Navigating Asheville's Real Estate Trends: Market Insights, Home Preparation Tips, and Local Adventures

Get ready to gain valuable insights as we navigate the shifting tides of Asheville's real estate market! On this episode of the Plain English Real Estate Show, I step in for Rowena Patton to discuss the latest market trends, including a notable drop in interest rates and its impact on VA loans and market traffic. With Randy Houston joining us, we explore the allure of local attractions such as Sliding Rock and analyze the substantial rise in Asheville's median home prices. We also address the economic hurdles faced by lower-income individuals and observe the increasing inventory and price reductions, suggesting why now might be the opportune moment to sell your property.

Selling a home can be an emotional rollercoaster, especially when transitioning to assisted living. We share a heartfelt story about an elderly neighbor's move, emphasizing the significance of a Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) program to ease this transition. From pre-listing inspections to strategic minor repairs, we provide essential tips for making your home market-ready. Resources like mountainhomehunt.com can help assess your home's value, ensuring you make informed decisions about upgrades that could enhance appeal and marketability.

In the latter part of our episode, we underscore the importance of presenting a "clean, fresh, ready-to-go" home in today's competitive market. We discuss how our CPO program and investor options can support sellers in unique situations, such as during a divorce or relocation, and even allow them to participate in profits post-sale. Learn about the benefits of pre-listing appraisals and the use of tools like CMAs and Zillow. Finally, enjoy our lively conversation about local wildlife encounters, from curious bears to intelligent crows, and the joys of outdoor living in the beautiful mountains of Asheville. Join us for this engaging blend of expert advice and entertaining anecdotes!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with your host, rowena Patton, a show that focuses on the real estate market in terms you can easily understand. Call Rowena now. The number is 240-9962 or 1-800-570-9962. Now here's the English girl in the mountains, the agent that I would trust, rowena Patton.

Speaker 2: 0:24

All right, good morning everybody. Thank you for listening to the Real Estate News Radio. I'm Patrick Franzen and I'm filling in today for our wonderful Rowena Patton. We certainly appreciate her very much and giving me the opportunity to be here today with you. I've got Randy here. He's my producer today. He's going to be taking care of me and he's partially my guest as well, so I'll be bouncing stuff off of my great friend Randy Houston, the famous Randy Houston Infamous, infamous, okay, okay. Well, randy, he does a radio show every morning and I really appreciate him being here to be with me today. It's fantastic as we talk about real estate and what's going on in the world.

Speaker 3: 1:14

My pleasure. It's a beautiful world. It's going to be a hot one today 88 in our mountains. That's one of the higher range.

Speaker 2: 1:24

It's warm for us here in Asheville. It is warm for us. Yeah, that's a temperature we don't venture very much. Not very often, not very often we like the 70s.

Speaker 3: 1:33

It make you hunt out these places like Sliding Rock, oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:38

You've done Sliding Rock. Yeah, oh man, I've done them all man.

Speaker 3: 1:46

That Sliding Rock is a fun one, though on a hot day. Yes, it is, and usually you can't get to it on a hot day, that's right, you're competing with every kid in the whole western north carolina area, starting miles down the road, where you gotta park on the side of the road and walk forever to get to it.

Speaker 2: 1:58

You gotta be careful too folks will run you over.

Speaker 3: 2:01

It's a dangerous place. It really is on a hot day.

Speaker 2: 2:04

You're risking yourself to go sliding, but it's worth it. It's cold. It is cold it is cold, it changes your body temperature real quick man. Yes, it does. So the week was kind of interesting. We've, you know, the interest rates dropped off a little bit and I think it generated a little bit of a little bit of traffic. I've been working with some VA folks and the rates are, you know, he might even be in the high fives for a VA loan, so that was kind of exciting for us today, the information you know the rates remain the same.

Speaker 2: 2:42

The Fed chairman left everything Status quo, status quo. So that's essentially, it's a good thing. They're saying there's only going to be one rate drop this year. Hey man, you know one thing about it Randy is the economy's doing good it is, yeah, but let's look at it this way too. You know, the economy, rich folks or middle or high middle class are doing just fine. They're not really. But the lower folks, poor people, they are really feeling this inflation thing.

Speaker 3: 3:19

Hard for them to even think about owning a home. I'm sure, yeah, and that's a little bit.

Speaker 2: 3:23

For the most part, yeah, we've taken some people out of home ownership. Yeah, and with the economy the way it is, and you know, with our here in our local area, now this is kind of unique. But in Asheville our median home price, you know, increased quite a bit.

Speaker 3: 3:40

Upwards 500,000?.

Speaker 2: 3:42

Well, you know it was at 660. No kidding, upwards 500,000. Well, you know it's. It was at 660, no kid. And uh, yes, I'm from 560 last year. Wow, in one year's time it increased that much money. So you know, keep your eyes on if you do want to sell it. It still is a really good time to sell in our area and uh, I've been really encouraged for folks.

Speaker 2: 4:05

But product is coming on. You know we've had a little bit more product coming on. Uh, just had I just noticed in the the fast stats that uh, buncombe county had about a hundred more uh new listings come on than uh you what was previously here last month. But compared to last year we're up about 7.8% from last year on inventory. So you know, homes are coming out a little bit. I'm starting to see prices reduced a little bit and I'm starting to see, you know, the appraisals were coming in just a little bit low on a couple of mine recently, which I didn't really run into that a whole lot up until about last year. And so, yeah, we've got an average list price now of $782,000. Wow, in Buncombe County.

