Stuff shelter.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: Housing prices

If you're willing to spend $9 million for a house, you can afford to go to extremes. So it's no surprise that the two most expensive houses on the North Carolina real-estate market recently are about as far apart as possible and still be in the same state. Or that one is inches above sea level while the other overlooks one of the highest lakes east of the Mississippi. * Atop MLS reports were a Victorian-style mansion built in 1988 on Glenville Lake in Jackson County. Asking price: $9.85 million. "If you can find lakefront property here, it's extremely valuable," says Sheila Owens of Landmark Realty Group in Cashiers. * While the house is less spectacular than the price--it's still no slouch, with three bedrooms and an old-fashioned wraparound porch--Owens says the setting commands the bucks. It reposes ($9 million-plus houses don't sit) on 21 acres that jut into the lake. Built by a horse lover, it has pastures, a barn, training rings and other equestrian amenities, plus a caretaker's cottage and a guesthouse, which add five more bedrooms. * "It's the kind of place the wealthy call a summer cottage," Owens says. The property is unrestricted, which means if winter descends on your portfolio, you...