Asheville's Alluring Properties and Painting Your Home for Success

Stepping into Rowena Patton's shoes, I, Patrick Franzen, bring you a whirlwind tour of real estate landscapes and laugh lines. Starting with a smooth sip of coffee nostalgia, this episode of the Plain English Real Estate Show is your ticket to uncovering Asheville's hidden growth treasures, alongside the quirky tales of my former life as a coffee shop connoisseur. Get ready to discuss the ins and outs of property selling, where our Certified Pre-Owned program and mountainhomehunt.com shine as beacons for those navigating the market waters.

I've got hair-raising stories (literally), from ear hair escapades to the significance of a single dark wall in a sea of white paint when preparing to sell your home. With years of experience since 2006 under my belt, I dissect the current market adjustments and hand over the palette of trending colors that could make your property the next hot listing, without breaking the bank. Buncombe County's real estate pulse and a 176-acre gem near Black Mountain get a moment in the spotlight, exemplifying the diverse opportunities that Western North Carolina offers.

This episode isn't all business and brush strokes; we whisk you away to the natural beauty of Costa Rica's rainforests and the heartwarming stories from Camp Woody. Back on home soil, we explore why Asheville's history and charm cast a spell on the likes of the Vanderbilts, making it a magnet for home-seekers and investors. As your guide, I extend our gratitude for letting us fill your weekend with tales and tips, hoping to inspire your next chapter in the picturesque Western North Carolina.

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 0:23

Alright, good morning. Patrick Fransen, here standing in for the wonderful Miss Rowena Patton this wonderful Saturday. You know we're on every Saturday 10.05 am. Come on over and listen to us. Go ahead and program it into your AM and FM radio buttons there, dial us in. I hope you old guys are having a great day today. Me and Randy are. It's nice and sunshiney here in the station, isn't it?

Speaker 3 0:52

It always is when you got a coffee pot nearby, right Patrick's, my fellow coffee addict.

Speaker 2 0:57

Yeah, man, we drink some coffee around here. You know, speaking of coffee, that's funny. I've got this delicious coffee. You know, I used to run a couple of coffee shops. I owned a couple of 101 O'Spresso Bar got out of that in 2018, thank goodness, Goodness, it about broke me as far as waking up early and oh man, but do? I love coffee? And in doing that I discovered this delicious coffee. And I'm not even trying to promote them or anything, but they're great. It's Phoenix Roasters in Lawrenceville, georgia. Okay.

Speaker 3 1:29

Phoenix.

Speaker 2 1:30

Roasters. It's the smoothest, most buttery coffee you've ever had.

Speaker 3 1:34

Oh, you done got me.

Speaker 2 1:36

Buttery, yummy, and you don't have to put a bunch of coffee in your pot, you just yeah, it's the real deal, phoenix. I'll get you some.

Speaker 3 1:44

Oh yeah, I will too. Thank you, it is buttery yummy, I love that.

Speaker 2 1:48

And so good coffee is on due and I've got some in my cup right here. I would share it with you, but can't. Yeah, so we're. We're covering real estate today, yeah, realestatenewsradiocom. So if you need to schedule us out, come check us out there. If you've got any questions for us, if you're local here in Asheville, north Carolina, which is where we broadcast out of, give us a call. It's 828-240-9962. Give us a call. We'll talk about some real estate or whatever you want to talk about. Just give me a call. We'll chit chat on any of the questions that you want to go to our website there at realestatenewsradiocom. You can also send over some questions there too. But we've captured the CPOexpertscom program. You guys here in Asheville, north Carolina Actually, rowena is the founder of, of Creating CPOexperts and and it goes and delves into a whole lot you guys, we've got CPOexperts all over the country.

Speaker 2 2:57

So if you've got friends or family or somebody that needs some help with getting rid of a piece of property that maybe they don't want to list it, maybe they're in health issues or whatever and they need to cash out, you've got that cash CPOexpertcom program and you can certainly go on over there and check that out at CPOexpertscom and there you'll find everything you need as far as whatever situation you might be and say, for instance, if you're going through a divorce or possibly you're going to a retirement center or whatever it is the reason you need to be selling your property. You can certainly check out that website there and and find out everything about the cash CPO program. Now, of course, if you're looking for a home, we've got mountainhomehuntcom too. You can go check out any property you would like throughout the United States there and search for your property here in in Asheville as well. Just type in in the search and it will bring you into. You know what's my home worth, what you're selling? You can get to the radio show there. You can buy.

Speaker 2 4:07

There's all kinds of careers here that we have at All-Star Powerhouse. So if you're an agent and you're thinking about possibly finding somebody that provides a ton of leads for our our agents, check us out over at All-Star Powerhouse. It's a phenomenal team that we have and would certainly love to chit chat. I know we've got a lot of agents that listen into the radio show, so I appreciate you guys. It's a beautiful town but man is this.

Speaker 2 4:33

This whole Western North Carolina area is really starting to explode. We're starting to get our roads dialed in and and continue to do some really good growth here in Asheville. I think we've got some good planning going on All of Western North Carolina really. It really is, you know, and even going up towards Tennessee, and I know we don't have a whole lot of Tennessee listeners, but we sure do have them coming into our website and checking out for property in the Asheville area and it's because of what we offer here and what the draw is. So, yeah, with this good coffee this morning, you know, I saw in the what is it? The Biltmore Express? They're talking about this new rail project.

