Latest / Short Term Shopping / Boone and Banner Elk Vacation Rentals, North Carolina Ski Market Insights

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Boone and Banner Elk Vacation Rentals, North Carolina Ski Market Insights · Short Term Shopping

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Welcome to Short Term Shopping, where we explore homes for sale in the best vacation markets in America. Some homes we do like, some homes we don't like. Brought to you by the short term shop. It's Short Term Shopping. All right, here we go. We are in North Carolina with Jay, and we're talking about selling real estate and talking about the mountains and skiing and all that sort of awesome stuff. Man. What's going on?
• 0:38
  Speaker B: Not a whole lot. Glad to be here, Luke. It's a good day. It's a good day to raid a house.
• 0:44
  Speaker A: All right, let's. Let's look at a map or two and kind of go, you know, a little refresher what we're looking at here.
• 0:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, let me pull that up. All right, so here is a map of the high country. So you get the big three bees, you know, Banner, Elk, Bone, and Blowing Rock. Where'd it go? There it is, Blowing Rock. And then everything in between. So everything kind of like 30 minutes from each other, unless you're going from Banner Rock to Blowing Rock or, you know, vice versa. So you got all these little cities down through here, Seven Devils, Vasco, Violis, all kind of down here through Highway 105. But these areas are a little bit completely different. So if you want, I can jump in, like, regulations of these areas, because there's, you know, compared to western North Carolina, there's a lot more regulations up here.
• 1:38
  Speaker A: Yeah. Just give us a little overview on that. Sure.
• 1:40
  Speaker B: So Blowing Rock, pretty much, if it's on city water, it's kind of similar to Asheville's, you know, restrictions. You can't really rent anything inside there. It's. But on the outskirts and stuff that, you know, outside the city limits, there are no county restrictions that I know of in either of these county. So, like, Watauga and Avery county are kind of your two counties up here. And then you jog north to Boone. Anything really that's zoned residential can't. Can't rent there. So you're going to kind of want to be on the outskirts of Boone as well. I suspect they did that because, you know, it's a college town. They got App State there. They don't want college kids, like renting in these residential neighborhoods and raising hell, you know, for the actual people that live there. So that's kind of my thought on why that's. Why that's restricted up in there. And then jogging over here to Banner out, you got Beach Mountain, Sugar Mountain, you got the Appalachian Ski Mountain. These. This is where you go for your Snow skiing banner out. It doesn't really have any restrictions. The only thing that's really going to restrict you here is an hoa. But a lot of them really don't care. I mean they understand this is a vacationing spot and they, they realize people come up here to snow ski. So it would behoove them, you know, to actually allow short term rentals here. So they'd lose a lot of revenue if they banned them all. But here you're going to find a lot of condos. There's a lot of condos up on the beach, mountain and the snow areas. And if you're on a budget, you know, and you don't mind owning a condo, they're going to be your cheaper real estate up here. You know, anywhere from like 4 to 5. You can find them under 4, sometimes high, high threes. It just depends on the condition. Now they, a lot of these condos are old. I will say that there's not a lot of new ones, but they all kind of vary, you know, because you own one, you know. Well, this person could have just renovated and fixed up a condo and it looks really great. But this one's kind of like haven't touched it since the 70s. So. But yeah, that's kind of your, your area there for that. And then your little towns like Seven Devils and Sugar Mountain down here, Fosco, you know, West Jefferson, Linville, you're going to kind of want to have a view or like a river, you know, next to a stream or some water feature. You don't want to have something pretty unique. The farther you get away from these three Bs, this triangle here because they are a little farther from the action. So that's kind of what's going to make it better for you. Something that's kind of boring. It's not going to do well the
• 4:22
  Speaker A: farther out I got you give me some again. Go over those prices one more time. This is being recorded at the end of 2025.
