George Real Estate Group Radio Broadcast

Henderson County Housing: Data, Decisions, And What Comes Next

• George Real Estate Group

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Forget the myth of waiting for 3 percent mortgages to return. We dig into what’s actually happening across Henderson County and beyond: sales are up, prices are steady, and days on market are stretching, signaling a calmer, more intentional market. That balance—more inventory arriving while demand stays strong—explains why prices haven’t fallen and why the right plan beats perfect timing.

We pull back the lens on mortgage rates to reset expectations. The historically unusual lows of 2020–2021 were an emergency exception, not a new normal. Today’s 6–7 percent landscape aligns with long‑term history, and we share how buyers are adapting with smarter financing, from rate buydowns and seller credits to shorter terms. The so‑called lock‑in effect is easing too. Life doesn’t pause for interest rates, and real moves still happen for work, family, lifestyle, and health. That’s the slow thaw you can use to your advantage.

You’ll hear the data that matters: Henderson County’s year‑over‑year increase in closed sales, rising new listings, and a sub‑four‑month supply that keeps it a seller’s market—yet with more breathing room for buyers. We break down practical seller levers (pricing, condition, and location), buyer tactics to win without overpaying, and the planning edge most people overlook: taxes and equity. If you’ve lived in your home two of the last five years, you may exclude significant gains, and investors can reposition with a 1031 exchange. When you buy and sell in the same market, big swings tend to net out; the real value is moving into a home and location that actually fit your next chapter.

Our goal is simple: give you clarity, confidence, and a strategy tailored to your life. If your house feels too big, too far, or just not right anymore, the path forward isn’t about guessing the bottom—it’s about using the market as it is. Subscribe for more local insights, share this with someone weighing a move, and leave a review to tell us what topic you want us to unpack next.

