It sounds like you know what aspects made a “home;” so, obviously no one here can decide best for you. What I’ll offer you are three aspects that a home buyer SHOULD look at when purchasing a home and looking forward to reselling that home.
1. Location: Obviously, both locations have amazing amenities based on the need of the individual buyer. You can’t go wrong in either location for a median priced home.
2. Condition: Overall community home condition often dictate quality of life and property values. If you do a driving audit of both neighborhoods, you’ll find similarly significant architectural styles, mostly the brick ranch and brick cottage home. When you drive around Charlotte Park you’ll see more industrial oriented buildings and mixed use zonings (including IWD/Industrial, Warehouse, Distribution and some commercial). In Fortland Park, I’m aware of no IWD or business-type zoning. Finally, on the topic of condition, take a neighborhood visual audit. Drive streets in both neighborhoods and rate the homes. Look at landscaping, yard upkeep, number of cars on the property, overall cleanliness. I’d argue Fortland Park may rise above on this issue.
3. Price: I can only give statistics on this point. I pulled a quick four year sampling of median/average prices for both areas and then quantified the percentage of value increase for you in the parentheses. Here are the facts.
Charlotte Park:
2005 average $137,744 (stat start)
2006 average $153,065 (+10%)
2007 average $168,973 (9%)
2008 average $160,515 (-0.05%)
Fortland Park:
2005 average $96,105 (start stat)
2006 average $111,334 (+14%)
2007 average $154,932 (+28%)
2008 average $169,533 (+9%)
Obviously, this analysis show that in 2008, prices didn’t increase as rapidly, however Fortland continued to grow in value while Charlotte fell in value. From 2005 to 2007, both “Parks” saw great appreciation well above the national and even local average; however, Charlotte saw an average increase of 6% while Fortland saw an average of 17% increase.
Sometimes if I’m torn between two places, looking at facts over semantics help me make a decision. I hope this helps!