Speaker 3 5:16

Trying to bring rail service, passenger rail service back to Asheville and Western North Carolina. I hope they succeed. I really would like to be able to go into downtown Asheville and hop on a train and wind up in Atlanta or Charlotte and connect with the rails, with Amtrak everywhere, and Amtrak is a part of this restoration effort.

Speaker 2 5:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's where the money comes from now. Locally, we'll have to come up with 10% once they come up with the, with the government going with our program here, but we're pretty high on the list from what I understand. Yeah.

Speaker 3 5:57

I think so, I think so.

Speaker 2 5:58

When they took rail service from us. And what was that? 75? It's somewhere, yeah. Somewhere around there. It was just it didn't make any sense. Since you couldn't come up salute, a grade which is coming up from Spartanburg Couldn't take that route to go anymore. It just didn't make sense to go all the way to Salisbury and then all the way to Atlanta from there Just extra two, three hours on your trip.

Speaker 3 6:22

Yeah, and I was talking to my dad, as I was telling you before we went on the air. He spent a career with Norfolk Southern Railway and he, you know, kind of put it in simple terms. He says the railroad figured out that it was cheaper to divert trains at Spartanburg and send them to Knoxville and all points west than it was to come through the mountains of North Carolina. It took more fuel, more maintenance to the tracks, et cetera. More trains, more trains et cetera.

Speaker 2 6:54

More crews.

Speaker 3 6:55

Yeah, so they figured that out in the 70s. It kind of cut us off, cut us off.

Speaker 2 7:00

It really did, it just stuck us over there. Yeah, didn't give us any way out.

Speaker 3 7:04

Yeah, and there's a good, strong effort to fix that now and I hope in my lifetime I get to see it $650 million Somewhere right around there, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:14

And I hope to sort of. You know, the problem is is Going through Old Fort and all those curvy, yeah, areas. You know, high speed can't slow down to go 10 miles an hour around some of those curves and that's one of the issues they're having to put in new bridges, new, new ways to get around those curves. But the rail line, you guys, when I was a kid I got to ride it and boy, oh boy, is it the most beautiful ride you've ever taken on that rail ride.

Speaker 3 7:41

You have taken the S curves up.

Speaker 2 7:43

Oh yeah, my brother is, yeah, my brother's Big time in the trains. He has a little scenic railroad up in West Virginia which is kind of fun. It's called the Potomac Eagle. Okay, we'll shout out for this on the Potomac River and you ride in the train and eat dinner and watch Eagles. Come on, I'm not kidding, come on. It's only two hours to Washington DC From where he is, from where he is in West Virginia, and it's just as beautiful as you could, it's not like the Potomac in DC, if you've ever seen it there.

Speaker 2 8:15

Oh, but yeah, I know it's beautiful. Bunch of kayakers, activity everywhere, cute little town, romney, west Virginia. Yeah, I would have never known, but yeah, he started doing that about. I guess it's been seven years ago or something. And it's a fun thing, man. They do this really fancy dinner on the train.

Speaker 3 8:35

That sounds so good.

Speaker 2 8:36

Isn't it? Yeah, I know it's nice.

Speaker 3 8:38

You got all kinds of Christmas time. They do a special Santa train.

Speaker 2 8:41

Yeah, they do a Santa train in Christmas and yes, the Potomac Eagle railroad, and Certainly go check that out. What a great little little town to go visit in West Virginia in the summertime. For sure Go ride the train, get to see some beautiful outdoors.

Speaker 3 8:57

It's nice, and of course our our friends out to the west here in North Carolina, western Carolina, bryson City and Great Smoky Mountains Railway still operating every day and they also do the Santa trains and dinner trains, etc. I've I've been on that one a couple of times and it's a great ride. The I guess it's the Hawassie River yeah, I see in kayakers and yeah, that's a fun. The old movie scene, yes, where the fugitive with oh yeah, somebody yeah, somebody. I can't remember his name right now, but they filmed the fugitive there.

Speaker 2 9:34

It's a cool little rubber and my brother rebuilt that steam engine a couple of times really. He was actually Whatever you call a CEO that railroad for a while. But yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got the train action here, but not enough, that's right. We want more. I'm glad they converted the rails to trails, necessarily, but I sure would have loved to see enough train there as well exactly Everyone in Henderson County and Transylvania County is so excited about the acoustic trail.

Speaker 3 10:05

Yeah, it's under construction. Now some, what is that like? 12? 19, 19 miles between. So they're working on the first phase now and It'll be open soon so yeah, I agree, I love the rails to trails and that's great repurposing of existing property. The Virginia creeper comes to mind over there, bristol. Yeah, that's highly popular.

Speaker 2 10:32

Well, salute is gonna have them a creeper, exactly. That's pretty soon.

Speaker 3 10:36

That's underway to up and down the salute of great all the way down into Spartanburg County, yeah, so yeah, a lot of activity here going on with our railroad system.

Speaker 2 10:47

If they don't do the high-speed rail well then that makes you wonder what in the world is going to go on with that railroad. It's, I don't know, it's no folks other than right now Certainly, would love for them to bring in a short line track and, yeah, and bring us some tourism. Yeah, yeah with the train ride.

Speaker 3 11:05

The proposed track is trek is Asheville to Salisbury and then hook up there. They I don't know they still have a big roundhouse in Salisbury. That was a big roundhouse, yeah, big museum and yeah.

Speaker 2 11:18

I haven't been there in a while, but you can now. Well, if they go through the train thing, it'll be 2035, when that was supposed to be finished 2035.