Speaker 3: 5:00

That's incredible.

Speaker 2: 5:01

That's an average, you guys. So the average is up about $130,000 from last year in 2023, $650,000. So, you know, inventory has increased. We're starting to see average sales prices. You know increased, of course, the average sales price in Buncombe County. Now, this is unique, you guys. This is a zip code 28803 through 06 kind of situation when you're out on the outside of the city, and so last year's average list price was $653. This year's is $782. It boggles me, and just it boggles me. Yeah, the increase. I mean you used to see that over six, seven year span previously in in my river, you know now it's one year, yeah, one year wow.

Speaker 2: 5:57

So you guys, this thing is going to, at some point in time it's going to go down and we're starting to see signs of it, and so we're gonna hit a trough at some point in time, and I would like to forecast, you know, somewhere around 27, so it's a good time to go ahead and get selling now, sort of at your top. We're dropping off of tops in a lot of areas. Some areas are still maintaining. It's amazing to go to each one of these zip codes and see what's going on. In particular zip codes, rowena Patton's gotten us a program, one of these apps that you can, of course, find in the real estate business, and it shows on each zip code. She's more versed on it than me, you guys. I don't know enough about it to even really get into it, but I can go to reports that I find on the MLS and give you some ideas of listing, prices and inventories and that kind of thing and share that with you. So I do feel comfortable with that, randy, oh goodness. But we yeah, we're definitely seeing an uptick in the product sitting on the market too. So days on market are about the same. It's, you know, 37 days typically before you get a contract is what I'm seeing here and the list to close is about the same as last year and that's about 78 days.

Speaker 2: 7:30

So, folks, if you're thinking about buying a home, you need to get out there and find the home. You're going to go through several and you're going to lose several, because in this area we're still fighting. If it's in the three to 450 price range, you know you really need to have your pencils sharpened. Those homes are going quick and I'm starting to see more of them and I'm starting to see more upfitted homes to where you know people are realizing okay, now I gotta shine this thing up a little bit. Gotcha to sold. So two years ago you could leave the laundry on the floor bed, unmade sink, full of dishes, sounds like my house. Yeah, people didn't care. You know it didn't matter because there was somebody that was going to buy your house. It was a frenzy. You guys, and I'm telling you, if the rates get down to 5%, we're going to have a bunch of people jumping off the fence right now that want to buy a home and they can't afford it at this 6%, and what they're finding is what I think those rates start coming down a little bit, everybody's going to start maintaining those prices as well.

Speaker 2: 8:41

So this is a tricky market. Every realtor I've ever talked to right now is like man, I don't know. I've not experienced something like this where you just can't tell what's going on day to day and we're right on the line between a seller's market and a buyer's market. You know? Oh well, it's a buyer's market, blah, blah, blah. No, we've been right on the edge, just bouncing back and forth on that line for so long right now for the last year that it's hard to tell. It's hard to negotiate.

Speaker 2: 9:12

I'm starting to find where we're negotiating back and forth on some homes here and there, but I've still had folks lose homes, in particular areas like Arden, really, yeah, east Asheville, a little bit In the outskirts. I'm starting to see towards Martsville. I've had a contract going on up there and we were able to pick it up a little less than what the listing was, and they had dropped the price too, and the price is just above what the national median price would be Now, of course, our median price here being much more expensive. We've got folks coming from all over Randy to buy homes, and they're usually coming here with cash. Now you get outside of this area and it's a different story. You still got to really get your pencil sharp and and understand the home, get it looking good and, uh, even if it is priced a little bit, you know it, the market's telling us right now. So your home, if it stays on the market right now and it's in the three to four fifty, you probably have it priced too, or you need to do some work to maintain that price or drop the price because of whatever it needs.

Speaker 2: 10:30

You know I run into all kinds of stuff, you guys Different kind of flooring People today. Because of the interest rate being so high, they don't have the money to come in and fix these places after they buy it. So that's the difference that I'm seeing in my buyers is they need something that's ready to go, that's going to be good for five to seven years, because of the payment and the cost of the home right now. So we're experiencing all kinds of different type of market right here in western North Carolina, and that's what I know about. I also know the upstate of South Carolina. It's hot too, man. I just saw on one of these polls where Asheville was number 10 spot in the United States to come to. I think I saw that recently Number 10. Yeah, and up from number 17, I believe last year. Okay, and Greenville, south Carolina, was number four.

Speaker 3: 11:35

And there's multiple ones of those.

Speaker 2: 11:38

Oh yeah, all around our whole area, people want to come here, yeah, it's because of our temperatures.

Speaker 3: 11:44

I think it's the climate, temperatures and it's time to do yeah, we got lakes, beautiful mountains.

Speaker 2: 11:48

We're three and a half hours to the ocean, for the most part, yeah, maybe about four or five hours from the western north carolina area, depending on where you live. But you guys, it's a great place to come and live. But we don't have enough product. So I encourage all my builders which they're doing. You guys, there's product out there.

Speaker 3: 12:07

Builders are anywhere from 300 to 350 for the standard basic style um builder grade homes in in this area is what I've been finding on the the pricing three to 350 000, they'll build you a standard 1,500-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bath home. Is that?

