Latest / Short Term Shopping / Western NC Vacation Rentals, Maggie Valley Cabins and STR Market Update

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Western NC Vacation Rentals, Maggie Valley Cabins and STR Market Update · 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 are. We are in North Carolina on the North Carolina podcast. Let's just call it the North Carolina Podcast. So we're going to do the Smoky Mountain area of North Carolina. Some folks would call it the Asheville area, but not really. You know, it's a little bit down further to the west and south of there. And I'll stop talking. Let me introduce Jay the Viking. How you doing, buddy?
• 0:51
  Speaker B: I'm doing all right, Luke. It's a great day and glad to be here. Yeah, we're. We're mostly back up and running. You know, we had that hurricane a year ago now, but, you know, we're. We're pretty badass out here. We came together and kind of got everything back up and running, but it sure did. It did take its toll, but, you know, that's just. We bounced back.
• 1:10
  Speaker A: So still a lot of road closures and things. I think there's definitely a lot of sections of roads going to Tennessee that I know of that are at least down to one lane in areas and things like that.
• 1:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, 40. That's going to take a long time to fix. That was a land bridge that got washed out. So, I mean, they literally have to connect two mountains together. So, yeah, it's. It's open. You can get through to Tennessee. It used to take an hour and a half to get to Gatlinburg from here. It's more like two hours now, you know, give or take. But it just depends on what time of day you go.
• 1:44
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah. It's been, I think, a year and two weeks or something like that. Three. Two weeks.
• 1:51
  Speaker B: So I think it's. Today is the anniversary.
• 1:55
  Speaker A: Oh, today.
• 1:56
  Speaker B: 22nd, I believe is. That's when it happened.
• 1:59
  Speaker A: That was. That was a tough one for sure. And mostly a lot. A lot to do with. You guys weren't expecting such a thing.
• 2:06
  Speaker B: No, no, I was fortunate. I didn't lose power at all or anything, but a lot of people did, so. But yeah, we're doing well now.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool. So what. Let's, I guess, start. Can you show me where we're talking about, just for perspective here?
• 2:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, hang on one second. Let me.
• 2:25
  Speaker A: We are going to be okay.
• 2:28
  Speaker B: So if you can see my cursor, this is Asheville for reference. So all the way west.
• 2:33
  Speaker A: I'm sorry, why do we, why do we keep talking about Asheville? Is it simply because it's like, you know, the biggest city?
• 2:38
  Speaker B: It's, it's the one people know. Yeah, it's the biggest city around here in the western North Carolina area. So for reference, there's Asheville. You don't, you can't rent an Asheville city limits. So it's kind of off the, off there. So if you go west, we have i40 that goes all the way through and then it attaches to 74 and 19. So it's like this straight shot of highway through this whole market. So getting places is, you know, it's quicker, not a lot of back roads and stuff like that. So this area right here is Waynesville, Maggie Valley. It's currently where my bud is occupied in this little area here. You know, we got Lake Junalaska right there. It's a nice man made lake. It's a about 10ft deep, but it, it kind of looks cool and you can swim in it. But in the wintertime they like muck it. So it kind of looks ugly in the wintertime. So keep that in mind if you buy in like Genaluska, Maggie Valley, very, very popular. It's this little tiny strip. It's not a very big town. So it doesn't really, to me, it doesn't really matter where you buy in Maggie Valley as long as it's not like, you know, the road's not horrible. It's, it's so close to everything no matter where you buy in Maggie Valley. So there's still, even if you buy on the outskirts, you're still closer to Cherokee and the casino out there. But I mean anywhere you buy in here, you're like maybe two to 15 minutes away from all the action. And Phi Top Road, that's the big one because that's where the ski resort is here. Cataloochee Ski area. So we do have snow skiing in Maggie Valley. And then you jog over, keep going west. You got Cherokee, Whittier, Bryson City. Bryson City's pretty. Where I've sold most of my real estate this year. It's actually kind of like just taken off this year. I don't know why. I mean, it's a great place. It's. I do know why. It's awesome place, but it's just in the past, you know, I, it's like it's either Maggie Valley or Bryson City or kind of out near Asheville is where it just depends year to year. But you know, going even further west, you got Fantana Lake, you got Lake Santilla, Lake Chatug. You know, those are all great places. Expect to pay a lot more in those communities because they are, especially if you're on the lake. But. And then if we go a little west of Ash or east of Asheville here you got Chimney Rock, which sadly doesn't really exist anymore since the hurricane. It was completely wiped off the map. Then you've got Lake Lure is a good spot. And if you're around, I have a guy that, that bought 30 minutes from the lake and he's actually absolutely crushing it. But you know, if the closer to the lake you get, the better, you know, so it just shows that you don't have to be right on the lake. But that's pretty much this area.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: What are we looking at? Throw me a purchase price. Like can, are there smaller properties or like what. So I'm already all over the place. How many bedrooms am I looking at? Can I get a two bedroom?
