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What’s the Real Estate Market like in Asheville, NC??

Are you looking to  buy a home in the Asheville, NC area, or do you own a home in the area and you are looking to sell it? However, before you do that you’re wondering, how much are houses in Asheville, are there are lot of houses available,  how long is it going to take to sell my house? How much is my house worth? How many houses are on the market that are going to be in a similar price range as mine. Perhaps you haven’t even thought about any of that at all and now that you’ve read this you’re thinking all about it.

The first thing you should do is call a Real Estate professional, we’d really like it if  you called someone on the Jim Buff Team (828) 771-2310. The second thing you should do, don’t look at Zillow or Trulia. Yes, I know it seems like it has a ton of information on it and it does but just because it has all this information doesn’t mean it’s correct. They may give you a zestimate of your house, but they haven’t been in it. Zillow doesn’t know that the other houses that sold near by were older and had not been updated in 20 or 30 years, but what if yours has, it’s most likely going to make a difference. A Real Estate agent is going to have the most up to date information.

But while you wait for one of the members of the Buff Team to get out to your house or to help you find a house here is some local information for you. All of this information is from the WNCRMLS and is accurate as of 9/7/2017.  As of 9/7/2017 there were 2210 properties on the market in Buncombe County. The average sales price in Buncombe County was $581,328 in comparison to national the average price of homes was $258,300. In Buncombe County the average days on market was 53 days. The shortest days on market is 34 and that is for houses in the price range from $175,000 – $199,000. The longest days on market was 258 and that was for houses in the $2,000,000 and up price range. Right now, there is just a little over 4 months of inventory available.  See the table below for more information. Or give us a call and we can talk to you more about the Real Estate  market in Asheville and the surrounding area!

George Souto a mortgage broker from Connecticut wrote this article about “stupid”  things that sellers do that cause sales to fall apart.

It is a very informative read: Click here to see original article 

Stupid Things Sellers Do That Cause Sales To Fall Apart.  There are several things Sellers do or do not do which can result in their home not selling.  Most of them are things which the Listing Agent/Realtor has to deal with such as:

• Overpricing a home
• Refusing to negotiate
• Not making homes available for showings.
• House does not show well
• Homes which smell bad.

These are just a few examples of what Sellers do or do not do which can cause a house not to sell.

However, as a Loan Originator I work with Buyers and not Sellers.  So I am not involved in the home shopping process other than providing a Pre-Qualification Letter.  The role I play in the purchase of a home is the financing, which involves:

• Qualify the Buyer for the price range they can purchase in
• Meeting with the Buyer to put the loan into process once the offer has been accepted
• Following the Loan through Loan Commitment, and on to Closing.

So I do not get to see why a Buyer chooses to purchase a house or not, but what I do get to see is the stupid things Sellers do which cause my Borrowers to walk away from the property. There are two major things I see Borrowers walking away from a property are for.

The first and foremost reason I see my Borrowers walking away from a purchase, is Sellers refusing to negotiating repairs which are identified by Appraisers and Home Inspectors.  When a Seller takes a hard nose attitude of “I am not bugging”, the Borrower more often than not walks away from the purchase.  Many times the purchase blows up because of ridiculous little things, the Seller is unreasonable about.  This is not to say that Buyers are not equally unreasonable at times.

The second most common reason I have seen which causes a Borrower to walk away from a purchase are things which are discovered during the final walk through just before the Closing.  For whatever reason Sellers seem to think they can hide damage and get away with it.  Somehow they think the Buyer will not walk away from the purchase the day of the Closing.  Let me give a couple of quick examples:

• On the final walk through a huge urine stain was discovered on a hardwood floor which the Seller had covered up with a large rug.  The stain was so bad that a large section of the floor needed to be replace.  It was to late to fix the floor before the Closing, and the Seller refused to provide funds to fix the damage after the Closing.  As a result the Buyer walked at the Closing Table.

• Another was a Seller while moving their furniture out of the house, dragged the furniture across the hardwood floors causing deep gouges through out the hardwood floors in the house.  In this case the Buyers didn’t even go to the Closing and try to negotiate a remedy, the Buyers walked away right there and then.  Found another house a week later they actually liked better, and we Closed a few weeks later.

These are just a couple of examples, I could provide more, but I think these make my point of Stupid Things Sellers Do That Cause Sales To Fall Apart.

The latest Absortion Report for Buncombe County.

• As of 11/3/2015 there were 1521 active home listings in Buncombe County, NC
• 102 is the average days on the market for homes in Buncombe County
• 82 days is the lowest days on market an that is for homes priced between $200,000-$249,999
• 96.02% of properties that are listed are selling