Speaker 2: 12:27

it yeah, and it might have vinyl floors and flamenco countertops Gotcha, but it's going to be nice. Yeah, basic landscaping. Yeah, you're going to have a deck front porch, whereas maybe five, ten years ago a builder could afford a concrete porch or something a little bit more substantial, whereas these days, you know, they haven't cut back a little bit in those areas to be able to get to that price. Yeah, um, on the square footage, because dirt costs a lot of money too, right of course we got all kinds of land here in western north carolina.

Speaker 2: 13:02

the the for land is. If it's a big flat piece that's got a river running through it, you know that's going pretty quick and you can pretty much get your price on it. But if you've got a lot on the side of one of these hills that's a tough sell right now because folks have been scared away. I'm hearing it more and more Interest rate's too high for me to be able to build right now. Too much uncertainty. We're in an election year. Guys. You got to ignore the election year conversation. You got to keep living and I still have people coming to me. I haven't heard too much about election but I'm starting to hear that this past couple of weeks a little bit about folks and hearing about this election and what's going on there in the world. I know our world's pretty nice. We got it pretty good here, love this place.

Speaker 3: 13:56

We got it pretty good. Couldn't have found a better place to be to spend my life, to be honest with you, right here, man. Right here we are in it, man yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:05

And it's hard to brag because you don't want to brag. That's right you don't want to let too many people know how good it is. We've been discovered. We've been discovered.

Speaker 3: 14:17

But I can't criticize that, because I sympathize, not criticize. They see it too too when you come here. People come here for summer camps for their kids and say, one of these days I'm going to go back there and live, and if you ever visit, you're hooked.

Speaker 2: 14:36

Yeah, you're hooked. If your mom and dad came here and you grew up here and you left, you're coming back, you're coming back. It's that simple. You go away. It's like, oh, I've, you're coming back. I mean, you go away. It's like, oh, I got to go to Atlanta, I got to go to Charlotte, and I did as a kid too, I took off Right, but I found myself to come back home and get right back in the mix. So that was I don't know. We've just got so many good things to be able to do here and so many good people.

Speaker 2: 15:05

We really do In our community, yep, and you start finding out when you go into somebody's home and they're talking about selling and they start talking about their neighbors and that's the thing they don't really want to leave because of their surroundings. But I'm running into it If you're going into assisted living, or you know, I've got a friend. She's selling her home right now. She's 80. And we're best buds, we do the rummy together and she'll have a glass of rind, but she's selling her home and she's my neighbor too and moving to an apartment. She just wants it to be easy for her family not to have to deal with her estate and all this. She's already ready.

Speaker 2: 15:49

So you know those kind of conversations are very hard to have and so kids don't like to have that with mom and dad, and maybe it's just mom or maybe it's just dad now, and those conversations are tough. So one of the things we suggest over here at All-Star Powerhouse and Rowena Patton, we like the CPO home and that's a certified pre-owned home. What do we mean by certified pre-owned? Well, you want to know what the home is before you put it on the market. Ie, does it have termites? Does this house have termites underneath this thing? Does it have mold? Does it have leaks? What could shine this home up? Do you take the furniture off the front porch, that washer and dryer? Do you pull that stuff out of there and get rid of it? Maybe in this market you do, and discovering what the home is is what we 100% suggest, because we've found that about a third of deals drop out because of inspection reports.

Speaker 2: 17:00

So in order to avoid the big hit and the shocker, find out what the shocker is. So we suggest that you go ahead and get a home inspection. I've got inspectors and usually they do a pre-listing inspection and it's not quite as involved but they cover the major points. You know. They look for leaks, they want to make sure the electrical life safety issues are taken care of. Stuff that's come unhinged, you know there's inevitably some kind of trim that's hanging. They'll point out that stuff to you and get that stuff fixed. Take care of all those little things that are going to scare off that listing or that buyer coming into your home. You know, one of the just a simple thing of cleaning out the air filter. You know I just went into a home and what kept us from going for it was a dirty air filter.

Speaker 3: 17:58

Indoor poor indoor air quality.

Speaker 2: 18:01

Yes, so we were walking around. Upstairs it's about 10 degrees warmer than downstairs. Well, that tells you, hey, what's going on with the heat in there. Anyway, they cleaned up the air filter. Come back in there and it's 10 degrees cooler. House feels different. Just help yourself in the listing Change the air filter especially right here on our hot days, you know, today being 88 degrees. Yes, let's go ahead and get that air conditioner to where it can breathe.

Speaker 3: 18:28

Amen, it's going to be working hard, it's going to be working.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Today and you know, and a lot of people, we don't have the air conditioner to keep cool because it's so hot. But today you do, but it's mostly the humidity in your home. Yeah Right, it gets sweaty in these places and you can have a fan all you want, but our air is Humid.

Speaker 3: 18:47

It's humid.

Speaker 2: 18:48

We're really close to being a rainforest.

Speaker 3: 18:51

Yeah, Muggy meter. We are high up on the muggy meter.

Speaker 2: 18:57

We're high on the muggy meter and we might have some tree pollen too. A little bit mixed in there, a little bit of tree pollen Just for spice. We have trees, there are trees in our community, a lot of trees in our parks, right.

Speaker 3: 19:11

And these trees they're not just spring of the year have sex yeah and and they produce this pollen.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Yeah and uh, it gets everywhere they're feisty, they're, they're feisty trees around here they're really letting us have it with the pollen level.

