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Hello all,
We are planning to purchase a second home (will become our main home once our son finishes HS) in Western NC. I have been to the area but have not done much exploring. We are looking to be within 30 minutes or so of down town Asheville. Outdoor hiking is a big hobby, so trails very near the home are important. We are also pretty liberal, and while I don't expect everyone to think like me, I would like to be in an area that isn't conservative in the extreme. We are looking to spend about 200k for a 2 bed 2 bath home. We both work from home, so reliable high speed internet is a must (biggest fear is we will buy a home and find out the internet is highly unstable). Also, since this is going to be a vacation home for the next five years, I would like to be somewhere with plenty of natural beauty - mountain views, wildlife, etc. We are have been looking at the following areas, but are open to others: Hendersonville, Asheville area, Black Mountain, Weaverville, Mars Hill and even Waynesville, though I know Waynesville is probably going to be more that 30 min from Asheville.
1) Do these areas seem to make sense based on what we are looking for?
2) I have heard good things about Hendersonville, and homes seem more affordable, but from the pictures I have seen it looks to be fairly flat and not terribly scenic. Is this true?
3) Waynesville looks beautiful, and I see a lot of homes to choose from in our price range, but an awful lot of homes have been sitting on the market for very long periods. Anyone have insight on why that might be? Though we plan to move to W NC permanently at some point, we want to know if for whatever reason we change plans that we will be able to sell the house within a reasonable time frame.
I know that is a lot of information. Any info/answer you can provide is greatly appreciated!
We have lived in Waynesville since Sept 2001...
-It is 35 mins to 'Asheville'/45 mins to AVL airport. If 5-10 mins farther than your '30 min' range, then toss Waynesville as a consideration.
-Haven't studied Waynesville housing mkt lately, in that $200G range, but if houses are sitting a long time, they will fall into 'no view', 'weird area', 'fixer uppers', or overpriced at ~$200Gs, imo.
-That $200G limit is limiting in much of western NC, but the RE mavens will have better info.
-One's politics is imo, a non event: no one really cares what party or thoughts one has. It has never been an issue of any degree in our 14 yrs here; same goes for religion, in our experience.
We have made wonderful, trustworthy good friends in a combo from 5th Gen natives to recent migration peeps, that range from socialists to jack boot conservatives and zealous Baptists to Jews to atheists. None of us retired bums really care, imo.
-True BB internet is semi-prevalent; some of us in some areas don't have cable and thus rely on half f ast net. Any house you are serious about should easily be discoverable as to the internet availability at that location.
My 50Cts on some of your questions...
GL, mD
Thanks MD for the info. I will do some more checking into the wville market.
Anyone on the board able to provide more feedback? I will be heading to Asheville in a couple of weeks to look at some homes and areas. My Realtor has provided some good info, but it would be great to hear the thoughts of others that live in the area.
I feel like a broken record at times. Check out Weaverville, great town with good mix of people, close in to Asheville easy access to the Parkway. 200K maybe low but I'm not a realtor.
One thing that people moving here from non-mountainous areas sometimes fail to consider is where the sun will be in winter. Some otherwise very nice homes have been built where they get no direct sun from Thanksgiving 'till Groundhog Day. For me, that's a recipe for misery.
If you're looking for something well outside the city keep in mind that there are sites that do not have access to cable and no access to geosynchronous satellite television. Under those conditions DSL is your only access to internet.
I feel like a broken record at times. Check out Weaverville, great town with good mix of people, close in to Asheville easy access to the Parkway. 200K maybe low but I'm not a realtor.
I know a little bit about the Asheville/Weaverville markets and 200K will not buy much in these markets.
Thanks all. I suspected 200K would be limiting very near Asheville. Might need to look more towards Mars Hill and Waynesville.
Kaleman - Really great point on the sunlight issue! Long dreary winter days without any sunlight would be really rough on me. It is not something I would have thought of.
Good points on site orientation, 'area', et al...
A ~ $10 plastic pocket compass will help on house site orientation, keeping in mind that Oct sun is different than late Dec, mid June, etc. and will vary by the day.
But a deep ravine that faces north is not many people's cup of tea, and I know of several big buck houses that are in that situ on the back/north side of the mtn we live on. Most of those homeowners are gone from Nov to April, but the full time rez are literally in the dark for much of each day, for several months.
Winter affords slightly more sun/views as the deciduous trees are leafless, but late Dec to mid Jan sun is quite weak.
GL on your house hunting: it usually requires a few to several trips and lots of driving around eyeballing, with and without a RE person.
GL, mD
North facing also has winter snow/ice issues. We face southwest and our drive melts off fairly quickly but our neighbors can stay covered several days. Of course we get hotter afternoon sun in the summer but a perk is its great for the solar hot water!
Mars Hill is nice with a small college and good access to 26. But not much of a town you will end up in Weaverville for closest shopping like Lowes, Walmart, restaurants. Not sure on prices would think cheaper than the Weaverville area. Other option might be Barnardsville but not any real town either, but some great folks live out that way and pretty.
Hendersonville/Flat Rock are really nice. 25 miles to Asheville and 35 miles to Greenville. Winter weather is better south of US40. However there are a lot of retirees in Flat Rock. Hendersonville has a nice historic downtown with very few if any closed storefronts.
Hendersonville/Flat Rock are serviced by Morris Broadband, who IMO, is the absolute worst cable company I have ever experienced and I have lived in a lot of areas, in terms of outages, service and cost.
For example, comparing Morris to Charter, even if you pay $100 for 50Mbps, it is not as good as the internet speed that comes without paying extra with Charter. It is really a very cheesy company who cares little for the customer base because they are a monopoly in the Hendersonville/Flat Rock area.
Morris
Charter
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Any house you are serious about should easily be discoverable as to the internet availability at that location.
