Charlotte is No. 9 on PricewaterhouseCoopers and ULI's 2017 Emerging Trends in Real Estate—a drop from 2016, when we came in at No. 3. The list takes into account investment prospects as well as development potential. "Challenges facing the Charlotte market are the political fallout associated with House Bill 2...the truth is that the adoption of this bill has slowed interest in the market from a number of large national commercial real estate users," the report states.

Even so, Charlotte has been growing as the financial market hub for the Southeast and is benefiting from growing airport activity. The market has been a leader in infill development, with the Downtown area seeing an increase in residential options and more development in a number of inner-ring suburban sites, according to the report.

In spite of the challenges, the Charlotte market remains strong and market participants are cautiously optimistic this will continue. Industrial is cited as being an extremely hot product type in Charlotte for 2017, while the office market is expected to continue to grow in urbanized suburban locations.

Austin topped ULI/PricewaterhouseCoopers' list.