• 5:37
  Speaker B: So yeah, absolutely. You get one bedrooms as well, but they're a little bit more few and far between. But they're going to be the lowest of all the price points. So a two to three bedroom is probably your, you know, your average size and like people that are just getting into the business and stuff like that, that's going to be, you know, kind of what their budget is going to allow for them. So, you know, it's about a, you know, Haywood county, which is where I'm at, that's, you know, your average purchase price is only about 400k. If you get closer to Asheville, you're kind of going up to 500k is the average purchase price. And then, you know, it's kind of similar going out to Bryson City like that. We actually have a really, you know, for what you get. Our purchase, our purchase prices are kind of low. It doesn't necessarily make a whole lot of sense to spend a million dollars unless you're buying something at least five bedrooms plus. So because the revenue jumps up quite significantly between a three and a five. So it just, it just doesn't make sense to spend a million dollars on a three bedroom here.
• 6:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 6:42
  Speaker B: Unless it's just the most amazing property like ever, you know.
• 6:46
  Speaker A: Right. Maybe something you're looking like you fell in love with, that kind of thing. Yeah, well, personal use.
• 6:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, for personal use. But we want to make some money. So that's kind of where those price points come in at. I have one under contract that's over a million right now that's a seven bedroom and that makes sense. And that's in prices or Whittier. It just has to. The bedroom count has to be there. So
• 7:14
  Speaker A: I'm curious to see what that looks like. But to protect the buyers and sellers on that one, since it's not closed, we won't look.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's not closed yet. I can't. That's why I said above a million but not the actual purchase price.
• 7:29
  Speaker A: Okay, cool. So do you have like maybe a listing or something like that that we can like. Give me an example. Maybe not that seven bedroom doesn't even have to be your listing. Just like a house for sale.
• 7:40
  Speaker B: So here's one I just like perused a little bit. This one's 590. This is up in the Maggie Valley Country Club and it's in a really good spot. It might need a little bit exterior work on it. But you know, as far as, you know, running through it, I just. It looks really good. The, the country club is an optional HOA fee. If you do buy into that, then you, you obviously get the amenities and stuff that come with that. But it's, it's optional. Short term rentals are friendly there and you're not far from the action. So that's kind of an example of a Maggie Valley property. And like I was saying earlier, it kind of really doesn't matter where you buy because you're always close because it's just such a small town and some reason that's not loading. But this has a view. It's not the most amazing view and I think Avery calls them majestic views. This definitely doesn't have a majestic view. It has a good view.
• 8:37
  Speaker A: So is the country club a popular area? Is this area come up often in your life?
• 8:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I've actually sold a few of this community over here. The course I believe it's public. You can go and you know, just pay and play. But you. This is the only country club here that I know of in Maggie Valley that you also have Laurel Ridge, which is nearby, but not right there on the strip of Maggie.
• 9:02
  Speaker A: So any idea what something like this would rent for gross for a year?
• 9:07
  Speaker B: The average ADR is around 2, 250 for the area here. I don't know, I don't have a gross rate off the top of my head, but I could give you like an average like, you know, return that's going to be like 4 to 7% at the end of the day.
• 9:27
  Speaker A: So I got you. It looks like it does need a little updating. Is that pretty normal?
• 9:34
  Speaker B: Not all the Time, not all the time. And we can actually segue that into what sells and how long it stays on the market, you know, depending on like the condition on the outside. So, yes, it does, you know, need a little bit of outside work, I think on this one. But, you know, just some paint and stuff. It's not going to be a ton of stuff that you're going to do to it. But that's the thing is things, you know, average day on market is about two to three months. If the house is nice and there's nothing wrong with it, if it needs work and stuff like that, it can be on the market longer than that, you know, up to a year. So that's kind of the state of our market. We're definitely a buyer's market here right now because we have here in Waynesville or in Heywood county in western North Carolina. Well, at western North Carolina as a whole, we're at about six month inventory. So a six month period of time, you know, and so there's plenty out there. Just. And a lot of times there's not multiple offers now. So you can negotiate stuff like that on stuff that needs work. So lots of opportunities for burrs, which is if you want to do that. That's awesome. We got those. You know, you can usually find those under 300. Just depends on what level of fixing it up you want to do. So.
