Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
The Asheville real estate market is having a year for the record books. Statistics from the third quarter of the year confirm a trend that folks in the market have seen all year: the Asheville market is a seller’s market, with prices skyrocketing.
Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty’s new third-quarter report hits the highlights:
–The city of Asheville is on pace to break the record of number of homes sold in a year. There were 412 homes sold in Asheville and 798 homes sold in Buncombe County in the third quarter of 2016, according to Mosaic. The number of homes sold in the city dropped slightly between the second record for homes sold in a year was set last year at 1,389. So far this year, 1,137 homes have been sold in the city.
–The median home sale price climbed to a new quarterly record of $284,700 in Asheville, 5.2 percent higher than the median price in the second quarter, Mosaic reports. The median home price in Buncombe County rose to $252,000 in the third quarter, the highest on record in Buncombe County and .8 percent higher than the previous quarter.
–The Asheville market is a seller’s market. As of October 2016, inventory in Asheville was under six months in price ranges below $700,000. This represents lower inventory levels in Asheville in most price ranges compared to previous years, Mosaic reports. Inventory in Buncombe County was under six months for price ranges under $400,000, and inventory in Buncombe County was lower in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the third quarter of 2015 in every price range except for $800,000-$900,000.
–It doesn’t take long to sell a house in Asheville and Buncombe County. (There are plenty of reports of bidding wars and cash-on-the-barrelhead offers.) The average days on market in Asheville decreased to 55 days in the third quarter of 2016, the lowest on record, Mosaic reports. The average days on market in Buncombe County decreased to 79, the lowest since 2006.
Other tidbits gathered from talking with real estate folks:
-There’s still room for the high-end real estate market to improve.
-There’s single-family home construction happening, but it’s mostly on an in-fill basis in established neighborhoods, rather than the construction of new, large subdivisions.
-The average asking price of all homes through July 6 in Buncombe County, including Asheville, was $594,685, according to a recent report by the Asheville Citizen-Times. The median asking price during that same span and in that same geographic area was $399,000, according to Davies’ data. Those are both records.