Speaker 3 11:28

Yeah, 2035 11 years from now 11 years, 11 short years. Yes.

Speaker 2 11:33

So we'll be able to go to Wilmington on the train.

Speaker 3 11:37

Yeah, raleigh, charlotte, wilmington all points easy to go to Moorhead City Now.

Speaker 2 11:42

Have you ever been to Moorhead? I've been to.

Speaker 3 11:43

Moorhead City, where bald men congregate once a year for the Moorhead Convention. You get it right.

Real Estate and Home Selling Tips

Speaker 2 11:58

About Moorhead, the Moorhead convention. Yes, yes, I understand that, as I'm starting to get into my silver days, you know it's. It's kind of fun Getting older and experiencing hair loss. What I want to know is where all the hair come with your ears. I never had any problem my ears, but but, some reason I'm growing fur on my ears and my eyebrows.

Speaker 3 12:31

They go crazy.

Speaker 2 12:31

Yeah what's up with the eyebrows.

Speaker 3 12:32

Yeah, the lady cuts my hair. She's need to trim those eyebrows. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2 12:38

Well, you know, I was taking that hair growth pill, right, so I don't even know what the long word is, but anyway, starts with an F.

Speaker 3 12:46

Finasteride okay, yeah, I've milligrams.

Speaker 2 12:50

So my hair didn't grow on top of my head, but it starts shooting down my ears, my back. I don't know what's that all about. Oh goodness, yeah, real estate to do that to you, to make your hair grow make you lose your hair, grow white yeah grow white, but it's fun. Man, I've been doing real estate for since 2006. That's a lot. Yeah, you're approaching 20 years. Yeah it's. It's been quite a ride. I've seen almost everything. I think I bet you I bet you guys have.

Speaker 3 13:22

And in your office at the powerhouse real estate agency, you guys have seen, have seen everything collectively. There's no question you guys can't answer.

Speaker 2 13:33

Well, rowena's done over 3600 transactions, and that's just incredible.

Speaker 3 13:40

And that's every combination of weirdness there is. I'm sure she's encountered in it.

Speaker 2 13:45

Yeah, I know that I listen to her quite often. I'm gonna tell you, ask her any kind of questions. She's got a very good answer for it. Yes, quite amazing. It's funny how experience will do that for you. That's right. She's also seen it all and I'm glad she's taking a little break this morning, relax a little bit. She's been hustling lately. You guys, I'll tell you it's. It's fun writing a book. She's just now finished her CPO experts Book and getting that out. I think we just got the big box in this week, so got to unbox her new book and got to be there and and experience that. That was a good time.

Speaker 3 14:24

The last one went bestseller immediately, and this one is on Amazon now. It's now listed on Amazon.

Speaker 2 14:33

Good, good, well, we're ready to see, see other agents and folks you know. Examine that, because in there you can find out. With this book, you guys, you can sort of strategize on how you're going to Sell or buy or how you're going to take your next real estate step or maybe it might be your family member, you know, with our CPO program you can go into all kinds of different type of real estate transactions and we cover pretty much all of them with the CPO experts comm. It's. It's a program to where, if you're again, if you're in a divorce situation and you're wanting to, you know, just get out of the home quickly so that you can go ahead and finalize that, that chapter of your life, then, yeah, give us a check out.

Speaker 2 15:24

You can go over to CPO experts comm and check on the options button and it's got all kinds of everything from heroes to short-term rental, cpo, retirement, cpo, estate CPO, even bank CPO. We've got builder, cpo, comm, foreclosure, assisted living, and there you can sort of go in depth To know what this program is all about. You get a cash offer. You take the stress out of selling. It's kind of the way real estate sort of transforming ready. You know you see all these other competitors out there Making cash off, cash offer for your house. Well, this program is a little bit different. It gives you an option to be able to participate in the profits when an investor comes in and purchases your home. So it's it's quite a Healer for some folks and Taking them out of the process and they're Not having to deal with Opening the door, cleaning the house, getting all the junk out of their hoarder, their hoarder situation They've got. Anyway, it's a fantastic program.

Speaker 2 16:37

If you go to CPO, experts, comm, you can find an agent. We've got the plans there also for agents from agents out there and It'll express, express the what you would really need to do to get your home listed. You know, you want to appraise at home, you want to know what it's worth, you want to have a professional's opinion of of the value. Nothing like going in there and overpricing your home and then having to do the you know the little game of reducing your price. And I haven't gotten any traffic or whatever it may be. If you're getting lots of traffic on your home and you've got a home for sale and it's not selling, it's probably because it's price too high and it needs some work or something. Who knows. But with this cash CPO program, they'll come in and Take care of the home, clothes and within 12 days, if you'd like, or four months, whatever your timeline is it, it'll work with you.

Speaker 2 17:37

But you go in, you get an appraisal, you get an inspection, you get a home warranty. The inspection gives you the ability to know what's going on with your home. Now, of course, we always feel like we know what's going on. Yeah, I need to clean out the gutters, or it needs a downspout here and there, or it needs a paint job, or it needs the mold and mildew washed off the side of the house. You know, you may want to Not have to go through all that and let the the team over it CPO experts, we we get that taken care of for you if there's any repairs and it makes sense, then you've got the equity in your home to be able to pay for it. They'll go ahead and add that on to the program.

