Daily Planet Staff Reports

Two experts fielded questions from the audience on the current status of the local economy housing market and prospects for the future during a Leadership Asheville Forum on Sept. 15 at the Buncombe County Board of Education central offices in West Asheville.

Offering answers were Tom Tveidt, research director for the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce; and Neal Hanks, president of large local real estate brokerage Beverly-Hanks & Associates.

A man began the Q&A by asking if commercial and residential properties “go neck-and-neck?”

“They don’t go neck-and-neck,” Hanks replied. “Typically, commercial follows residential.” Thus, when residential goes down, there is a delay before commercial falls, too. When a recovery occurs, residential rises first.

“I think the commercial sector actually has some more challenges” to face in the near future, Hanks said.

A woman said she had heard that land sales also are lagging.

“Yes, residential lots bought for investment purposes — most of those buyers are on the sideline right now,” Hanks answered. He added that an exception is those who buy lots to build on immediately. These continue to sell.

“Large tracts are also slow,” Hanks said. “Both lots and land are kind of lagging behind residential home sales.”

A woman asked if there are places Tveidt looks to as predictors for the Asheville metro area’s economy.

“I look at Florida — and at baby-boomers in metro Florida,” Tveidt replied. However, with housing prices way down and the job situation shaky, “those dynamics are much more fluid now.”

Tveidt said that, other than affecting in-migration to the metro, what is going on elsewhere does not necessarily provide a good indication of what will happen to this metro’s economy.

Hanks added, “Florida has traditionally been our No. 1 in-migration state. It’s not now. Texas is one of the states we’re seeing having (much) interest in the area.”

Agreeing, Tveidt offered another key consideration: “We’ve always had a hard time attracting young people because of the (high) cost of housing” around Asheville. On the bright side, Tveidt said, “In the last three or four years, housing costs for young people have dropped very favorably.”

A man asked about local employment and the status of the local housing market.

Tveidt, a former resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., said people in that ocean-side city “made a living flipping homes. We never had that here” on the same level, so the housing market has not been affected as much as elsewhere.

A man noted that, in Michigan, which had such a downturn with the auto industry, “if your houses (prices) have remained stable and their’s hasn’t, they can’t come here. Also, if our jobs situation is weak, then how do they come here?”

“People want to live here” because the area has so much to offer, Tveidt said. “The people in their 20s to 30s come here from other parts of the state, but you never see that part growing. They eventually figure they can drive two hours to Charlotte and live (there) and make a lot more money.”