Foreclosures are up, building permits are down.

For a while, the Charlotte area seemed immune from the national housing slump.

But now there are some troubling signs.

WBTV's David Whisenant reports his findings. Builders in our area are building fewer homes than a year or two ago and closings are down, even so, there are those who say this is no time to panic.
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The newest business to open in Cabarrus County, is a land development company and chamber head John Cox says the Fall Creek Land Company should be a success.

"All the surveys have shown with respect to real estate sales and resales, Charlotte is holding its own," he said.

But there are signs of a slowdown. During the first three months of the year, closings were down 33% in Mecklenburg County.

New permits were down 42% and in Cabarrus the numbers are 34% and 48% respectively. But John Cox says hold on.

He pointed out that "The stories about the decline in closings an applications fail to demonstrate that we have 15,000 residential subdivision applications that have already been permitted."

True, but some of those have at least slowed. The Roberta Road subdivision advertised that it would be open by now and one neighbor said most of the work stopped a few weeks ago.

The company's sales manager did not return our call.

And the sales board in the Cabarrus County Courthouse now has several dozen foreclosure notices.

An example, is the house at 435 Groff Drive just off Poplar Tent Road. The family couldn't make the payments so they were forced out. And on May 21, the house goes on the auction block."

Neighbor Gloria Tomlinson said, "You can't help but feel for those people who are suffering, they have their life savings in their home and when they lose that, what do they have?"

Neighbors like the Tomlinsons hope things will improve and some in the business say even with the slowdown, this market is still strong.