Welcome And Local Market Focus

SPEAKER_01

Hello, friends. Thank you so much for being here. This is the George Real Estate Group podcast, which is a production of our live weekly radio shows hosted on multiple radio stations here in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The George Real Estate Group serves Western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina, and it is a privilege to share positive news about our local real estate market and community. Thanks so much for subscribing. And of course, if you have any real estate questions or if we can help you in any way, be sure to reach out. Visit us at George Real Estate Group Radio.com for more information. Good morning and welcome to the George Real Estate Group live radio broadcast here on WHKP every Thursday morning. Bring you positive news about your local real estate market community. And we're going to dive into the numbers today. We're going to share about what's going on with the mortgage rates. We're going to share what's going on with the the prices, what's happening with our local market. If you're tuning in for the first time ever, welcome. We're here every Thursday morning. I actually been doing this program since 2011. So this is the 15th year doing our radio program. I've had my broker's license for over 20 years, North Carolina Real Estate Broker's License. And we've had the privilege of helping uh uh 1,600 plus families throughout the years. I think the number each year we help around 100 families every year. And so that number keeps growing, and we're so grateful to serve the community through real estate. We're here every Thursday morning right after the 10 o'clock news. Been doing this program every Thursday since 2011. Also, we have other radio programs that we do as well. Uh Friday mornings at 845. We sponsor the hometown hero series here on WHKP. And then in addition to other radio programs, we have our podcasts. You can find that on your favorite podcast platform. We'd love to connect with you on the podcast, and you can follow us. You can subscribe, whether it's Apple or Amazon, Alexa, Spotify, wherever, wherever you use a podcast, uh, you can subscribe to the George Real Estate Group radio broadcast. We'd love for you to follow us there. Uh, we also are on social media, Facebook and Instagram, the George Real Estate Group, sharing about homes that we have for sale and listings and open houses and new listings and homes going under contract and and just celebrating our our our clients and our our agents and our community. Follow us on social media. We'd love to connect. Or just stop by our office anytime. We're in Flat Rock. I joke, we have a very dangerous location for an office because our friends there at the Flat Rock Bakery. It's a it's an amazing bakery, and it's been there since the I think it was 99 or 2000. I'm not sure when the official opening date. I know uh Star was break uh baking bread there, I think in the late 90s, and then uh became the Flat Rock Bakery, which now has multiple locations. I'm sure maybe you're aware of. They have one in Fletcher and one in Pisgah as well, but our friends at the Flat Rock Bakery, and then uh uh in hibernation right now is Hubaloo, excuse me, Hubba Hubba Barbecue, Hubba Hubba Barbecue is in hibernation, and and what a great restaurant there, and our friends at a Campfire Grill too. So we'd love to connect with you. Uh the friends at the Wrinkled Egg, stop by our office there, Rainbow Run Flat Rock. We'd love to connect and meet with you if you've or you can just call us directly. Find us online at realestatebygreg.com. You can call us directly at 828-393-0134. Any way we can connect with you. We'd love to have the conversation. There's no pressure, there's no cost, there's no obligation. You can call us directly, 828-393-0134. 828-393-0134. So everybody's asking, what's happening with the real estate market? And we're going to put some context on that. What's happening? And when we look at, you know, this year versus, I mean, when we look at what happened in 2025 versus what happened the year before, I mean, in 2024, we were having a great, it was a great year, and then we had the hurricane, which was it was a fascinating experience, and so much that our community went through and continues to recover from. And we've just saw the the heroes and the angels show up from our community from that recovery. And so many people continue to do work in our community from that recovery from the hurricane. And and then we we get through and and start getting to quote unquote normal again. But the market in Henderson County, we had an 8% increase. 8% increase in single family homes sold. If you include uh townhomes and condos as well, that number actually ended up being 10% higher than the number of homes sold in 2025 versus 2024. Prices stayed flat for the most part. I mean, within a you know, within a uh uh you know a thousand dollars or so, uh, you know, the prices stayed flat, which is amazing. But when you include condos and townhomes, 10% increase. Single family alone, we saw an 8% increase. So just tremendous, tremendous activity from buyers. And that's in the context of the interest rates that which we'll talk about interest rates and where they are, where they've been, and where they're going. But interest rates, even where the interest rates were last year, and a lot of people were in the sevens last year, the interest rates were not prohibitive in the sense that people well, there was more people that bought in 2025 in Henderson County than in 2024. So that's remarkable. I mean, just that it's incredible. Um, now we actually saw a higher increase in Henderson County year over year versus Buncombe County. Buncombe County saw about a 5.8% increase in the number of homes closed. They actually saw a slight decline, about a 3.8% decline in price. But again, their market's holding. Again, they did have almost a 6% increase in number of single-family homes uh you know homes sold in Buncombe County. So some context there. The market's absolutely still moving. Now, with the interest rates where they are, the thing, the thing