• 4:30
  Speaker B: Yeah. So your average purchase price in like Boone for example is like 500k. And it's kind of similar to my other market in pricing. Now Blow Rock does have a higher average purchase price, but a lot. Some of the, you know, properties that are, that get sold there to people that aren't running them for short term rental kind of skews that data a little bit. So in reality I think it's probably closer to average purchase price of Boone. You know, Banner Elk's going to be around 450, 500 as well. So and that's going to be your bottom of the barrel. Of course, the higher you go, the, the, the better it's going to, the quality is going to be better. But I'll stop moving that around. I'm kind of just circling the map around here.
• 5:18
  Speaker A: No problem, no problem. What size properties are we looking at? As you said, there's a lot of condos. I mean, am I looking at mostly condos or.
• 5:26
  Speaker B: No? Well, there's, it's kind of a mix here in Banner Elk. You got, you got a mix of condos and houses. So I mean, I'm guessing it's going to be kind of like 50, 50 on that. You know, your condos are going to be two to three bedroom depending and they're be a lot smaller, maybe thousand square feet a little bit higher, you know, and then you have your normal residential houses here that are 1 to 2000 square feet. You know, they're all kind of mixed in there. You're going to find more of the condos up here like on the beach, on the mountains, because there are some condo plexes up here that are ski and ski out. So you can literally just fall off your deck into a ski lift and go snow skiing.
• 6:07
  Speaker A: That's cool.
• 6:08
  Speaker B: So looked at a few up there just recently actually.
• 6:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, very pretty area. Beautiful area, right?
• 6:19
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's stunning.
• 6:22
  Speaker A: Do you have any listings or, or Airbnb links or anything like that we could take a look at?
• 6:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, let me show you one.
• 6:28
  Speaker A: Maybe something for sale.
• 6:30
  Speaker B: This is one I just closed on not too long ago, a couple months ago. This is, this is actually in Banner out, kind of on the, the east side of Banner out. But it's an example of one of those unique properties that do well because it's cool looking and unique. Let me get back to the beginning here, the slide. So hot tub needs a little touch up on the outside, I think, but I mean, you know, it's just an unorthodox design compared to a lot of, you know, the way houses are built up here. So inside's great, very nice, modern touch to it. And again up here you really don't need a cabin per se to do well. Just people are kind of looking at something unique and nicer than what they currently live in, so.
• 7:20
  Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. Look at that little rock sitting. So those chairs are junk, but yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker B: so that, yeah, that's pretty neat. And actually seeing that in person is pretty cool. But it's like up underneath that rock there. Just hope I'm not the one sitting in one of those chairs when it falls or if it falls, right?
• 7:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 7:40
  Speaker B: But no, it's sturdy. It's just really cool.
• 7:44
  Speaker A: So it's very, very updated. On the interior here you got some nice. Very nice flooring and new kitchen and white. White stove or whatever that was.
• 7:53
  Speaker B: Yeah. Tong.
• 7:54
  Speaker A: A groove on the ceiling.
• 7:56
  Speaker B: Where's that? So there's.
• 7:58
  Speaker A: I noticed a mini split. Is that normal?
• 8:00
  Speaker B: Yes, up here. So it doesn't usually get above 80 degrees up here in the summertime. Now it does kind of sometimes get up in the 90s for a couple days during the summer, but it's usually pretty temperate, you know. And a mini split up here is more than enough to heat and cool an area up here. So a lot of the people that will use the mini split will do the one with the heat pump in it so you can do heat.
• 8:23
  Speaker A: Are you saying a lot of these homes don't even come with H vac?
• 8:26
  Speaker B: The older ones sometimes don't because they didn't need them. You didn't need heating. Cool. And people relied on like, you know, fireplace, you know, especially if you find stuff like 20s, like 30s, you know, like, it just didn't have H vac in them. But, you know, going up to the 50s, even, there's, you know, I would say about 50, 50 on, like, H vac. A lot of times you'll see the one. It's usually a mini split because it's, you know, from what I understand, it's cheaper to put a mini split in than an H vac unit, so. Or like a heat pump. So this is interesting. This is actually the stairs going down and there's like this little, like, offshoot here of the bed. Like just a bed chilling right there. When you. If you keep going down the stairs. I thought that was kind of cool. And there's the stairs coming up.