Speaker 2 18:19

Get those repairs done, get it back to market, to where you don't have to go through the frustrating price reductions and you know, Get your home all dressed up and and having to get ready for the showing, put the dogs up, get the kids out, whatever it may be in your situation you know, maybe you're an older person it's just hard to get out of the house. Yeah, we'll get that taken care of for you with that cash CPO program. I always suggest going ahead and getting an inspection. You guys, it's just a part of it. Getting the inspection Figure out what's up with your house. The real estate agent's great and all, but they don't know what's going on with their house and the bones. They know what the market's doing around you and what it can sell for. Yeah, no problem, and they've got some ideas and can give you some suggestions, especially if it's obvious. You know, if you've got a lake in your front yard every time it rains and your bus basement floods, well there might be an issue there. I know somebody can help you there and anyway, it's a kind of a way to get you ready for the market and not have to go through the frustration.

Speaker 2 19:26

But if you're going to be selling your home with whoever, whatever, get an inspection, provide a home warranty, do an appraisal, know what the market's doing. You know, I had a house last year that it appraised for 450 last March and today it appraised for I think it was 387. I had an appraisal in hand for 440. And then I had one for 387. That was recently done and it's kind of disappointing because it was more than six months old. The appraisal couldn't really argue with it that much. But that's a big discrepancy when it drops that much. So you definitely want to get an idea what the value is. You want to know what's going on around you when you sell your home and not go through any kind of surprises. So it's well worth the dollars spent, you guys. And with the cash CPO program they can't take care of that appraisal, they take care of the inspection, they take care of that home warranty. So you're not. If you choose you can, you can pay for it all. But if you choose that program can pay for all that to really get those answers when we go to market and sell your home. And with the inspection then we've got great repair people that will come in and get your home taken care of and we've sort of figured out a lot of the really good ones and we've really found out the pricing. It sort of bounces all around. So you want to look at pricing, you want to check out and see what those contractors out there can do the best deal for the job, putting that new deck in, or maybe it's just fixed in the front door area.

Speaker 2 21:07

You guys, you wouldn't believe how many times I fall off of a step because it's wobbly. And you're trying to sell this house and we got the front step about the fall off. Ah man, that'd be tough, that's tough. You know you can't even get into the house to see it. So, getting a home ready for sale, give us a call over at All-Star, we can come in, give you some ideas, walk through the home, give you an idea of maybe what you could do to the home to help spruce it up. Now everybody's got an idea. You know, I just had someone recently show the house and it was all freshly painted. But it was freshly painted bright blue, bright green, bright yellow. I was like, you know, some folks don't, they just don't want to feel that bright in their home, you know.

Speaker 2 22:00

But it was all fresh and brand new flooring in there. That was this really red oak looking flooring.

Speaker 3 22:08

So it's orangey.

Real Estate Market Trends and Listings

Speaker 2 22:11

Man, you talking about something that was just abrupt. Yeah, it was all cleans, all fresh and just doesn't look that Appealing to most of the population. You know folks right now want to. They just want to move in.

Speaker 3 22:26

Yeah, and they want to. I would imagine, like white cream, beige ivory, so they can do their own decorating.

Speaker 2 22:34

Well, if you're gonna be, I Suggest going with as much white as you can to show and brighten and lighten a home, and then that gives someone a Blank palette right they can go in and they can paint whatever they want, but with the white it makes it bright and you can see it.

Speaker 2 22:54

That is a suggestion often make. But then I've also made suggestions to go with a dark wall, because it was, everything was white, it was just one big giant, you know. So, hey, maybe we get our designers that we use over at CPO experts to give us some colors that are really popular right now. That'll help pull that that intrigue with the home, you know yeah make that want value more.

Speaker 2 23:16

A lot of times it doesn't increase the value too terribly much when you go in and do all these repairs. So talk to us first before you do them. Maybe it's not a good idea right now to go and put that big $80,000 kitchen in right now. Let's just hold off because the market's sort of falling backwards. Right, prices have been reduced a little bit. It's sort of adjusting. We're getting used to seven percent Mortgage rates, mortgage rates right now and everybody's sort of swallowing that. And I'm seeing great activity here locally. You know, compared to 2000 and what was it? 2023, in January we had around 230 homes sold and that had increased this year by a certain percentage. Here in Buncombe County and definitely in the Hendersonville and some of the other Surrounding areas, it's been a little less percentage wise, but you know we had an uptick in sales in January here. So the the whole issue still, you guys, is product. Yeah, there's product out there, but it's a house falling in for $350,000.

Speaker 2 24:22

Wow you know, and it needs repair. Yeah, they probably did a little bit of something, but it's priced at 400 and it probably needs to be priced at 325 and they can get the 400 is what's so crazy. Still in this market we're at about 94 percent on what the offer is versus the asking price got you. So it's tapered off versus maybe two years ago when we were at a hundred and five percent, you know, of asking price. We're paying these people more money than just to be able to get it now. I've still been running into that. If it's a nice property, an old farmhouse, it's priced right. You know they're seeing all kind of. I'm running into it down in Cane Creek. I did this past week twice. They're flying off the shelves down there. If you've got something in Cane Creek, shine it up a little bit, get your value so you can get the money for it. But those properties there or Just I can't even get anything down there.

Speaker 3 25:24

It's a beautiful area. I've lived in South Bunkham for a hundred years now and Often just travel Cane Creek over to Fairview. Just that beautiful ride in those Mountains. It, cane Creek is gorgeous.

Speaker 2 25:40

Oh, cane Creek, the Fairview, and then even over to you know I like to cut the back wheel roads, I can't even think of them right now, but you would probably know these roads but going over and even highway nine, I've got a huge, huge, beautiful, most wonderful piece of property over there.

