ABC News to report from Asheville (Dallas, Star: sales, real estate, 2009)

[Kootr]

January 8, 2009

ABC News to report from Asheville
From staff reports

An ABC World News crew will be in Asheville this weekend to report a segment about retirees and the local housing market. The story will be about retirees who have taken a hit in their retirement savings and how that may be affecting their plans to buy homes.

The Asheville area has a significant retiree population, but home sales have fallen precipitously in recently months — by 50 percent in November for Buncombe County.

The report will be led by ABC News' business correspondent Betsy Stark. News Anchor Charles Gibson will not be in town.

The segment is scheduled to air Tuesday night and is part of an ABC News divisionwide series called “America's Econony: What's the Fix?” The series will air across all ABC news platforms, including radio and the Internet, beginning Sunday and running through Jan. 16.

[NC_Paddler]

Originally Posted by Kootr

January 8, 2009The Asheville area has a significant retiree population, but home sales have fallen precipitously in recently months — by 50 percent in November for Buncombe County.

And yet someone recently posted in another thread that the Asheville market was still one of the most overpriced housing markets in the country. So if we are to believe both statistics, buyers aren't buying and sellers aren't lowering their prices much.

[Zooropa]

The problem is that in this town the people who live and work here are the ones that can't afford to buy a home.

[Tony1790]

Originally Posted by NC_Paddler

And yet someone recently posted in another thread that the Asheville market was still one of the most overpriced housing markets in the country. So if we are to believe both statistics, buyers aren't buying and sellers aren't lowering their prices much.

Buyers not buying is because sellers aren't lowering their prices much, I've been saying that the stock market and housing are both going to be a victim of the oncoming retiree push. Baby boomers are a big part of the stock market via 401k, etc and their big house and "investment/second homes" will be going on the market when it's retirement time. But with the recent conflagration of both the housing and stock market, retirees have lost trillions, much sooner than even I thought possible.

Sorry I didn't get to see the news report, but with Asheville's economy basically based on tourism and retirees (same people?) then it may spell bad news coming for the local economy, retirees who lost a large part of their fortunes on the eve of retirement don't have a tendency to spend as freely as they would have normally.

Tony

[MissyAKATink]

We are military stationed here, and this is the most expensive place we have lived in the past 18 years of moving. We can double the size of the house and land in other states that we can get here. Even Dallas is cheaper than here.

[jstubbspt]

Originally Posted by NC_Paddler

And yet someone recently posted in another thread that the Asheville market was still one of the most overpriced housing markets in the country. So if we are to believe both statistics, buyers aren't buying and sellers aren't lowering their prices much.

Which is exactly what occurred in CA and Fla before capitulation; prices started to free fall from there. Mountains of WNC got into the bubble late; therefore we're deflating later. Only problem is we're deflating into a much worse economy with no stable job base in the region. Watch out below!

Links worth perusing:

The Housing Bubble Blog

The Market Ticker

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

It is helpful to browse through the archives of the last two links to get an idea of where these gentlemen are coming from, and how dead on accurate they have been over the last year. Draw your own conclusions as to where we're going from here as a region and as a country.

[NC_Paddler]

Originally Posted by jstubbspt

Which is exactly what occurred in CA and Fla before capitulation

Real estate is largely a local phenomenon; any comparisons to CA and FLA (or NV for that matter) are dubious at best.

I'm not saying that prices won't decline further, but to use CA and FLA as a benchmark for measuring the Asheville market is unreasonable. The Asheville market didn't see nearly the level of speculation as these other markets. For example:

"Numerous U.S. housing markets have experienced overbuilding and speculation that fueled sharp price appreciation. That hasn't happened in Asheville. In part because the area is so rocky and mountainous, home developers haven't been able to widely expand into new areas."

Asheville, N.C.: It's a nice place to live, but sales are down - USATODAY.com

[jstubbspt]

Asheville has seen quite a bit of speculative building. How many of these high dollar mountain top developments were present or even in the planning stages just 6 to 8 years ago. Asheville is the one of the poster children of the housing bubble. The maxim that all real estate is local is a canard a long the lines of oft used Realtor saying of "Real estate is great investment because it always goes up." The housing bubble was just a part of an overall global credit bubble, and helped to set off the economic issues that we're facing today. The effects of the deflation of the credit bubble will be felt for years to come. Asheville will fair worse in this down turn than many other areas.

Then again perhaps I'm wrong and there plenty of people who can afford the 400K+ second homes/retirement homes. After all everyone wants to live here; just like in Bend, OR, Taos/Santa Fe, NM, Prescott/Sedona/Flagstaff, AZ....

[NC_Paddler]

Originally Posted by jstubbspt

Asheville has seen quite a bit of speculative building.

Can you point to any objective evidence/statistics (i.e., not anecdotal evidence or vast generalizations) that would indicate the level of speculation in the Asheville market is comparable to the CA and FLA markets? If so, please post.

I'm willing to be persuaded, but you haven't presented any evidence that the comparison is valid. "Quite a bit" doesn't cut it. Can you be more specific?

[Kootr]

Originally Posted by NC_Paddler

Can you point to any objective evidence/statistics (i.e., not anecdotal evidence or vast generalizations) that would indicate the level of speculation in the Asheville market is comparable to the CA and FLA markets? If so, please post.

I'm willing to be persuaded, but you haven't presented any evidence that the comparison is valid. "Quite a bit" doesn't cut it. Can you be more specific?

I don't think you'll find the information you request on the Internet, but it's true. Builders built numerous high-end spec houses throughout the area as well as complete developments. The number of these houses of course are nothing compared to that built in CA, FL, etc. because the area is much smaller, yet for the size of area the number is indeed "quite a bit".