• 9:21
  Speaker A: So that house is for sale currently?
• 9:24
  Speaker B: No, we just closed on this one. This one closed at 450.
• 9:28
  Speaker A: Let's go. That's heat in the wall right there. You gotta understand, I live in Florida. That is really weird.
• 9:34
  Speaker B: Yeah, you'll see those from time to time. Those little just. They're just basically space heaters in the wall. This has a really cool downstairs kid area. Like, so these are all bunk beds along the wall up here.
• 9:46
  Speaker A: And then, I mean, this is the south after all. Right. How col it get
• 9:52
  Speaker B: drops down in the 20s, usually, sometimes in the teens. But, I mean, it doesn't it. Well, for band, for the high country, that's about the same here too. I mean, it doesn't snow horribly often and a lot of the ski resorts will blow their own snow and, but we also do get natural snow through here and high country is kind of in the path of those storms, so they'll get a lot more snow than like say western North Carolina would now. Back in the old days when I was young, we used to get snow all the time. But times has changed on this and they just went live, I just talked to him while today and they just went live on Airbnb with this. I'm trying to get a link from him, but this was an example. They paid cash for this. So this is, there's no mortgage on this house. And yeah, it's a great little unique place. And I, I keep preaching unique, unique, unique.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: And this was a lifestyle situation. This gentleman is interested in the area or.
• 10:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, they, they kind of get, they kind of got it just so you know. You know, they wanted to do short term rental. They want to get in the game. But they also, you want something that, that Pete, that you want to visit. I get a lot of folks that are looking for that. They just, they want to visit occasionally. But you know, it's mostly they want to have it as a short term rental and make some money on it. But you know, if anybody has a second home, that's a great idea you don't have. Even if you're not wanting to get the business, having a second home up here and then renting it out while you're not here, have somebody else pay for your investment.
• 11:24
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: So, and that happens a lot up here and you know, as a result, that's your competition. So, you know, if, you know, you all have the benefit of being learned and coming through the short term shop. So we're, you know, teaching you how to do all this stuff. But you know, you get to the, you know, most people use property managers up here and they do what they can to get their 20 to 30% a year.
• 11:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, we would love to help you. Management Monday. 10,000 people served. And we're, we're more than happy to answer any of your questions here at the short term shop. And thank you for the shout out. All right. Anyway, you have, what else you have? You got maybe an Airbnb link or something?
• 12:06
  Speaker B: I don't have that link to it. That's kind of all I had for that one prepared.
• 12:11
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 12:11
  Speaker B: But yeah, we're looking at for days
• 12:13
  Speaker A: on market around here.
• 12:15
  Speaker B: It's going to be about the same, about two or three Months, maybe a little less, you know, well, maybe a little longer up here because so we're about at 7.2 months worth of product up here in the high country. And that's really due because like the hurricane, there's a lot of people that pulled off market after the hurricane. The high country got hit pretty hard. So as a result, some, you know, stuff was damaged. People are pulling off and now everybody's putting back on. So our inventory is kind of shot up a little bit on there. So with the higher inventory like that, you know, it's gonna push the days on market a little bit more because there's just so much to choose from, you know. So I think it's a little bit, A little bit longer than I would say. It's a little bit longer than, you know, say western North Carolina, but not too much. And it also applies, you know, if your house is good, doesn't need any work, it's obviously going to sell faster than something that does need work that's not in a good location. You know, you could look up upwards to a year on the market.
• 13:17
  Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. All right, so in other words, I can go out there and throw some offers and maybe get somewhere. Yeah.
• 13:22
  Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely. There's plenty of room for negotiation.