Speaker 2: 19:27

But yeah, so buncombe county's doing okay, I could bring up some others here in just a little bit and cover that. But let's talk about going to our website. You guys, you know mountainhomehuntcom is your site. You can go find out the value of your home. You can, you know, search for homes there. You've got where you can click on search. It's got our listings. You can meet the agents there within our office. You can map search which is great type any address. Let's say you're thinking about maybe selling in a couple of years before that trough hits, before the decline in the market.

Speaker 6: 20:07

What's my home?

Speaker 2: 20:08

worth. You can find that at mountainhomehuntcom and, of course, you can always give us a telephone call there, here at All-Star Powerhouse, and we'll come right on out. That's 828-333-4483. We can come out to the home, give you some ideas. Maybe you're thinking about selling in a year and you're wanting to do an upgrade in that kitchen. Well, maybe in a year's time you're not going to get the value of that upgrade back. Maybe you will. Let's talk about it, let's weigh it and I can give you some good ideas on how to weigh that upgrade. Now, if your bathroom is spongy and you're walking around on the floor and the tile doesn't look good or it's linoleum it might be a good idea to go ahead and clean that bathroom up prior to getting it sold.

Speaker 2: 20:59

These days I just have found it much easier because it's going to sit on the market and buyers, like I said, they want clean, fresh, ready to go nowadays, because they can't avoid to put that new air conditioner in or put that new roof on. You know they're coming in and they're looking at it for long-term five to seven years On average. People live in their homes, so a quarter of the population will sell within that timeline, and so they're wanting a clean home. They don't want to have to do a lot too. Now, of course, you've got your folks that can do some fixing and I talk to them oh yeah, I can do that. Do they really want to? So you lessen the value of your listing once they go to another listing that's maybe it's not the location, maybe it's not the size, but they don't have to do anything to the home. And boy does that make it a lot better if you can have a ready-to-go home. Now, of course, I work with the ones that are half under construction or whatever. I can take a difficult one, because I've been in the business so long, I understand them a little bit better. So if you've got a difficult one, I'll help you look at it and we'll understand it. We'll work with what you got.

Speaker 2: 22:15

You might not have the ability to put money into the home. Maybe you've gone through a situation we all experience it. We're ups and downs in life. Maybe you experienced a divorce Well, you know we have divorced CPO as well to where we do have an investor that would come in and purchase the home and they give you a full market value offer. So that's absolutely a program that you can call us and we'll come out to the home. You can do just a quick. We'll do a CMA for you, give you an idea of what the value would be. We can provide you an offer within a couple of days and close it within 15 days. If you're in a pinch, or maybe you're wanting to buy another home somewhere else and use that cash to go buy and then we get it sold for you. The nice thing about our investor is he allows you to participate in the profits after you've sold the home. They'll come in and possibly fix the home if it needs it. Maybe it doesn't need it, maybe you just need to move on and you don't want to deal with listings and people coming in and out. Anxiety level maybe is too high with selling a home. I realize that you know some folks. It's stressful, you guys. Maybe you've got a big, busy job or you're in the community. You're a big, busy job and uh, or you're in the community, uh, you're a big doctor or whatever, and you don't want everybody coming in and out of your house. You just want to sort of take the cash, move on and uh, that's certainly something that our CPO experts can help you with.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Now. We've got assisted living experts, we've got divorce experts you name it. We can cover it as far as any type of program that you're experiencing, say, for instance, retirement, maybe you're relocating, maybe you're one of our heroes or you're a builder that's been sitting on a house for a while. We've got options for you. We've got foreclosurecpocom. So, um, yeah, communicate with us about that over at all-star powerhouse. You can also go to mountainhomehuntcom. You can give us a phone call, you guys, and we'll come on over. That's 828-333-4483. And we can give you a walkthrough of your home, a brief 15 minutes, and give you a real quick idea of what the value would be when we come out and do that for you.

Speaker 2: 24:46

I have also got some great banking relationships. So if you would like to just entertain, if you're thinking about buying a home, you need to talk to a financial advisor. I've got brokers, mortgage brokers, and then I've got federal credit unions. I've got local banks whatever you feel comfortable with. I've got a relationship that we can go and talk to. One of my favorites is my friend, cameron Ball. He's a broker and he's able to go out and sort of find different kind of programs that may fit your need a little bit better. He's even got 100%—here we go, folks. We got 100% loans where you get a 97% loan and then they give you a 3% grant which is paid back over time or is forgiven if you're in the home long enough. So a lot of very neat programs that are popping back up for individuals. When the rate goes up and your house payment's a little bit more than traditionally what it was years ago, a couple years ago, you might find yourself able to be able to get into a home, and so check us out on those programs and I'll certainly provide you Cameron's information. Please give me a telephone call there at 828-333-4483. A lot of times we're busy, so you might go to an answering service. They're going to ask you for your email address and your phone number and we'll start communicating with you. So, yeah, do give us a phone call over there.