that in that that's that's normalizing in one sense is the frenzy is not what it used to be. Even though there's been more home selling, when you look at the year before versus the the year we went through, days on market, 64 days is the Q the average days on market until a sale, two months. Now that's actually a 30 plus percent increase in 2025 versus 2024. So days on market are taking longer, days until uh going under contract are taking longer. So things are taking longer, buyers have more time, although we see with homes that are priced right, great location, great condition, and priced right, they're still moving very quickly, and we're still seeing multiple offers that's still happening. And buyers have more choices, even though we saw the increase in the number of homes sold. We also saw an increase in the number of new listings, and so the new listings over the year was up by about 11% in 2025 versus 2024. So that's significant. So the inventory and the demand were in line, and that's why prices did not fall in Henderson County because when the supply and demand was was neutral, it kept the inventory level low altogether, which this is why prices are not. If you're waiting for prices to come down, we would have to see the buyer demand outpace. Excuse me, I had it the other way around. We would have to have the inventory outpace the buyer demand. And it was really neutral, even though you saw more listings, we saw more buyers in 2025. So that was a neutral right now, as of this morning, in Henderson County, there's less than 500 active single-family homes in the market. And so we have a less than a four-month supply in uh in the market, which is it's a seller's market. When you look at supply and demand, when you look at inventory versus demand, we are still, even though it's taking longer, even though it's taking 60 days for homes to sell or they're to go under contract, we have low inventory levels. So it's still a seller's market. So if you're thinking of buying, selling, or investing in real estate, or maybe selling an investment property and buying an investment property, or you know, the the market is still healthy, it's normalizing, it's but it's still a seller's market. So it's a great time when you buy and sell in the same market. You know, it's if you're concerned that, well, I don't want to buy right now because I think prices are gonna go down. But if you're selling your existing home and buying a different home, it's a you're gonna, if prices go down, it doesn't matter which home you're in, the prices are gonna go down. If you think prices are gonna go up, again, prices are gonna go up on the home you you own and the home you would buy. I mean, when you buy and sell in the same market, you you know, it's it's a great time. If it's right for you, right? We know life happens, therefore real estate happens. That's something we're gonna talk about with these interest rates, but the market is still moving, and so let's talk about interest rates. And I want to zoom out and not just focus on where the housing market is, but how we got here and why the history of mortgage rates is critical to make sense of what's happening. Here's something that's significant, and there's this there's a stat that came out that quietly signals a turning point. According to a recent analysis by the Washington Post, using data from the national mortgage database, there was a significant occurrence, and this is huge. For the first time since 2021, more Americans now have a mortgage rate above six percent than below three percent. Let me say that again. For the first time since 2021, more Americans now have a mortgage rate above six percent than below three percent. But it and while that might not that may not sound dramatic, but it's it marks the end of an era that shaped how millions of people think about housing. For a while, it felt like two and three percent mortgage rates were just normal, permanent, the new baseline. But the Washington Post article makes an important point. The shift didn't happen suddenly, it happened because time passed. Data from the Federal Reserve shows mortgage rates have been above 6% for more than three years now, and every buyer since 2022, every relocation, every move up, every downsize has been living in a very different mortgage world than the one we remember from the pandemic. And here's the part that really matters for persp perspective. If you zoom out over the past half a century, today's rates aren't shocking, they're actually historically normal. And let's go back and look at this. In the 1970s, mortgage rates averaged around 8% and were climbing. In the 1980s, rates exploded. The average 30-year fixed mortgage peaked at over 18% in 1981. As the Fed fought runaway inflation. Buying a home then wasn't about timing the market, it was about surviving it. Through the 1990s, rates slowed even and they eased up. They generally ranging between seven and nine percent. In the early 2000s, they they dipped into the six to seven percent range, which at the time was considered very good financing, isn't it all about perspective? And then after the 2008 financial crisis, rates fell further, hovering between four and five percent for much of the 2010s, and that was already historically favorable. I knew I talked to a lot of my clients and they remind me, they remind me of the 1980s when they had mortgage rates with double in the you know over 10%, and they were praying for interest rates below 10. They were thrilled. So again, it's all about perspective and context. So then came COVID. Between 2020 and 2021, mortgage rates plunged below 3%, something that had never happened in modern US history, and that wasn't a normal market, it was an emergency response to a global shutdown. The rates were not the rule, they were the exception, and that's the mental shift many people are still struggling to make today. So, the Washington Post spent some time addressing something we talk about a lot. It's called the rate lock-in, and this is why the lock-in effect exists but isn't permanent. Yes, people don't want to give up the 3% mortgage. Can you blame