• 10:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, I read actually yesterday that we had 56,000 canceled contracts in the month of August. And that's the. Might be the worst ever, but since August it's gotten way better. So the data I'm getting on this statistic is that it's reached the worst it's ever going to be and now we're maybe rebounding a little bit. It went as high as one in every seven contracts was being canceled. This is again nationwide and of course is mostly going to be primary homes because that's what most single family homes are nationwide. But yeah, you know, it's a. Market is wacky out there. And at the recording of this podcast, we're also. The government is still shut down. They're expecting to open it up. I'm actually saying maybe even a day, but who knows when you're listening to this, but if you think that it's still 2021, get over that. It is not. It's definitely dead out there in most cases. What is that? That's cute.
• 11:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, this. This is just to add to that too. I think a lot of this has been my busiest year in real estate, Luke. Like, seriously But I think, you know, ever since Big Beautiful Bill passed, there's a lot more people buying short term rentals, you know, for that depreciation. So this is, this is just an example of something that I found that's in Bryson City. And I don't necessarily know if I agree with the price on it, but. Where'd it go? It is unique. And that's the, that's the thing, you know, something like this that's really unique does really well because it's not your cookie cutter. Like, here's your living room and your kitchen and you got two rims off the side. That house is just really boring. But this actually has like an observation deck and everything, so you can get up there and, you know, look at the view and, you know, it's very, very interesting home.
• 12:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, this is cool. Like, really cool. This is like, this is what you, you know, you hear the term Airbnb. This is what I think of.
• 12:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, there's a, there's a tree house out here for sale right now. The problem is it's just the lending has been an issue for the guy selling it, so. But it's got like a tree growing through the house. I mean, the house itself is not a tree house. It is on stilts. But like, lending's like, there's a tree in the house. So it's just part of the features there, buddy. Yeah, it's really cool looking.
• 13:13
  Speaker A: I have two questions about this house. How much is it?
• 13:17
  Speaker B: 600, 000 even.
• 13:19
  Speaker A: How many bedrooms? So, three questions. Sorry.
• 13:21
  Speaker B: It's a 2:1, so.
• 13:23
  Speaker A: Oh, it's pretty small.
• 13:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's why. And it's about 1400 square feet. That's why I said I didn't necessarily agree on the price. But, you know, it's only been, it's been on the market about 58 days now. So it's kind of reaching that threshold of, you know, normal days on market
• 13:40
  Speaker A: where they may actually be coming back down to earth.
• 13:43
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, these days I, I can't tell you, Luke. Last time I put a house under contract for asking price. Like, seriously. It's just, you can nick, you know, and get concessions too. Like you can negotiate, you can get credits, you know, it just depends on how long the house has been on the market. If it's day one, you know, you're probably, you know, we'll haggle. But, you know, don't expect them to, you know, play ball with you. Day one, day on the market, you know.
• 14:11
  Speaker A: So is this, is this house common I mean, are there other interesting homes in the area or. Not really?
• 14:18
  Speaker B: No, no, there's. These are kind of few and far between. And the reason why I wanted to bring this one up is just, you know, to show the uniqueness of a house that would do well up here is, you know, compared to your cookie cutter. But there's a. There's a lot of good looking houses that aren't necessarily the cookie cutter, but a lot of the new constructions that come up, they're just. The floor plan is just blah. So this is. There's a lot of unique little houses like this, like, scattered here and there. So when I see them, I always like to try to like, hey, check this out. This is unique. This will do. Well, I'm gonna probably put this on the. The Facebook or thingy that we do every week for new and notable.
• 15:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, New and notable. Yeah, this is. This. I think this is sell. I mean, the price is a little out of line, I mean, for how small it is, but marketability is very high on this, assuming it's in good shape. I mean, the, you know, the piers under the porch there look a little worn out, but yeah. Oh, that's cool. Got a little koi pond type deal.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. You got a loft in there. I'm assuming that this two bedroom is a one bedroom plus a loft bedroom. It's got a. Well, it's got a garage. So if that garage is not finished, that's a good place to put your game room. You know, I don't know anybody that actually uses a garage for a garage in a short term rental up here. So, you know, to help park cars. Yep. See, there's a little loft room up here and it even has a third story up to the observation deck. So that's. It's. It's cool. Very interesting. This is. This is just an example of something that would probably do really well just because it's so unique.
• 16:01
  Speaker A: I like it. I want it.
• 16:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, let's put an offer on.
