New Build/New Development Market Update Charlotte Metro
Builder confidence may be inching up nationally, but Charlotte remains a different story: with resale inventory still tight, we’re staying disciplined, buying the dirt right, and building where demand already exists.
4 mins read | September 2026
Builder confidence finally ticked up in August, but only barely, rising one point to an HMI of 35. That is the sixteenth straight month below 40, so I would not call it a recovery. Price cutting eased slightly with 35 percent of builders discounting versus 37 percent in July, still at an average 6 percent off, and incentives held flat at 63 percent. The number I keep coming back to is buyer traffic, which sat unchanged at 23. Confidence can drift up all it wants, nobody is walking through the door. And then the July new home sales print landed and told the real story. Sales fell to a 607,000 annual rate, down 10.5 percent in a single month, against 488,000 homes of inventory. That is 9.6 months of supply when four to six months is considered balanced. Worse, 117,000 of those homes are finished, empty, and waiting, which is close to four times the 2022 low. That is the national spec builder in one statistic. They underwrote on 2025 comps, broke ground on spec, demand softened, and now they are paying carry on completed houses priced for a market that no longer exists. No help coming from rates either. The 30 year fixed sat at 6.66 percent at the end of July and 6.66 percent at the end of August, dead flat the entire month. Fix and flip is no better. The most recent national read is still 25.4 percent gross margins, roughly $66,000 of gross profit before rehab and carry, and 165 days of hold time.
Here is what makes Charlotte different, and it matters. Our resale supply is still tight, around 1.6 months, with days on market at 49 compared to 44 a year ago. Slower, sure, but that is not a demand problem, that is a normalizing market. The glut is in national spec product, not in well located infill. So we keep doing what we are doing. Underwrite on today’s comps and not last year’s, control our basis on the dirt, build townhomes and duets where the buyer pool already exists, and carry with committed capital instead of optimism. The undisciplined operators are discounting 6 percent and eating interest. We are buying.
Written by Hammerhead Capital Inc.
