Bucking The Real Estate Trend-Waynesville and Maggie Valley Real Estate

Archive for February, 2008

Market snapshot of homes in escrow in Haywood County, NC in February 2008.

Haywood County, NC has 978 active listings this morning, 231 of which are listings in Maggie Valley, and 465 of which are listings in Waynesville. The remainder of the listings are scattered throughout Canton, Clyde and Lake Junaluska, NC. Here is a snapshot of the listings in Haywood County, NC which have gone into escrow during February (as of February 28, 2008).

Source: MLS. Data deemed reliable but, not guaranteed.

We are thankful for the homes in escrow. This morning’s Wall Street Journal included an interesting article that relates back to buyers/homes in escrow, entitled: Decline in Home Prices Picks Up Pace.

“There may be light at the end of the tunnel. As prices fall, potential buyers may be tempted off the sidelines. Economists agree the key to stabilizing prices is working off the huge inventory of unsold homes. Supply is shrinking: New-home construction has plunged dramatically. But demand has fallen just as much, leaving inventories high. Sales are now far below normal trends, and on Monday, an industry trade group reported a 0.5% increase in single-family home sales in January, the first in 11 months.”

Read the rest of the article.

Check back for February’s final numbers in a few days to get an update of the residential real estate activity for Maggie Valley, Waynesville, and all of Haywood County, NC.

It’s still a home buyers’ market so if you are looking to buy property – check out the Haywood County MLS and see all the homes for sale right now.

 

Bring your Cupcake to Whitman’s Bakery in beautiful downtown Waynesville, NC.

Beautiful downtown Waynesville, NC is quaint, charming, and unique, and the shopping on Waynesville’s downtown Main Street is easy, convenient, pleasant, entertaining, and tempting, and can certainly work up an appetite! One of my favorite places to satisfy that shopping appetite is Whitman’s Bakery.

Yesterday, while attending my monthly Hospice Volunteers meeting which is held at Whitman’s Bakery, I enjoyed some of Whitman’s famous Cowboy Cookies. I do love Cowboys, so they immediately caught my fancy. They were delicious, especially with my great cup of Whitman’s coffee.

Whitman’s is a ‘must visit on a regular basis’ in Waynesville. Not only do they have fresh homemade pastries, cupcakes, donuts, cinnamon twists, cakes, cookies, and homemade bread, they always feature seasonal and holiday goodies.

The beautifully decorated Easter cupcakes make your mouth water just looking at them, and there are many colorfully packaged Easter goodies, ready for your shopping and eating pleasure.

Whitman’s Bakery is located at 18 N. Main Street in Waynesville, and their phone number is 828-456-8271. Call in an order!

I think I should stop by there today to pick up their sandwich menu and see if I can get you drooling over their sandwiches!

Haywood Regional Medical Center, Haywood County, NC’s health care provider, cut off from Medicare and Medicaid payments.

Haywood Regional Medical Center, celebrating 80 years of providing health care to Haywood County, suffered a setback this week with the cessation of Medicare and Medicaid payments, as well as the subsequent resignation of David Rice, HRMC’s CEO, who served as CEO since 1993.

“Haywood Regional was cut off from Medicare payments Sunday following a state inspection that found “immediate jeopardy” in how hospital staff administers medication to patients.

Only five hospitals out of 6,700 nationwide were similarly decertified from Medicare in 2007, according to the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

November of 2007 brought awards and accolades for Haywood Regional Medical Center, which was the recipient of five-star rankings based on predicted outcomes in 25 areas according to a comprehensive study by HealthGrades™ as well as ‘best’ rankings in North Carolina for overall critical care and treatment for gastrointestinal services; and, in addition, was in the top 5% of hospitals nationwide for gastrointestinal surgery, gastrointestinal services, and gastrointestinal medical treatment.

Read more about it.

Are the Cataloochee Wilderness Resort developers setting up local headquarters in Haywood County, NC?

A local publication is reporting that the developers of the Cataloochee Wilderness Resort are setting up a local office in Clyde, NC. Dean Moses, Consultant, evidently wasn’t around the building to confirm any plans, but Frank Singleton acknowledged that the Cataloochee Wilderness Resort is opening up an office for the locally ‘famous’ proposed project which has stirred up controversy in Haywood County, NC… especially in Jonathan Creek!

“The office isn’t readily identifiable. There’s no sign outside indicating the company’s presence, and the woman who answered the door at the property declined to identify it as the headquarters of Cataloochee Companies LLC. She directed that question to Dean Moses, a consultant for the project, who was not present at the time.

Singleton, however, confirmed that the location was the office for the Cataloochee Wilderness project. The company is planning to hold public meetings about the project soon, but dates and locations have not been announced.”

Read the rest of the story.

BuckingtheRealEstateTrend is definitely looking forward to those public meetings that have been promised! Let’s see if we can’t ’spur them on‘ to schedule those meetings.

Frank Singleton, Cataloochee Wilderness Resort spokesman, answering more questions regarding the proposed Jonathan Creek, NC development.

Frank Singleton, spokesman for the Cataloochee Wilderness Resort developers, made the papers again, and I found his answers both in the hard copy as well as the on-line version of our local newspaper, The Mountaineer.

Responding to a question about the “expected average cost of homes to be built,” Frank said:

“We will be specifically targeting homebuyers in the middle to upper income bracket, and as I said, the average price of homes in the initial phase will be in the $ 350,000 arena, ranging up to $ 3 million in the final phase. “

 

Read the rest of the article.

Will there be a race to buy if/when the development gets off the ground?

Photo credit: Andrew Shiel.

What do you think?