• 16:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe.
• 16:05
  Speaker B: Maybe we'll get a video for you.
• 16:07
  Speaker A: But anyway, I even like that little front porch there. That is so cool. Yeah. With the swing.
• 16:15
  Speaker B: It's on. Where's the acreage? 17 acres, so.
• 16:20
  Speaker A: Oh my.
• 16:21
  Speaker B: That's probably why the price is so high now that I'm looking at it. 17 acres, but you got to figure how much of that's usable, you know. Right.
• 16:28
  Speaker A: It's probably up and down type of a deal.
• 16:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, that makes more sense on the price now that I saw that. 17 acres there, because it's about 30 to 50k an acre. You know, give her. It just depends on the usability of them.
• 16:41
  Speaker A: All right, well, by the time this podcast comes out, this thing might be under contract, so we'll see.
• 16:46
  Speaker B: Well, make sure you contact me whoever wants to put it out.
• 16:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, yours truly. But anyway. All right, cool. Anything else we should look at in the area?
• 16:55
  Speaker B: So I got a couple Airbnb listings of some people in western North Carolina here that have done really well. And this is. He paid 430 for this. And it's kind of right off the road, the Maggie. I mean, you can actually hear the road, which a lot of people, some people don't like. But I mean, it works for him. His view is good, all of it. You know, it's solid. It's a cat cabin. He. He's absolutely crushing it.
• 17:23
  Speaker A: This almost looks like a East Tennessee cabin.
• 17:26
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what Maggie Valley looks like, man. That in the Alara region of Bryson City. Beautiful views, but you can tell, you can see he's not way up high, but he's got that long range view of the mountains. So you know that, that does the trick. And know it's in a neighborhood. So I mean, being in a neighborhood doesn't necessarily mean you're going to do bad. You know, if you want it personally for something that you want it more secluded, that's more of a personal preference. But something like this, I mean, but he, he's probably doing the best out of every client I've ever had.
• 18:00
  Speaker A: Let's go look at his calendar.
• 18:02
  Speaker B: Yep. Let's look at this calendar.
• 18:03
  Speaker A: Of course it is slow season here. We're coming. We're very, very slow season in the next couple weeks. But just hit back.
• 18:11
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 18:12
  Speaker A: And then just check in. There you go. Room's looking good. That's looking really good.
• 18:18
  Speaker B: October was done. He's got half of November almost done. And I don't know if. Yep, November, December even got. Doesn't have anything in January. Well, January 1st, but I guess that's an overbooking for December. There's. We do get a little bit of a trickle down because November, December and July are our best months up here. And we do get a little bit of a trickle down into January because, you know, people are just not ready to start the new year and leave their vacation, you know, so we do get a pretty decent January compared to other markets. February to May is kind of the slow period. But yeah, so that's his and this and this next one. And then I think know if you have any more questions, we can jump in high country. But this is a Bryson City cabin that a client of mine just bought. And if you want to see before pictures of this place, feel free to email me, you know, and I will show you before pictures of this house. But they are, they have a, an interior design business. So they completely, they bought this house for 489,950, put about 200 in renovations in it. And it's fabulous. It's amazing. And he's got the sauna, the hot tub. I know you, we, we've talked about, you know, if it's not renting, don't put more amenities in it. But you know, this is what they started with, so. And they're doing really well. This right here is a garage that he completely redid. And this like location wise is probably like three minutes from downtown Bryson City. So you got the whole downtown scene down there. This location is really great.
• 20:04
  Speaker A: This house needs its own Instagram.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: I know, right? They probably have one. Yeah, I just don't have it. But man, if you could see the before pictures like this was all enclosed, the kitchen. And he knocked it all out and did that. It's a great place. Like I couldn't believe it. I went, he, I went and did the, a walkthrough of it after he finished it. And there was foundation issues at the beginning and had those corrected. Just small ones, not anything really big. You know, we, we're in the mountains, you know, settles. So. But this is, this is the Bryson City one I wanted to show that is doing really well. And you know, if you, if you have the means in your booking, you know, any little people want to stay at this place, you know, they don't necessarily want to be gone from it all the time while they're here just because there's lots of things to do. But that's about it. Cool calendar.
• 21:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, that thing's beautiful. So a little less than the other guy.
• 21:10
  Speaker B: A little less than the other guy. But his price per night is probably a lot higher too. So you will, you will see a lower occupancy rate with the, the higher priced homes. Because this I think after said and done he had like, like a five or six bed. So you will see a lot less, you know, or around here is about 33 to 55%. You will see a little bit lower with the bigger houses but you are charging more per night. So it does cash flow at the end of the day. So something smaller like that last one, you know, he's going to be. His price per night is going to be a little lower, so.