Speaker 2: 26:27

Now, of course, when you're getting ready to sell your home, one of the things that we highly suggest again is that CPO program. You may want to consider going ahead and getting a pre-listing appraisal as well, and what that does is it gives you a really good idea. Now we do CMAs and we provide a real good range and we've got softwares that'll provide like, for instance, three stars or five stars potential on what the price or the listing may be. Now, of course, everybody uses zillow, you guys, everybody goes and searches zillow to see what the value of their home, and zillow's been pretty good on a lot of their range part, and I still do use that because the general public uses it, and so I I like to see what. And then I've got programs that really go in and I can go to the MLS and really delve into an area and see where it's starting to price and what communities have been doing in those areas. So you know you definitely want to get with us and let us come out to your home and provide you.

Speaker 2: 27:39

Listings are starting to pop up a little bit. Competition is starting to grow a little bit. That tells us that products staying on the market just a little bit longer as we start to go into what we presume to be a trough, the easing of the real estate market is definitely hitting, hit us, and so we're finding that more product coming on. Buyers are out there. They just aren't coming to the plate right now because of a lot of what the factors are with the interest rates and then the prices of homes haven't been reducing as quickly as they probably had hoped.

Speaker 2: 28:19

I'm still hearing people say, oh well, I'm going to sort of wait this out. Oh goodness, you know I would have to say if you're going to wait it out, I've got the proof. If you're coming to Buncombe County, waiting it out is sort of not helping you because the median home price went up $110,000. And the listing price on homes went up about $130,000 on average. So finding that home at $350,000 to $400,000 in my community it's a toughie and it's not going to be necessarily the prettiest, most shined up house that you've been into, but it might be something that you could fix up To find one that's shined up anymore. You know you've got to sort of up your price, you guys, to the $450,000 to $500,000 range and then, if you want to even get close to where our median is, the $660,000 is the median home price around where our median is, the 660s is the median home price around. So, yeah, the rates going down would really really really help us. We've got some listings.

Speaker 2: 29:26

You know, you guys, I had a really neat one. It was a church listing and it wasn't all the way finished and it's now gone under contract. But what a great opportunity to make it a listing. Or you can make it a church again or make it just a big, huge space. It was a piano repair shop for years and then it was turned into a church. So that's been kind of a learning adventure.

Speaker 2: 29:56

It was my first church to sell, but it's been fun. It's basically a commercial deal and I've been working with Greg Guzman over there, the attorney that any time I need something I can call over there. Man, he replies on the emails extremely fast. So if you've got a questionable something or another going on with your property and you need help with it, give me a call. I'll get it figured out for you. You might have one of these easement issues to where you're traveling over somebody else's property to get to yours and you're thinking about selling. Well, let's go ahead and get that taken care of. If you've got something.

Speaker 2: 30:39

You know shared driveways is a big thing up here in Western North Carolina and road maintenance, and about half of them have an agreement, half of them don't. So a lot of times it's nice to go ahead and start having that conversation. Maybe you can go ahead and get a shared driveway agreement going with that neighbor so that when you put the house up for sale, your buyer's not coming in and having to do that, because that's now become a thing that you have to have resolved prior to getting your home sold. So talk to us about that. If you don't know, or know how to find that information, you can also communicate with us at 828-333-4483 here in the Asheville area.

Speaker 2: 31:24

Now, of course, we've got a network, you guys. We're syndicated all over the United States and so you can definitely go to realestatenewsradiocom and check us out there those folks that are on Facebook. You can find us at realestatenewsradiocom and certainly would love for you to come and listen to our podcast there. You know we've got all of our past radio shows recorded on there, so we're in the 600, uh, seven hundreds, I think, randy are we?

Speaker 3: 32:00

yeah, we're at least seven, uh, seven, ten, something like that seven ten and, and so we're in our 12th year.

Speaker 2: 32:06

We gotta be right. Maybe 12th or 13th. It's been a while we've been doing radio.

Speaker 2: 32:12

For quite a minute I uh I just recently started doing the Facebook live thing and that was pretty cool. I I just really enjoy having my friends call me and say hey man, thanks for bringing that up. You know, I appreciate you giving me that that little pointer, and so one of my best pointers is for my Western North Carolina folks that have been in your home for a while or maybe it was mom's home I agree, go ahead and pull everything out of the house, but don't stick it in the garage. I run into it a lot. Oh, we thinned the house down, we pulled all the pictures down so you can see it. We pulled all the furniture out of there and we stuck it in the garage. Yeah, no, I don't know. You come out to a garage slapped full of stuff. You can't even really see anything. I've got a couple of visuals that are coming up in my head.

Speaker 2: 33:08

And then clean off that front porch. You know let's go ahead and get that couch from 1970s. It's a great sitting couch, it is. It's great, but it's been on the front porch about five years now.

Speaker 3: 33:22

Yeah and uh time to move on.

Speaker 2: 33:24

It's time to move on 1-800 got.

Speaker 3: 33:26

Junk listen, I live 1-800 got junk.

Speaker 2: 33:29

Randy, I live downtown asheville, right yeah, behind the dunkin donuts, every baron town comes through my yard.

Speaker 3: 33:37

I'm not lying looking for the dumpster I was this morning.

Speaker 2: 33:40

I was like, oh yeah, friday, the dunkin donuts. They're busy, right right, I know there's a good smell in the air and, uh, it's funny to drive. You know, I've been there now about five years and they're on their fourth or fifth gate. That uh covers up the dumpster, you know they tore them all down.

Speaker 2: 33:59

They tear them down the bears just don't even care they smell a donut. I bet they get ripped apart over on patton avenue at the crispy cream yeah you know, their bears are just tearing that place apart yeah and it's on a major road too, they don't care.

