Communicating with Your Realtor Communicating with your Realtor is crucial to having a great home buying experience. It is so important that it warrants a whole conversation at the beginning of your relationship. Here are some important tips to guide the conversation. Confidentiality First, remember that your Realtor is there to assist you in any way that they legally and ethically can, to realize your goal of purchasing a home. Your Realtor is a professional, with the education, experience, and skill to help you make decisions and take action toward that goal. Excellent customer service is to ..read more

It’s so frustrating! Every time you find a home that finally meets all your needs, six other people are putting in offers! How in the world are you ever going to get in a home you love? The easy answer is: Hire a real estate broker to help you. But that leads to more questions, mainly, how do you choose a broker who will best serve you? Chances are, you know someone who is an agent. Your cousin Sue got her license last year. Your neighbor has been selling real estate for 25 years. Your best friend just sold her home, and the guy she found online got it under contract in a week. Which one shoul ..read more

Pricing Your Home The most important aspect of listing your home for sale is the price. Curb appeal is very important. Decluttering is a must. Making repairs prior to listing helps immensely. But a home that is overpriced for what it is will sit and get stale, until you correct the price and get it down to what the market will support. Likewise, a home that may not be in it’s best condition, or one that’s not in a convenient or beautiful location – they can and will sell quickly – as long as they are priced correctly. Market Value Unlike many other items we purchase, home prices are based on w ..read more

Buyers’ or Sellers’ Market? The real estate market is shifting. In some areas of the country, it has flipped to a strong buyer’s market. Not so in Asheville! We still have only 1.8 months of inventory in the Asheville Region, which means it is still a sellers’ market. So are seller concessions really necessary? We are definitely seeing some changes in the local market. Properties need to be priced just right. Pricing your property more than $10,000 over it’s appraised value could mean the difference between multiple offers and sitting for so long that buyers wonder what’s wrong with it! Ashevi ..read more

Five ways to have the most appealing curb in Asheville! Curb appeal may sound like a remnant phrase from the past, but don’t be fooled – it’s still one of the most influential aspects of selling your home! Many people live in Asheville because they love being surrounded by beauty. If potential buyers drive up to a spotty lawn, ailing landscaping, and dingy sidewalks, it will be an uphill battle from there to convince them your home is “the one”. Instead, imagine them driving up to healthy greenery, a few colorful blooms, and a fresh, welcoming front porch – setting the stage for a feel-good sh ..read more

Who really “needs” a new kitchen? Is baking cookies one of your holiday traditions? It is in my family! We have two “always” recipes and a few alternates. And not surprisingly, the two favorites are also the two simplest! One was from the back of a box of cream cheese, and the other was from our vintage Pillsbury Kitchens’ Cookbook, circa 1970’s. Does your kitchen stack up? Not all things vintage are wonderful, though! Many older kitchens are lacking on space and technology. Sometimes bumping elbows with family members searching the fridge for eggnog can be frustrating. And, while the built-in ..read more

TO OUR VETERANS, We thank you for your service! Asheville and the mountains of WNC are a popular and desirable retirement destination for military families. To make it easier for these special families to qualify for and purchase a home, Veteran Affairs has a unique loan offer reserved only for retired and active military. The special benefits OF VA loans, which are not available to the general public, are as follows: No Down Payment –While zero down loans effectively disappeared in the real estate bubble of the last decade, VA loans allow those who serve in our military to buy a house withou ..read more

ASHEVILLE REAL ESTATE MARKET So much information, so many angles, so many changes… Let us break it down for you! ❓ The number one question we keep hearing is are prices dropping?? And the short answer is no, not in the Asheville real estate market, anyway. Year over year the prices have increased 12.5%. We are seeing a slight drop from where prices were during the summer but so far they are holding steady through October. ? Although prices are staying above last year closed sales and total volume are declining. Inventory is still low in the Asheville area and affordability challenges have pri ..read more

ADVICE FROM YOUR REALTORS: Do Renovations Right! And by “right” we mean GET PERMITS and REPORT CHANGES. 1. GET PERMITS. Did you know that for residential homes in unincorporated Buncombe County, you DON’T need a permit for: Non-structural work where cost is less than $15,000 in any single-family residence. Farm buildings outside the jurisdiction of any municipality. Residential accessory structures where no dimension exceeds 12 feet. The replacement of windows, doors and exterior siding in residential structures. The replacement of pickets, railings, stair treads, and decking of residential p ..read more

The spooky season is upon us! Asheville, North Carolina is home to many wonderful ghost stories and supernatural lore. From the Grove Park Inn in North Asheville, to one of the beautiful churches down the block from Asheville Realty Group’s main office, there are many well-known public spaces that play host to ghosts! If you’d like to learn about them from the safety of a small crowd, sign up for one of our local haunted house tours! We have Haunted Asheville, which was voted ONE OF THE TOP THREE ghost tours in America by readers of USA Today! Then there is Asheville Terrors, where you can “di ..read more