• 13:26
  Speaker A: Okay. And turn that off real quick. Yep. You know, again, we were talking on the, the Other North Carolina podcast about the market and where everything is right now and the 10 year yield and everything is really weird and we don't really know what to expect, but it's a good time to get a deal. And you've got seven months worth of inventory in this market, which is, that's, you know, that's a lot. And I think people need to start getting off the sidelines before it's too late. I hate to say it, but it seems to me like that's where we're at. Like, you know, a lot of uncertainty right now I think is the biggest problem with the government shut down and everything at the time of this recording. But it does seem that things have kind of, you know, stabilized a little bit and we might be heading into a more optimistic future as far as real estate is concerned. What do you, what are your thoughts there? Are you seeing any good signs in this market?
• 14:31
  Speaker B: You know, to be honest, Luke, like, this is my best year in real estate so far. I've been slammed. I don't, I. I got tons of people coming up here buying right now. And I think, you know, one of the big track attractors is, you know, our market is not like super overpriced. You know, it's, it's affordable for the, you know, the new investor, it's affordable for the old investor. But I feel like, you know, I feel like we're doing good. I think everything's kind of balancing out at least here in North Carolina. I can't speak to the rest of the other markets that we serve, but we're definitely. I'm loving it. I'm loving it. And people get in before the end of the year. You know that 100% appreciation is back, depreciation back.
• 15:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, it'll be back next year too.
• 15:15
  Speaker B: Let's get in and get some. You still got time?
• 15:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, we still got time. As I don't know when this is coming out, but at the recording of this we do have time. But yeah, I mean like down here in Florida, man, it's still slow, you know, I mean it's. People are kind of kicking around a little bit, but properties are just sitting and there's not a lot of buyers. And I think this, this is one of this last to come back around. I know the Tennessee Smokies are a little busier again and. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's been two years really of a pretty slow market. I, I read a statistic that the month of August this year was the most terminated contracts in the history of having a one month period in history. And since then, September and October, October is not over yet. At the time of the recording of this, they bounced back big time. So some of the things I'm seeing is that maybe August of this year. Of course that's just one statistic. Might be the end of the deals falling apart.
• 16:17
  Speaker B: I closed like three or four in August, I think.
• 16:19
  Speaker A: Nice. That's great for one agent, you know.
• 16:22
  Speaker B: Yeah. But yeah, it's
• 16:27
  Speaker A: all right. So if I live in or I want to get involved in North Carolina ski market, this is the place to be. Boone, Blowing Rock, this is a little bit more expensive homes in these areas too. You know, if you like a nicer lifestyle asset type of a deal.
• 16:41
  Speaker B: There's some good luxury properties up here too. It just depends on, you know, those are a little bit more restrictive because of, you know, those kind of neighborhoods will restrict it.
• 16:52
  Speaker A: It's an interesting conversation. This. The super luxury buddy of mine's a photographer and he was shooting photos of a, a home yesterday and he sent me a couple pictures and I was like, dang, dude, if I could afford that house, I would not rent it.
• 17:05
  Speaker B: You know, that's my trophy house.
• 17:07
  Speaker A: Trophy house. And there is nothing wrong with the trophy house, you know, so that's cool. All right. Anything else we need to know about North Carolina ski country?
• 17:17
  Speaker B: No, it's. It's. It's bouncing back. And, you know, right now, it's really the best time to get something up here. And, you know, either of these. The North Carolina markets that I'm in, just because, you know, you have that ability to haggle. So, you know, just don't be scared when you see something that's been on the market for 180 days. You know, usually when we see that, we're like, oh, what's wrong with it? It's been on the market this long. It's just the way the market is, like, you know, and it could be. It's overpriced. It could be the agent did a good. Didn't do a good job of representing it. You know, there's a lot of factors here, so don't jump to, like, the grim conclusion. Just ask me and we'll look at it. We'll take a look at it and see what's going on there, you know, and it's. It's a. Just don't let that scare you off, you know, before we. Before you do your homework on it.
• 18:03
  Speaker A: So. Yeah. All right, Jay. Well, we appreciate your time, buddy. It's jay@theshorttermshop.com and we'll be back with another episode, hopefully sooner than later, here on North Carolina podcast.
• 18:17
  Speaker B: Hell, yes. All right, Skull.
• 18:20
  Speaker A: All right, see you later.