Speaker 2: 34:16

I've seen a bunch of bear lately. I was, you know, I'm a park, parkway freak, you guys. I I like to go venture on our, our beautiful mountains that we have, and it's fun to run into people. And, and craggy is one of my favorites. I don't really mean to advertise it a whole lot, but on the way up to craggy the other day, me and theresa ran into two sets of bears and mama, she was funny, she ran her bears up the tree, brother, I am telling you when I say up the tree, like 150 feet up in the air, and you could not even hardly see it with my camera, and it was just a little dot, you know, know, moving around. But she ran them up the tree and she was wanting something to eat. So the cars, of course, were stopping and she's going to each one of the cars and it's funny how people drive off when the bear's coming up to your car and wanting to get in your window with you. Anyway, she was hungry.

Speaker 2: 35:10

She was like give me that biscuit, I smell it, there's a biscuit in that car.

Speaker 3: 35:17

So get rid of the kids, get them occupied up in that tree so I can go to work.

Speaker 2: 35:19

Yeah, she goes to work and sits on the road and waits for somebody. Listen, you can't feed these things, so please don't feed them.

Speaker 3: 35:27

Don't do that.

Speaker 2: 35:28

It's the worst thing in the world to feed them. Yeah, let them go into ashville and find the dumpsters on their own, you guys. They don't need any help and we want to keep these bears going, uh, for a long time. We've got a good population here and they're for the most part, they're not too aggressive. If you start feeding them, then they'll start expecting. Then that's when they assume to be aggressive. They just want something to eat. They've been used to yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 35:58

And so then you know, somebody feels like they're being attacked and they kill the bear. So, anyway, just don't feed them. Don't feed any animals in the wild.

Speaker 3: 36:08

No.

Speaker 2: 36:10

They'll make it on their own, you guys. I promise we got plenty of stuff for them to eat in our community, but we've got a lot of really nice bird of prey and I've been running into a bunch of owls and hawks like crazy lately.

Speaker 3: 36:25

Seems like there are a lot of hawks there, and the crows will be the ones who let you know. Oh yeah, there's a hawk in the presence here, and it seems like you hear the crows so much hollering about a hawk.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Yeah, I've got the crows that come by every morning and let me know they're like my alarm clock.

Speaker 3: 36:46

Yeah, they're incredible sentries. I have a friend down in Waynesville, Lake Junaluska, who he feeds a murder of crows and they have become used to him and his feeding schedule. And they come and it's on a highway and they place a sentry who squawks about a car coming. Get out of the road. Here's a car coming and it's amazing. They're an incredibly intelligent creature.

Speaker 2: 37:15

Oh man, they are, and they remember your face. The same with the eagles and the bird of prey. For the most part, they'll remember you as a person. Oh, incredibly the crows know me because I holler at them.

Speaker 3: 37:31

Dave makes me save the pizza bones when he comes over in a Ziploc bag so he can take home and feed the crows.

Speaker 2: 37:37

Feed the crows, yeah yeah, well, we got enough crows. I don't know, I'm not the biggest fan of the crows, just because they sit on my windowsill and wake me up every morning, but I've got doves in my—. Morning doves, morning doves, they're beautiful Nesting in my window, oh boy, and I've let them, and they know me because I feed them.

Speaker 3: 37:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Right, I'm the bird seed guy. Yeah, I'm that guy. Fantastic so every squirrel in town and every bird knows me, and so the doves decided they're just going to make a home inside my window. So yesterday I videoed about 20 minutes of Dove Love, dove Love.

Speaker 3: 38:19

We're not talking about soap either.

Speaker 2: 38:23

Dove Love, I love it, I'll edit it and put that one on the face. Drama for you guys to check out the Dove Love. No, it was really nice man. They clean each other up and they sit there and talk. It's like a couple. Oh man, it's a trip.

Speaker 3: 38:42

They mate for life, they do, they mate for life.

Speaker 2: 38:45

Yeah, and you can tell. And now that they've been in my window so much, I do pay attention to it just a little bit. And these birds they take care of each other. He goes and does his thing. And when they decided on where they wanted to make the nest, it was like they came and looked at me and hooted and howled a couple of times, made a bunch of noise and saw that I didn't really react a whole lot and I think that's when they made the decision to make their home right in my window.

Speaker 3: 39:12

So you're the perfect realtor. Look, you showed your house with grace and, and, and they chose you, you, you closed the deal you did the deal, the dobbies, they love me, yeah, they love me and I do too.

Speaker 2: 39:25

I love them. I, I do like birds, I'm a bird guy yeah, I do too I would have dogs and cats and that kind of thing, but my spot I just in my lifestyle, you guys, I'm never at home and to drag a dog around, uh, would be fun and I've done it before, but it's just too much to be trying to take care of your clients yeah you got a dog and I have a fella that came in this week from, from florida, via california, and he had his dog the whole time.

Speaker 2: 39:57

So her name was Chloe and she was one of these wiener dogs as sweet as could be. Good Lord, talk about an attraction. Everywhere we went, chloe got the action and wiener dogs. They're very popular, but it's not the best showing tool to have come in people's houses with a dog and that kind of thing. So maybe next time, if you got a dog, find a place he didn't have anywhere he could leave the dog, so we had to carry it with us.