Speaker 3 25:58

I saw that on your Facebook post. 176 acres is that right.

Speaker 2 26:03

Yes and it's priced beautifully. Man under $11,000 an acre, so it's 10. I don't know 10, 750 per acre. So it's priced beautifully 176, just fantastic acres. It could be developed. I've had several folks looking at it and I've heard everything from short-term rental, little cabins. It's got all these 360 degree hilltops all over this property. It's already got the roads cut in for logging and and Fired roads and that kind of thing in this piece of property. But it's right off of highway nine and Black Mountain and it's just phenomenal. Other big tracks around there. There's a Catawba Creek, which is a neighborhood right around the corner, and their million dollar houses in there.

Speaker 3 26:50

Wow, it's a beautiful area. Oh man, this piece of property is just phenomenal follow highway nine on down into Lake Lure and Jimmy Rock in the spot where you feel like you're sort of out in the woods. Yeah, I can, there's a line there that goes from.

Speaker 2 27:05

Yeah, you're in the woods but you can kind of see other houses or whatever. Now, this piece of property you got all these have these mountain tops that are on it. You don't see other houses at all, but you see chimney rock, you see Little Pizca, you see even Mount Mitchell and all the other little bear wall. But what is it? Bear wall? A mountain? Yeah, you can see that from there. So it's a phenomenal piece of property. I've been enjoying going out and riding around. It takes about three hours to go around 176 acres, yeah, and it doesn't have. It's about five miles of roads on this piece of property.

Speaker 3 27:42

Wow.

Speaker 2 27:43

Yeah, it's, it's a great listing. At one point nine, it's pretty phenomenal. I was up on the parkway and I mean my girlfriend Teresa we were Over just went up the parkway and then it was closed because they had some ice and whatever the day before. So we just pulled off and I can't remember what legs up there. But I mean we found this trail still in the park and Went marching up that thing and we came to a clearing, randy, two acres In the Sun. We sat, we laid on it was grass all cut like Well man.

Speaker 2 28:22

So I'm like wow, this is absolutely beautiful. So I got a really cool lap on my phone. I said I gotta see what this is, what ends up being a lot that's for sale. Really, I just laughed.

Speaker 2 28:34

I said you know I can't get away from real estate, but it's right on the park, it's right, united States of America land, right next to you and you know. Then it's right down to the, the parkway, about a half mile down the little curvy road, right onto it. You don't have to go anyway, you're right there on it. You're on the park With this piece of property. They had bought it for two and a half million dollars. It's ten acres and it's on the market for one point, seven, nine five. Right now it just seems like a deal. They bought it in 2007, so it gives you an idea of Right. Before you know it was, we were cranking out houses. Market was going crazy in 2007.

Speaker 2 29:20

Yep, yeah, and boy, did we get a false adrenaline. Now we're not in that situation right now.

Speaker 3 29:26

No way.

Speaker 2 29:27

We were far away from from being there. But the market has declined and you know there's an economic cycle that we go through and Clima, who Glor came up with in the 1860, and we go through these cycles. So we're definitely seeing some price drops. We've still got a high demand in our area, but in other areas I'm starting to see in here that you can find some stuff. That's been the price has been dropping. But boy oh boy, just as soon as I start getting a lot of land listings Land is moving.

Speaker 3 30:03

People are out there buying lots and there's plenty of land and no matter what you might think, see or hear, we've plenty of land here for sale.

Speaker 2 30:12

Yeah man, I've got this lot over in high Hickory and it's just phenomenal. It's a beautiful, really close to the entrance, across from where all the the neighborhood farm is. You know They've got this. All the greens and the vegetables and all the neighbors contribute and get in there and work it and Community garden.

Speaker 3 30:34

Yeah, where's high? What did you say?

Speaker 2 30:35

It's over off of highway 70 going and towards swananoa.

Speaker 3 30:40

Okay, and high Hickory high Hickory.

Speaker 2 30:42

Okay yeah, and just had three lots selling the neighborhood recently. So my, my seller, she's owned it for quite a while. She had bought it for an investment, her and her husband, years ago and you know she put it up on the market here. So we've just come to market, they've gotten some cells out there, a lot of activity with a lot of builders coming into the neighborhood. So we're we're excited, had another, another one up in mountain air.

Speaker 3 31:11

It's a county.

Speaker 2 31:11

Oh yeah, you can't see man, and how beautiful is it up there. Man, they've got an airstrip with a country club up there.

Speaker 3 31:18

I've flown out of that airstrip. Oh is it scary. It's you just kind of float off. And you just it's amazing Now the landing, I didn't do flew to Johnson City and drove back to. I can't remember it was 100 years ago, but you know when you're a rockabut and landing strip above it, I was not looking forward to the landing on that.

Speaker 2 31:46

Yeah, man, it's like trying to land in Alaska. Or, let's see, I was in Costa Rica and they would take these, this little airline there, ceta, s-i-t-a and Scana, I think was the other two competing airlines. But that's how you got all around Costa Rica, man, little planes. And I thought about here, you know, too bad, we don't have a taxi service here. You know, you can get on a plane for cheap and go over to Charlotte and do it quickly, and you know, and there you go, walk into the airport, get you a ticket, fly into San Jose or whatever. Boom, I had to go pick up a friend. We were in a house or whatever. I just went to go help him. So I flew to San Jose, got on the plane 24 bucks, boom, flew over there, helped him get back. You know, oh man, costa Rica is cool man.