them? Yes, it is restricting our inventory, but the article actually pushes back on the idea that these homeowners are frozen in place forever. And this is something we we talk about all the time. Life doesn't stop for interest rates. People still move for work, people still get married and divorced, they have kids, or the kids go off to college, people retire, people move closer to family, lifestyles change. And so many homeowners who locked in in incredible pandemic era rates didn't want to give them up, but circumstances forced their hand, and so this market isn't driven by desire, it's driven by necessity, and so slowly, year by year, the necessity is reshaping the numbers. At some point, these two and three percent interest rate is not compelling enough compared to other life events. Life is happening, and there can be other catalysts in our clients' lives that are more compelling than holding on to those two and three percent interest rate. At some point, it doesn't make sense. So, even though there's more mortgages now above six percent, more than half of all outstanding mortgages are still below four. So we're really living in two housing markets at once. One homeowner anchored by ultra-low rates, hesitant to sell, highly selective. Another group, buyers and sellers who've already reset in today's rate environment and are moving forward with life anyway. The Washington Post quotes Redfin chief economist Darrell Fairweather, who says homeowners with mortgage rates under 5% are far less likely to list, and that dynamic could remain a major factor for another four to five years. Again, it's not a freeze, it's just a slow thaw. I spoke to one of our mortgage lenders this week, and people are locking in this week. They were locking in in the fives. A 30-year rate in the high fives, a 20 and 15 year rate in the low fives. Again, the the mortgage rate is getting better. So, how does this translate into plain English? The housing market's not broken, we're not waiting for a crash, and it's not waiting for three percent rates to come back. It's going through a gradual reset to historical norms, and every year we have more, more we have a few more low-rate mortgages disappear, a few more homeowners make the decision to move, inventory's loosening, but it's not flooding. Prepared buyers quietly find opportunities. We at the George Real Estate Group, we are so grateful. We had one of our best years ever last year, helping more clients than we've ever had before. More we're we had a tremendous year, and the market is the market. The interest rates are the interest rates. Clients, our clients are moving on with their lives. They're you know, they're making a decision for what's right for them. It's not just one-dimensional about the interest rates. So we still, you know, the market, it still might feel a little tight, but we like I shared, and that's because the amount of new inventory that hit our market locally was absorbed just as quickly. So it's a neutral. Prices are holding steadier than a lot of people expected. And so this is why timing the market, timing the prices of homes, timing the interest rate, has become less important than planning for life. So here's a question to consider. If mortgage rates stay between six and seven percent, which, by the way, historically is normal, would you still make a move eventually? And and the truth is, for most people, the answer is yes. Life wins, and that's really what the heart is of this story and the news headline and what the Washington Post article says, the pandemic mortgage error isn't you know ending with a bang, it's fading with a long echo. And so understanding the shift instead of fighting against it is this is where clarity, confidence, good decisions come from. We are having conversations every single day with clients that are deciding to do what's right for them. And this has been true in my entire 20-plus year career. And I've navigated through the 20, you know, 10 and 11 and 12 market where prices were at all-time lows. If you can imagine, I they were in the mid-100s, the average single-family home price in Henderson County, if you can imagine that. We had a two-year supply of homes. And we've navigated through the pandemic market. We've navigated through the market. I mean, we've had the experience of walking through many cycles of our housing market. The the high interest rates, the low interest rates, the the two years of inventory compared to the two weeks of inventory. And the thing that I I understand more and more is life happens, therefore real estate happens. And the market is just happens to be the market. The interest rates just happen to be the interest rates. And so as we walk through with our clients, providing clarity, providing strategy, providing information so our clients can decide how the market, no matter what it is, can work in their favor, no matter what it is. And taking into consideration the the other nuances, like tax strategies in regards to how you can take advantage of when you sell your personal home and the benefits, the tax benefits there of when you sell a personal home. If you've lived in the home two out of a five-year period, not paying capital gains taxes on on an as an individual, the first$250,000 of profit. That's what you paid for it, plus your improvement, plus plus$250,000 is tax free. If you're married, it's$500,000 uh for your for you as a couple. And and not to mention our other strategies when we work together with uh on investment properties, and and we we help our clients with 1031 exchanges, and and there's so many other pieces to the puzzle and nuances other than interest rates, other than market dynamics. The the market's the market. And we've we're so grateful in the the opportunity we've had to help our clients navigate through, regardless of whatever the economy is, regardless of whatever the market is, regardless of whatever the interest rates are. But when we can provide clarity and information and confidence, this is like I said earlier, that's where good decisions come from. And you don't have to be paralyzed by confusion. You don't have to be