDABLE HOUSING RESOURCES

In September 2022, a home would be on the market for a median of nine days, according to the State of Housing in Charlotte report.

Homes are still going much faster than they were before the pandemic, when a home was typically on the market for nearly 21 days.

“There were homes we would look at, [then] they were gone,” Lee said. “Then there were homes where they were on the market for 14 days, which doesn’t sound like much in this market -- fourteen days is a long time -- and we would go and see it. It would look appealing, then we would see why they were on the market longer than the ones we were interested in.”

The Political Beat: Bringing affordable housing to Charlotte

“It was very frustrating,” Ming said. “We wanted to make this a seamless move. Moving from one state to another is already quite stressful. Let’s make this nice and easy. We thought it would be easy to find a home but in fact, it was not.”

The couple decided to build a new home off Providence Road after they missed out on multiple homes they wanted while taking three house-hunting trips to Charlotte.

Lee and Ming have a home to call their own, but they also have advice on purchasing property in a competitive market.

“I think patience is really key and have people who are here who can guide you because you have to make decisions quickly when something appealing to you appears,” Lee said.

VIDEO: Tips for first-time homebuyers looking in the Charlotte area