Speaker 3 32:39

Oh, I love going to Costa Rica. I did the zip lining in Costa Rica. It's gorgeous, oh man, gorgeous.

Exploring Costa Rica's Natural Wonders

Speaker 2 32:46

And you just go for like a mile too. Yeah, You're zipping forever. Awesome man. The national parks there, Antonio Manuel, name of one of their, their first national park, and there you can go find sloths and you know.

Speaker 3 33:04

Yeah, yeah. Really cool birds everywhere talking to you when you were zip lining through the rainforest. Really, you were zip lining through the rainforest and you're up there at the top of the trees with the sloths and the bright-naked colored birds and they all just kind of wave at you as you go by.

Speaker 2 33:26

You know, man, I happen to stay in this castle and I got lucky. I did a fundraiser or whatever and they were auctioning off a week down there and anyway I got lucky and got the auction. Whatever won the auction and it was for Camp Woody. I don't I miss this, but this camp puts on for disabled kids and you know, post-traumatic syndrome Kids that can't do go out, and they go out and shoot guns and they put them in blinds and go out and do like Duck Hunt and I don't know man. It just gives, you know, somebody that's in a wheelchair, that's never experienced that, always sitting inside whatever, being able to go out with this Camp Woody down in South Carolina.

Speaker 2 34:10

So anyway, it was a fundraiser for that and we picked up this trip and I took eight of my friends and we went down there and just had the best time at Costa Rica man, I bet Went fishing. They had a marina right there, brand new, had a great fishing trip, went out In Costa Rica. You want to go out in the morning time because that's when it's all sunny and everything, and then in the afternoon they get the rain.

Speaker 2 34:33

And then it goes away. Everybody else kind of comes out, you know. But when I say rain, I mean it's like buckets and the ditches there are like 10 foot deep just to accommodate the flood that's coming at you. Then it's gone. It's about an hour, hour and a half every afternoon and then you go take your siesta and then it's on. Come on back out and it's a siesta Right.

Speaker 2 34:59

But I loved it. Little town there, capos that we went to the church, you know is in the center of town, right and but the church is where all the activity was. So the Zumba class was going on, or whatever, you know, the fitness class, and when we were walking by there, everybody in their grandma, quite literally everybody in their grandma, their kids, man, women, whatever were out there doing this exercise, doing the Zumba. I just thought it was great. The whole town came in and it's all under the shelter, you know, because it rains every day. They have big shelters there, so it's a basketball court, but all the walls are open and it was just great community sense. And you know, then you walk down the road and you're on the beach, you know, right in the middle of town.

Speaker 2 35:47

Banana trees everywhere. Oh man and the monkeys. Every morning I woke up, they'd have these golden monkeys come down and the monkeys run up, tap on the window and wave at you KVG, yeah, you got anything what you got cooking there. Get up time together. They've run across the roof. There's no sleeping in, unfortunately. Necessarily, you get woken up, for sure because of the critters, the monkeys on the roof. Yeah, but the big black monkeys too. They had those everywhere and they would come and sit on the columns of this big castle we were at.

Speaker 3 36:18

We had our own security guard and everything. The way. The trip I made was on a cruise ship, A cruise ship docked there and we did a day excursion to the zip lining and I could tell that I would want to go back and spend more time in Costa Rica, man every day was just the most wonderful day.

Speaker 2 36:42

I mean, one day we went surfing, and so you know I'm not a very good surfer, right? So anyway, man, I get up, we get five boards, five chairs, three umbrellas. I think it was 38 bucks or something.

Speaker 3 36:57

Wow.

Speaker 2 36:58

All day long and you know you got 100 people coming up wouldn't you to rent their boards or whatever? And you get to a spot. We had this great spot and I was on a beach where the waves were crazy About every 10th one was a giant wave like 10 foot, 15 foot wave, and I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3 37:17

That's big.

Speaker 2 37:18

Oh, they're monster and they're all kinds of rocks underneath it. So, yeah, it's not like our Sandy.

Speaker 3 37:23

Myrtle beach here. Yeah, I noticed that about the beach it is rock splattered.

Speaker 2 37:28

Right. So, man, I get up on this big wave, randy, and it was more than I could handle. It was like going off the big dive, you know what I mean? I'm up there man.

Speaker 2 37:37

And I'd like to say I was hanging 10. But man, I wasn't hanging 10. I just got up there and I couldn't handle it. It was way up too far. So I fall out of this thing, Get crushed with the wave man, Smash round, drag around. Whew, there's some real waves there. Baby, the four foot wave, no problem, I got you. I got you, I can hold that. But this 10 foot, 15 foot wave, that would come through. Well, what I got explained, what would happen? That these two islands out there islands in the stream right, so a big wave whenever it came from the big ocean would cut into that about every 20th wave 10th to 20th wave.

Speaker 2 38:21

One would get through those islands, but most of the time the islands would cut the waves off and then they would start up again. Got you? Not this one? You're a big one. I happened to pick the one that was the granddaddy of all man. I came out of there. I looked like I'd been through the washing machine in the spin cycle, forever crawling out of there and everybody's having so much fun. You don't really pay attention to it. But it almost got me Randy. I thought I was a goner man, it was true. I put the board up. After that. It was like all right time to go for the fiesta, right?

Speaker 3 38:56

I'm alive.

Speaker 2 38:57

I made it, oh, but man, we went hiking a bunch of times. Costa Rica's the place to go. I know you guys have heard Rowena talk about Costa Rica. She had gone down there and gotten some teeth taken care of and, man, it was a whole lot less expensive down there.

