Wow! Prices are still going up! So are the interest rates! What does that mean for our local real estate market?
THE GREATER ASHEVILLE REGION (Includes Buncombe, Burke, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, Transylvania and Yancey Counties)
New listings to went up to 1303, that's a fairly big climb from 888 in one month. Some of our outer counties that started adding houses. This area also increased in pendings and in closings. The big, almost amazing thing, is that in one month our median home price went up $25 000 to $375K! That's huge and the average went up to $449K! Days on the market is still 37. The month supply is .09. I found it interesting that looking over these past three months there are monthly supply has still stayed pretty even with less than a month right at a month even though we continue to add more listings.
ASHEVILLE CITY
Asheville city median home price jumped to almost $500K! Rising to $496K from $413K is a tremendous jump in one month. Part of this is because of new construction costs more, which effects the median price. If you think that you can make a cash offer with a low-ball price it's not going to work because there's you're competing against a lot of other cash people so if the house has been on the market for two weeks and there's been a price adjustment then the list price is what it's going to sell for. Maybe even a little more.
HENDERSONVILLE CITY
It's super interesting to see this continue climb upward on the median home price. The city of Hendersonville medium home price jumped $15K to $375K in one month! That's incredible! The monthly supply is continuing to go lower. With less than a half of a month available.
BUNCOMBE COUNTY
Buncombe county also went up in new listings to 448. Pendings, increased. Once again, the story is the increase of the median home price in Buncombe County. In just one month it has gone up to $446K! The average price in Buncombe County is $556K. If you are moving here from some places and you have cash this may not seem like it's a very high amount. If you're moving here and you're looking for a loan and get a local job that this may seem very expensive for our area.
HENDERSON COUNTY
Henderson County actually added quite a few new listings and those were mainly in the $375K to $500K category. Pendings increased as well. Closings in Henderson County’s increased medium home price to $379K. The average was $436K. At $379K this is much better deal than Buncombe County or Asheville city if you're only looking at prices.
SPECIAL FOCUS
For the past two years, I have been comparing month to month for Buncombe and Henderson counties, because the growth rate is extreme. For the special focus area, I like to compare year to date because these outlining areas have less homes to go on the market and need a longer average.
Rutherford County new listings increased the past year and currently has 108. Their pendings increased to 100. Their closed homes actually decreased from year to date. The thing that I find very interesting is their median home price decreased from year to date. It is $226K. Their month supplies are just like most of the of our region right around a month. It would be interesting to break down the closings into different categories to see if there are a lot of houses that need to be fixed up or are mobile homes. If you are moving to this area and you don't really care where, just so it is in Western North Carolina mountains then this might be an area to check out.
An interesting statistic, that multi-family land and houses under $200K made price adjustments in the month of March. Up to 10 percent! This tells me is that if a house is in very poor condition, it is not selling as fast or as for as it was in the past. People are not willing to pay the very high prices for something that needs a lot of work. If you are an investor looking for apartment complexes there's some negotiation room.
RENTALS
More people are moving to this area and some want to rent before buying. Buncombe County has an extremely rental shortage for houses. Depending on location a single-family house can be more than the current:
Fair Market Rent Rate for Buncombe County 2022HUD Housing
Mainly for Apartment Complexes
| Efficiency | One-Bedroom | Two-Bedroom | Three-Bedroom | Four-Bedroom |
| $1,188 | $1,209 | $1,378 | $1,879 | $2,359 |
Trash and landscaping fees are going higher every month because gas fees are going up. This will cause increases in rent rates. Smaller, individual landlords aren’t able to absorb this cost as easily as the multi complex corporations. Yet, these owners, tend to keep the rents more affordable for our workforce housing, teachers, firemen, hospital workers, nurses and those people who are not getting raises. will not be able to afford the increases in price rent.
TAKE AWAY FOR THE MONTH
I don't think the real estate market is going to burst because there's too many people with cash that want to in our local area that want to buy here and they'll pay cash.
We're at an interesting stage right now with the real estate market, due to the increase interest rates rising inflation. There are some foreclosures coming on the market but that is not going to be enough to increase the inventory. The big story as it's been for the past two years is lack of inventory. As long as there's lack of inventory then houses are still going to need to be bought and sold.
The jump from 5% to 6% back and forth with that yo-yo and every time it goes back down it continues to climb up in increments. These are huge jumps, not like a tenth of a point. That's going to affect our real estate market. People are already being a little slower to buy. I am seeing slight price adjustments along all areas. However, the signification increase in prices in just 30 days may be part of the price adjustments.
If you are moving to the area, be prepared for the medium home price. Have all your finances in order and make your best offer the first time. If you want to live here then you don’t have time to hesitate and hope prices will go down because they won’t.
Sellers, need to have the property in the best possible condition and price it according to the current market value. Gone are the days when you could just “make up a price.”
Investors, can still find deals, they may need to extend out to surrounding outer counties, like Rutherford or Jackson and some parts of Haywood. Those just starting, need to make sure they are realistic in their numbers. For all those with long time experience, we need to adjust our numbers and be willing to pay a little more than we would of in the past if we want to buy property.
Full more detailed statics March 2022 PDFs
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