Speaker 5: 40:26

And I was happy.

Speaker 2: 40:26

We worked with it. It was fun, I enjoyed it. I don't get to hang out with dogs very often, so you know. I'm a cat guy too.

Speaker 3: 40:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:38

I'm allergic to them, so you know I can't get around them a whole lot. But as long as I don't touch them, they they love to touch me. If you don't pet a cat they'll be all over you they're all over you, man. It drives them crazy they know what they're like hold on, you didn't pet me yeah, this guy don't care for me.

Speaker 3: 40:54

He didn't talk to me.

Speaker 2: 40:55

I'm going to give him a little bit of my smell and rub all over him. That's fine, I love your cats.

Speaker 5: 41:02

I actually do love cats I've had them Siamese.

Speaker 2: 41:06

I've had the fancy cats. I had a Bengal. That was cool, cleo. She would fetch and return. Man, I'm not lying, really. Jump in return. Man, I'm not lying, really. Jump up in my, jump in my chest and jump right up in my arms and, uh, just the coolest cat ever had a siamese cat I grew up with cats, a bunch of animals, okay, we had basically a farm behind us so I had pigs and horses and cows and but it wasn't mine, but they were right behind her right.

Speaker 2: 41:34

We had a. Had the good life growing up, randy.

Speaker 3: 41:37

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:38

Nobody knew where I was. From nine till nine I was out man. I was in the neighborhood, in the woods, in the creek.

Speaker 3: 41:46

That's the love about these mountains, man.

Speaker 2: 41:48

Yeah, man, that's what.

Speaker 3: 41:49

I love about these mountains.

Speaker 2: 41:51

Swinging on vines.

Speaker 3: 41:52

Yep Having a good time out. We did too growing up.

Speaker 2: 41:55

Yeah, nowadays kids are in inside.

Speaker 3: 41:57

Yeah, writing code. Yeah yeah, they don't come outside.

Speaker 2: 42:03

Oh me man, I was an outside freak as a kid, I was too.

Speaker 2: 42:08

In the pond or in the creek the whole time. Yeah, so, you guys, if you're thinking about listening and you have a creek, it's a good idea to have that thing to where you can see it, put it in the pictures, because people love creeks, they love water. That's one of the big attractions for people that are coming here. So if you have a water feature, it always enhances the sale, in my opinion, of your home, unless your house is on top of it or in a floodplain. That makes it a little bit difficult, which we've got the floodplains that have been coming around here lately. You guys, we did a reassessment, fema did, and with the construction going on all around us, well, more rooftops, more clearing. That creates more runoff and our creeks fill up more quickly. So gotta be careful about that. You know, you guys, you gotta. If you got these campers on these creeks and everything, we're in the summertime, we're getting ready to get into our rainy season, right right so, where it rains every day up until about august 20th, dog days coming.

Speaker 2: 43:14

Dog days are coming, yep, and that's one of the reasons they call it the Smoky Mountains. Yep, we create that moisture and that humidity gets built up around 3, 4 o'clock. Boom, here we go. It's like Costa Rica.

Speaker 3: 43:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:31

It really is similar. It's very similar, yeah, which I very much like. Like you guys, it makes for a perfect time for a siesta. I'm kidding, I don't have any time to be able to take a siesta anymore.

Speaker 2: 43:43

But man, is it nice when you can. You can get on your front porch. My neighbor I was just getting ready to talk about, he's got a really nice couch on his front porch. It's one of these wide mouth couches and so you can get like two or three people up on this thing. It's just giant. So his porch has got a lovely couch on it and that's right in the city here, randy. So you know you find yourself with a good couch. I need to take a commercial. You guys, we've got a new commercial, a new commercial right randy, yeah, let's go on.

Speaker 3: 44:19

Hannity, let's uh check the weather forecasting and uh sean hannity's yeah let's listen to that for a minute, all right, all right from the 570 weather center.

Speaker 4: 44:28

This is your weather channel forecast straight showers of thunderstorms pretty much on the docket through the weekend and to open up the work week now we will see. Otherwise run it up to the upper 80s Tonight slight chance for a shower or thunderstorm for the evening partly cloudy overnight, low 66. Sunday mostly sunny, slight chance for a shower or thunderstorm later in the day with a high of 86, and then a stray shower or thunderstorm. Monday partly sunny, high right around 85. Jeff Eno from the Weather Channel, our iHeartRadio Music Festival Presented by Capital One.

Speaker 5: 44:59

Coming back to Las Vegas September 20th and 21st. Streaming live only on Hulu. Don't miss Big Sean, camila Cabello, doja Cat, gwen Stefani, hosier, keith Urban, new Kids on the Block, paramore, shaboosie, the Black Crows, thomas Rhett, victoria Monet and more. Get tickets to our 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, right now, before they sell out at AXScom.

Speaker 6: 45:25

Hey, sean Hannity here talking with the only real estate agent in your market. I recommend Rowena Patton with All Star Powerhouse.

Speaker 7: 45:35

What kind of programs do you offer? You know, Sean, thank you for that question. Have you heard of the cash CPO offer? Lots of people just don't want to go through that hassle of preparing their home or anything else. This brings you a cash offer full market cash offer right away and you don't have to go through those showings. Of course, if you want any of us to do a traditional, old-fashioned listing, we're more than happy to do that. It certainly is worth your while checking out this offer up front and then you take away all the hassle.