Speaker 3 39:13

Yeah, and airline flights from here to Costa Rica are not all that exorbitant no, it's 300 bucks or so 300 to 500.

Speaker 2 39:23

And if you get ahead of time sometimes you can find it less. If you want to go fancy 800 bucks for first class down to San Jose and boom, and you get on one of these little flights down the way wherever you're going and you're in and out of there.

Speaker 2 39:39

No, it's great. I could talk all day on this. You guys, I know I'm supposed to be real estate, but yeah, we've got some fantastic. If you go over to mountainhomehuntcom, we've got some fantastic properties there. You can go and search and find your home. Maybe you're thinking about selling. You guys. You can go to what's my home worth? You can check out there, type in whatever your information is. It's going to spit out the value of your home and give you a range. You can also contact us If you want to investigate the CPOSexpertscom program.

Real Estate Opportunities in Asheville

Speaker 2 40:13

Of course you can call us anytime, but you can go to the website there and communicate with us there. Get you an offer, click on. We've got a big red button there. It's flashing and you can click on. Get your Offer, get a cash offer now and give us a call about that Now.

Speaker 2 40:30

Of course, maybe you've got the perfect home and you would like to get that home listed. We need product in Asheville. So go ahead and give us a call over at Allstar. We'll come out, give you an assessment, show you all the wonderful reasons why we're the greatest team in the world to sell your home with, and explain to you what the process might be and how you want to go about that. So we always look at your needs. It's about you and where you're at and how you want to sell your home, and maybe you don't have any idea. Maybe you want some clues as to make your best experience when you're selling your home, getting top dollar and understanding the process. And that's something we know at Allstar Powerhouse. We're a very thorough team. We'll share with you every option that you might have. Through experience we've seen a good bit A lot of times. We'll take on a challenging listing too and turn it around and get you a beautiful home to the community that can be offered and somebody will want to come in and buy it Again.

Speaker 2 41:37

These buyers right now you guys they want to finish home. 45% of the buyers right now are your seniors, your 55 and odor. So they've got a pile of money. They sold their house somewhere and they probably got cash, and last couple of years have been pretty nice for folks. So they got money and they're coming to Western North Carolina and they're looking for a home. So competition's still there in our communities, so it's still a great time to sell.

Speaker 2 42:11

You can get the value of your home. You've seen an increase in the price of homes and it still continues, although it's sort of leveling out right now. The interest rates are getting figured out. So I think you'll start to see, as there's not any product, prices are still going to continue to increase and they're still demand, especially in our area, and you'll find that it's pretty easy to get your house sold If it looks right. You got it priced right, you got a warranty that comes along with it, you've gotten an appraisal so that you're armed with information. You can go back to your you know your buyers there and let them know that, hey, I've got a little bit of a challenging property. Maybe you got something beside you that's got some yard art, ie Washer machine on the front porch, maybe a lawn mower from two or three generations ago in the front yard. You laugh, randy.

Speaker 3 43:16

We've all seen it.

Speaker 2 43:18

What do you mean? The family couch is now on the front porch. We got a new one for the inside. We gotta move it outside, folks. That couch is a good one. We're not gonna let it get away. Stick it on the front porch and wave at our neighbors. Now listen, we have that here in Western North Carolina, but we still got wonderful people and that person will probably give you the shirt off for the back or at least a beer and they would answer any kind of questions. You know, I've gotten the ability to be able to walk up and knock on doors and when I've got a listing, or if I'm finding out about neighbors going and finding out, hey, what's going on around the neighborhood? Anything, any new neighbors coming in, any development happening.

Speaker 2 44:06

As a realtor, you gotta kinda do that when you, you know, get a listing, gotta explore what's cooking around you so that you can share with your buyers. Hey, listen, we got some exciting news they got a Dunkin' Donuts coming up down the road. You know, that's kinda what we do as real estate agents we keep you informed with what's going on around your property in Western North Carolina. I've got it dialed in. I'm pretty familiar with what's cooking around each one of these areas and it's been very fun to learn this community over the last I've been in Nashville now five years I moved up from Greenville, south Carolina. There I had a career in real estate and wanted to find something a little bit more cool. So you come up the hill from Greenville, south Carolina and it's about 10 to 12 degrees cooler up here. Really A lot less sunshine.

Speaker 3 45:00

It starts right down there in the foothills near Saluda, and Trion Call it the thermal belt Travelers.

Speaker 2 45:09

Rest that area, right. You come up the hill, the grade we're talking about, this grade we got about a thousand feet, right? Yeah, I mean, so it goes from 1200 to 1400 elevation up to 2000 to 2400 up in Asheville, I believe Somewhere right around there, depending on what hill you live on, and I don't know. Man, you found Cool Green Asheville, right, man, I love this area, just the Henderson. It's God's country, it really is.

Speaker 3 45:41

It really is, and the chamber used to have an advertising campaign years ago called Cool Green Asheville, and that's a real good description. It really is Land of the sky, baby.

Speaker 2 45:54

We've got it going on, don't we?

Speaker 3 45:55

Randy, yes, we do. We're so blessed, Native here and I love it. Well, I feel like a native almost.

Speaker 2 46:00

Now my family came from Hendersonville, my mom's family, and had been there since. Records have been kept, so I've got a little bit of heritage in the Hendersonville area. Although I was born and raised in Greenville, I've got a lot of family in Hendersonville.

