AVL Airport bucks national trend

Western North Carolina’s largest airport bucked national trends this month when they announced that Delta Airlines would add a flight to Atlanta and US Airways one to Charlotte. The airport anticipates this fall completing projects intended to enhance customer service, including a guest services center and an additional baggage carousel. The $7 million revamp will help bolster the airport’s marketing message of the value-added benefits of flying to and from Asheville. The airport in June added www.airfarewatchdog.com to its website www.flyavl.com .

Fall Foliage Forecast

Experts are predicting a spectacular fall foliage season for Western North Carolina. Perhaps the most colorful leaf season in years. Predictions are based on climate indicators and mild weather leading up to fall. Every ones question is, "When will the fall foliage peak?" Due to Western North Carolina's varying elevations you can usually see fall color anywhere from late September to early November.

Relationships Matter...People You Trust

Current market conditions are tricky. How do you determine facts from rumor? Many clients are calling and trying to determine how factual a real estate ad or marketing materials are. “These CDs are beautiful but there aren’t any pictures of what is actually completed at the community. Can you help me with this? I am in Florida and am not able to determine this. “ Due to situations like this, people are hesitant to make real estate decisions. We know how important it is to maintain our reputation even in the toughest of times. We choose to advise clients very conservatively. Our focus is currently on strong communities with completed amenities, unique properties based on price or other distinguishing features, new communities with strong financial backing and condo or smaller homes for people relocating to Asheville, but waiting to purchase their dream home.

Summer in the Mountains

People are flocking to the mountains in the summer to beat the heat in Florida and in the Coastal Carolinas. Everyone is outdoors taking advantage of the perfect weather. We are often asked how hot does it get in the summer? Tough question. Why? Well it depends. With the varying elevations and exposures, the weather can be dramatically different within a short distance. Within 50 miles of Asheville you can have summer highs between 70-90 degrees. Most people think the greatest thing about summer in the mountains is the cool mornings and cool evenings no matter where you are.

What is Winter like in Asheville?

Over the last several months, we continue to get requests from out of town clients for 30 day rentals. They want to spend time in Asheville to get a better understanding of it’s wide offering of new communities, the lifestyle here and the climate before they make a decision about buying real estate here. Many people want to spend 30 days during the winter to better understand how cold it will get. While our business does not offer rentals, we know that this is important to our clients. In an effort to offer this service, we spent many hours researching all short term rentals options for them. As a result of this exercise, we now have partnerships with hotels for deeper discounts, in addition to a partnership with a local resort rental company. Our desire was to find a business with people that have our same values: integrity, quality and a desire to exceed their client’s expectations. We will be providing more information about this and other partnerships that have been created as a response to the feedback we continue to get about what is important to the people looking at Asheville as their next home, getaway or real estate investment.

Why Asheville?

It is hard to watch TV, read a magazine or newspaper without reading something about Asheville. It is being called “the Paris of the South”, one of the happiest places to live and photos abound that show the charm of this city with the beautiful mountains in the background. There is a lot of concern in Asheville among its citizens about the need to maintain its charm while accommodating the new developments taking shape. We are often asked about this and our answer is always “we are fortunate to be having this growth during this particular time”. We have learned what doesn’t work from the overdevelopment of some areas in Florida and other coastal areas; AND we have learned what matters to people, including what amenities they desire. We have discovered that the needs of our clients vary greatly. The new communities are reflecting these differences. Now, within a mere 50 miles, you are able to evaluate a wide assortment of options related to amenities and prices.

Developers - GOOD and BAD

Our involvement with clients looking at property across this area is always best at the earliest possible time. This positions us to introduce them to what we feel are the RIGHT communities to match their interests and prior to them establishing a relationship with a particular sales agent at a community. Recently, a client from Boston called and wanted us to support her decision to purchase a lot in a community 40 miles southeast of Asheville. I was soon bombarded by PowerPoint presentations and marketing literature regarding this particular development. After a series of conference calls and another visit to the community, I annoyed her by refusing to give my endorsement. My comments on our first conference call, were “I will not give you the answer you want to hear. I will give you my opinion based on what I know”. In community advertisements and marketing materials, the truth is often exaggerated. Developers have reputations, both good and bad. Some of them think that if they focus on out of town buyers, they will not have the opportunity to hear the stories that the locals know.