Speaker 6: 46:09

Great update. Thank you for keeping us informed. Call Rowena Patton right now at 828-333-4483 or online at mountainhomehuntcom. That's mountainhomehuntcom and you can start packing.

Speaker 1: 46:25

This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with Rowena Patton on NewsRadio 570-WWNC.

Speaker 5: 46:33

You get a shiver in the dark.

Speaker 6: 46:35

it's raining in the park, but meantime sound of the river, you stop and you hold everything.

Speaker 2: 46:48

All right, welcome back everybody to the Real Estate News Radio. We really appreciate you listening, you guys. You can always find us on our podcast at realestatenewsradiocom realestatenewsradiocom there you can go and listen to us. For the past what 12 years we've been providing Saturday at 10 o'clock, a little bit about our real estate here in the western North Carolina. We call it the plain English real estate because Rowena, our leader she is quite incredible. We've had close to 4,000 transactions here in western North Carolina between our team and so we've got the area covered pretty well. We've done a little bit of selling in Western North Carolina with our team here, all-star Powerhouse. Now, of course I appreciate everybody listening out there and I know my realtors are listening because you tell me you're listening, so that's kind of fun.

Speaker 2: 47:56

I think you would agree with me that our market is just. It's just right in the middle. We're sort of a selling, still a selling market in downtown Asheville and, of course, buncombe County Most of Buncombe County is right on the line and then in other areas it's turning into a buyer market and some say the shift is going more quickly than others. But we are definitely in a shift. You know it used to be super strong, that we were in a seller's market and so you could put your house on the market and, man, 30 days later you're done. Nowadays we're finding, you know, from list to close, it's about 78 days, which was on par with what we did last year as well, so a little bit more time going on there. Days on market have increased just a tad bit, and so we're making it a lot easier for folks, though we still have the ability to come in and really help you when you go into your home to sell it. You've been living there a while and these things are comfortable to you and you love them, right? It's nice to have somebody like Patrick come in and, hey, listen, you don't have to do a thing, but I'll give you some ideas, and I don't insult, I don't do it like that.

Speaker 2: 49:28

I try to paint a picture from someone that's coming in, knowing what the market's looking for right now. And so if you've got a house and it's got a thousand different colors from the 80s, maybe you're working this deep red color that you see here for my following along on Facebook. Maybe you've got that in your dining room, which was very popular for many, many years to have that red dining room. You know that blood red, dark setting. Maybe we paint that white, even just white. You guys, a lot of loud colors. Let's let people see the home and not the colors on the wall.

Speaker 2: 50:09

Maybe we thin the house out. You know coming into a bunch of stuff. Let's thin it out. Let's get us one of those pods, let's load it out. Let's get us one of those pods, let's load it up and let's pay a couple of months of storage on that stuff until we find our new place or get it on over to our new place.

Speaker 2: 50:25

If we've already done that and thin out the house, don't put it in the garage, don't load that garage up. Although, if that's what you got to do, let's at least do that. Although, if that's what you got to do, let's at least do that. Clean that house up as best you can. I went into a home this past week. It just was they had emptied it out, but they didn't come in and even half vacuum the carpet, much less clean it. Stuff's still all over the counters like food particles and sticky stuff. Come on, guys, let's at least wash off the countertop anyway.

Speaker 2: 51:00

Just saying, if you're going to be listening to home in this, in this market that we're transitioning into, uh, and in a lot of areas all over the united states we've got it's totally a buyer's market. So we're, you know, an area that we haven't really experienced in quite a while and that's just where it's level the market not doing it as far as the interest rate market not really doing anything up and down, we're getting right down to the sixes, which is starting to pull some people off the fence. So for my people that do have listings out there maybe you've been sitting around a minute Folks are starting some people off the fence. So for my people that do have listings out there maybe you've been sitting around a minute folks are starting to come off the fence a little bit, especially if it gets to six and a little bit below, I think it will crank up a couple more of these buyers, but they're still looking for a deal, you guys. So if it's not a deal, they want a clean, ready to go home, and so let's look at that. Let's have me out.

Speaker 2: 52:02

I really appreciate you guys letting me entertain your year here this morning on the radio show realestatenewsradioshowcom, and remember that you can go to mountainhomehuntcom, you guys, and there you can get the values of your home. You can see product. You just type in your email address. Give us a phone number, we'll go ahead and send you out every listing. You can manipulate it, make it however you want on the searches. You can make it as frequent as you want. You can just come into our website and check it out every once in a while.

Speaker 2: 52:35

But I do want to thank Rowena Patton for giving me the opportunity to be on air with you today at the Real Estate News Radio Show and I want to thank you, my listeners and my friends and my family for coming along with this venture with me today. And if you're thinking about selling your home, give me a call. My name's Patrick Franzen. My telephone number is 864-420-2247 in South Carolina and then in North Carolina it's 828-989-9568. I would love to chit chat with you Now. Of course you can always find me over there at mountainhomehuntcom and you can go to allstarpowerhousecom as well. Thank you, my friends, for listening. It's been a beautiful day, go out and help somebody today and I love you.

Speaker 1: 53:35

This has been the Plain English Real Estate Show with Rowena Patton. Visit Rowena and post your questions at RadioAshevillecom or call her at 828-210-1648.