Speaker 3 46:19

Well, you know Flat Rock, known for many, many years as the Charleston of the North. To escape the heat, Charleston nights used to travel up to Flat Rock and there's many old estates there still today that were originated from folks in Charleston.

Speaker 2 46:41

South Carolina, absolutely. And then the folks from New York, like the Vanderbiltts and the DuPonts. We've got DuPont over in Transylvania. They found us too. Yeah, they sure did, and thank goodness because now they're a big piece of property or places we can go visit.

Speaker 3 47:01

Yeah, explore Like DuPont National Park. Yeah, man, is that a cool place?

Speaker 2 47:06

I tell you what we're so blessed to have all this the ability to hike and go and do and get on the parkway and then simply just pull over and find a path and then find a grassy knoll and lay there and soak in ground out, catch some sun man.

Speaker 3 47:25

It's amazing. The Blue Ridge Parkway was revealed, I think, just last week, to be like the sixth most visited national park in the country, and visitation is increasing every year to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Yeah you've got to be careful here too, though. Oh yeah, you do.

Speaker 2 47:49

There's some real altitudes there, there are, and we've got some curvy roads. Yeah, folks coming up from Florida.

Speaker 3 47:56

Not used to it.

Speaker 2 47:58

What do you mean? You got curved roads. Yeah, slow down, hold on, I don't know how to drive this thing. Yeah, most of us here in Asheville will be telling you to speed up, necessarily, but you do need to watch what you're doing. If you're visiting with us, just take your time driving around.

Speaker 3 48:12

Yeah, yeah keep your eyes on the road. Yeah, keep your eyes on the road.

Speaker 2 48:15

We got some peculiar kind of what I call land mines in our road system and you might have a pothole here and there, or maybe it's not even a pothole, it's just a dip in the road. Yeah, it's been there forever.

Speaker 2 48:29

Yeah, I got one of these fancy little cars, man, and I like it because it's small and I can get around, but it's low to the ground as well, so I know all the little dips and everything around the neighborhood where I've got a sort of scoot around them. Yeah, but what a great community we live in. And if you're thinking about selling your home, go check us out at mountainhomehuntcom. Get a value on your home, have us come out, give you an idea of what the CPO program would be. Or just do a traditional old fashioned listing, just like you would typically do. You can certainly put it on the market here in Asheville, north Carolina, and you're going to get traffic Definitely. We've got a lot of buyers here still, so be sure to give us a call over at All Star Powerhouse and go into mountainhomehuntcom and check us out there. And now, of course, you've got the real estate radio show. It's been a great show talking with you, randy, I didn't realize we're coming up pretty quick here.

Speaker 2 49:34

I get to talking about Costa Rica and trains and I drift off right. Time flies, time flies. But we've got some great lots here. If you're thinking about building, I've got some fantastic builders that can meet with you and we can find you a lot and build you a home, get you going there. Or if you're just searching for something, I've got a couple of investors right now that I'm shopping for for short term rentals. So that's still.

Speaker 2 50:02

Folks are coming out looking for those again. Short term rental market after COVID sort of dropped off a little bit 20% to 40% in some areas and so some of those folks were. I don't know, maybe they're just getting sick of working so much to keep that short term rental going and they've decided to put it up on the market and get it for sale. So you'll see some of those coming around right now. Some good values. Anything in the 250 to 400,000 is pretty much flying off the shelf Because you got the rates at 7%. That was your $500,000 buyer a year ago. Now you're 400. And you can certainly find product out there that's been updated. I've been running into a lot of cleaned up homes here, so it's nice to see that, but we still don't have enough product. So if you're thinking about getting your home on the market, give us a call over at All-Star Powerhouse. Come on over. You can go to that mountainhomehuntcom register. Send us a little text message there and communicate with us. We'll come out and give you a value on your home.

Speaker 2 51:11

Remember to always listen to us here on Saturdays at 10.05 AM every Saturday, and you can check in here at 5.70 AM. You can also go to our realestatenewsradiocom and we've got a podcast there too. You can follow. We talk about all kinds of stuff. Obviously, today I've sort of been all over, but feel free to go and check out the value of home, get a cash offer, sell your home, search for homes, ask questions See FISBOs. Even we have a FISBO program. If you're selling your house for a sell-buyer owner, you can put it on our website. We'll advertise it for you. Get that home out there. We've got featured homes and we certainly would love to hear from you. So go on over there to the real estate radio show realestatenewsradioshowcom or mountainhomehuntcom and get a value on your home. Randy, it's been fun today.

Speaker 3 52:13

Hey, if we're listening, if we're talking to folks who've made that statement, when spring comes I'm going to list my house. Well, it's now, it's here, it's here. Well, we're about something like 18 days away from spring, on March 21st.

Beautiful Day in Western North Carolina

Speaker 2 52:29

I'm ready. Yeah, average day on market has creeped up a little bit, randy, but you know what? It's still a great time to put your home up, and homes are flying off the shelf still here. So go ahead and give us a call over at All-Star Powerhouse. Let us know what you're thinking there. You can always check it out as far as at mountainhomehuntcom and friends. Again, I want to thank you. It's been a beautiful Saturday. Make the rest of that day great. We've got all kinds of beautiful activities in the Western North Carolina. Come give us a visit here. Come and see why it is you want to move here and make this your forever home. It's quite phenomenal here in the hills.

Speaker 3 53:11

Good to have you, patrick. Thank you so much for filling in for Rojo on a seat Saturday morning at 10.05 for Real Estate News Radio Bye everybody.