uh, you know, and again, in some cases, your situation might be better with a higher interest rate, which might be hard to believe, but with the equity that you have in their home, maybe you have enough equity to sell your home and pay cash for the next one because you're not paying the capital gains taxes on selling. There's so many different scenarios in your unique situation, your unique home, your unique investment property, your unique investment portfolio, your maybe it's family land that you inherited. There's so many different scenarios that are worth having a conversation about. As I've always said, there's no pressure, there's no cost, there's no obligation. We can talk about your situation confidentially and and talk about what might make sense for you in the context of the market. And so there's you know, sometimes I I had this conversation earlier uh this week with a client. Things if you're just floating and life is just okay, but it's it's not bad enough to make a change, but it's okay, maybe it's not ideal, but if it's not if things actually, this is so fascinating. Things actually have to get worse for your situation to get better sometimes because if things are just okay, or if you're just floating, and it's but if things are nominal enough, but they're not worse enough to be compelling to make a change, most people don't make a change. And that could be that could actually be your health, it could be your housing, it could be your finances, it could be your relationships. Again, there's this this actually applies in so many different situations, and that's where you know the this uh paradigm sh shift of things almost have things have to get worse for things to get better because in a lot of cases, if you're just floating and if you're just accepting the way things are, you're not changing, you're not making a decision. It's this things are not compelling enough to make a change. But and this is where we've seen this with the interest rates. When when other life factors happen, it's not worth holding on to that two or three percent interest rate. There's other, more compelling reasons why you might consider buying or selling. And so this is at the George Real Estate Group, we take this holistic approach. We take this, you know, we are wanting to understand the bigger picture so we can provide clarity and information and and knowledge so that you can ultimately make a good decision. You can feel confident about your decision, and we've helped so many people. We're so thankful, and it's a privilege and honor to serve the community through real estate and to advocate for our clients and to help our clients. And we're growing, we're hiring more agents, actually. The the market's the market, the interest rates are the interest rates. We have incredible staff, incredible agents, and and and and ultimately we have amazing clients, and we love serving our clients, we love advocating for our clients, we love facilitating, and it could be your personal home, it could be your investment home, it could be family land, it could be you know different scenarios that you might want to talk about, commercial, whatever it might be. You can give us a call directly at 828-393-0134. You can find us online at realestatebygreg.com. I encourage you to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Uh I encourage you to follow us on your favorite podcasts, you know, subscribe to our podcasts. And the reason we encourage you to follow us on social media is we we talk about and share about our new listings. We share about our upcoming open houses. We have some open houses that are being finalized today for the weekend. I mean, so you can follow that on social media. We but we'd love to connect with you as I uh it's a privilege and honor to serve our clients and to help our clients. And so give us a call, 828-393-0134. I want to also remind you, we have our Hometown Heroes series. We're here today. We're here every Thursday right after the 10 o'clock news. We've been doing this radio program for now, I can say 15 years. We started this program in 2011, and so uh this is our 15th year doing our radio program here every Thursday on WHKP right after the 10 o'clock news. And for years, we've also been sponsoring the Hometown Hero Series here every Friday morning right after uh right at 8 45. Tune in, 8 45 every Friday morning in our Hometown Hero series. Uh Randy and I have the privilege of uh interviewing and speaking and sharing stories of people, men and women in this community. And we're actually speaking with Mike Patton tomorrow. He's a resident engineer with our DOT who continues to restore our roads and highways from all the incredible changes and destruction that we experienced during Helene. And so we'll have an update from Mike Patton tomorrow morning, our hometown hero tomorrow morning. But so grateful to be here with you every Thursday morning. Thank you so much for tuning in. There's the music. This is a live radio show. So have a great day. Have a wonderful uh rest of your Thursday and tune in tomorrow morning. We'll see you tomorrow morning. Maybe the house feels a little too big these days. The stairs, a little steeper, the pace of life, a little too fast. But what if your next move wasn't about letting go? It was about making space for peace, for freedom, for what matters the most. At the George Real Estate Group, we understand that real estate isn't just about the house. It's about transition, timing, and trust. We help thousands of families in Western North Carolina to make smart moves. Closer to nature, closer to family, closer to home. So when you're ready to rise, size, simplify, or start fresh, we'll be here. The George Real Estate Group. Local, trusted, proven. Call us today, 828-393-0134. Find us online at realestatebygreg.com because your next chapter deserves to feel just right.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for listening to the George Real Estate Group Podcast. Tune in next time for more industry news, updates, and real estate tips. You can reach Greg, the George Real Estate Group, at 828-393 0134 or at realestatebygreg.com.