January a good month for Asheville-area home sales

Warm weather, economy are credited

9:40 PM, Feb. 7, 2012

Asheville Citizen-Times

Warm weather and a warming economy boosted sales of existing homes in Buncombe County last month 44.4 percent over January 2011.

Other area counties also saw substantial increases, according to N.C. Mountains Multiple Listing Service. January sales were up 17.2 percent in Haywood County, 35.3 percent in Henderson County and 53.3 percent in Transylvania County.



Snowy weather kept potential buyers at home during December 2010, people in the industry say, depressing sales figures for January 2011 and making it easier for last month’s total to exceed the previous total.



“You can’t show property in the snow,” said Jon Corbin, head of The Buyer’s Agent of Asheville.


A few weeks typically elapse between the time when a buyer makes an offer and when a sale closes and is recorded in MLS figures, so slow shopping in one month means slow sales the next.



The more long-lasting factors behind the increase are probably low interest rates and gradually growing confidence in the economy and the housing market, said Corbin and Terry Horner of Preferred Properties of Asheville.


“I think it’s a continuation of what we’ve seen ... (in) 2011, which is a stronger market in general,” Horner said.


Sales for the year were up 3.3 percent in Buncombe County, and results were generally strongest during the second half of the year.

Things looking up

Monthly figures often bounce up and down, and both Corbin and Horner cautioned against making too much of the January results. “It is just a month,” Corbin said.



But both said views of the market appear to be turning more positive.



“I think people in general are a bit more optimistic about things,” Corbin said, “The (buyers) we’re talking to may have been sitting on the fence for the past couple of years.”



Buncombe sales were down 17 percent from December to January, but that is nothing out of the ordinary. January is usually one of the weakest months for sales.



The median sale price — the point at which half were higher, half lower — for homes sold in Buncombe County last month was $203,250. That’s up from $191,500 in January 2011.