• 21:47
  Speaker A: Cool.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: And it's kind of similar in high country, too, about 35 to 40%. It's a little lower, but we'll get into that.
• 21:57
  Speaker A: All right, so what. Talk to me about maybe a couple of your most recent deals. Like. Like somebody offering on a house. What does that look like? I know it's case by case. It's always going to be different. But are you seeing, like a lot of back and forth and offers and counteroffers? Are. Are you seeing sellers that are saying go to hell or what are we saying?
• 22:21
  Speaker B: Well, I like to think myself as a good negotiator, so I like to get them to get that counter back to us and we'll go from there. But yeah, like I told you, I can't tell you last time I put a house under contract for asking price. It's always. We've always negotiated under. We've always concessions. It's just the way the market is right now. You know, now I've had. I've had some listings sit on the market for a long time, too. But, you know, I actually, the last couple listings that I listed and sold, they went from one to one day, to three to one day, to one month. They sold. So got those sold out pretty quick. That's not a, you know, normal occurrence. You don't put stuff on the market these days and it goes the first day. That's a fluke now. But, yeah, you know, I'm a big fan of Chris Voss. So if you want to get in and negotiate, let's do it.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 23:15
  Speaker B: Never split that difference.
• 23:17
  Speaker A: That's a big part of it. And right now it's a huge part of it. It's a huge part of it because you got sellers that are just morons and they think that their house is worth a billion dollars and their neighbor sold it in 2021 for, you know, $2 million in Bitcoin or whatever. And. And now you got buyers that are starting to kind of come around and they're hungry and they're also unrealistic and,
• 23:47
  Speaker B: like, they're 100,000 under asking. Well, let's do it.
• 23:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, let's give it a try.
• 23:51
  Speaker B: That extreme anchor there.
• 23:52
  Speaker A: Hey, Mr. Seller, I hate to tell you, but when's the last time you had an offer? You know?
• 23:56
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 23:57
  Speaker A: An offer, an annoying, offensive offer is better than no offer.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: It's a starting point or not.
• 24:06
  Speaker A: And that's where we're at right now. And I think we're going to stay there for a little while. I do think things are going to smooth out a little bit. We got to get the government open back up, get some data going. I think that's our biggest problem right now is we haven't had any data for three weeks. But you know, at the recording of this podcast again, which is why we wanted to update this is everything's changed, everything's changed since we recorded the original set of podcasts. And as of yesterday morning, as a matter of fact, at the time we're recording this, the 10 year went below 4 for the first time in very long time. And we've been waiting on that, waiting on it for what, I don't know, because there's a lot of other factors that are going to need to happen before mortgage rates come down. But because the mortgage spread, they're starting to get there, but the spread's bad. I mean you got 3.94 somewhere in there on the 10 year and the, the Fed rate is what, 4.25. But mortgage interest rates are somewhere, what, I don't know. Where are they at right now?
• 25:05
  Speaker B: 6, 5, 6. Yeah, somewhere. I've seen them as high as 6.8 recently, but about that I haven't checked
• 25:12
  Speaker A: in the last week. So, you know, the difference between the 10 year and the mortgage rates right now is too big. Historically they're, you know, if you look on them on like a 20 year spread or 10 year, however long the 10 year has been around, they're, they're neck and neck over time. But right now they're, they're not. And that's our biggest problem. And I think we're going in the right direction. But the only, the only way we can get things going is to get some data on, you know, jobs would be the most important one right now and we don't have that.
• 25:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, because nobody's there right now but nobody working.
• 25:50
  Speaker A: Definitely change government. So that's the stuff to keep an eye on right now. Where's the 10 year versus the mortgage rates? And again that's if you're buying with a mortgage, this is an excellent time to buy without a mortgage.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to worry about that
• 26:05
  Speaker A: appraisal and you don't have to worry about competition. No, no. The guy with a mortgage right now at 6.8% versus when the seller bought it for 3%. This is the problem in the market. But if you've got cash, it's a great time to be, be jumping on some things and Then let the. Let the people that need to use a mortgage fight over it in a few months or whatever as things start to come back around. So it's an interesting time. It's an interesting time.
• 26:36
  Speaker B: Yeah. And up here, I mean, you can't really get seller financing. There's not. God, it's so rare that that happens up here too. So. But yeah, things are changing. I went back and looked at my video when I first joined about the market. I was like, wow, this has all.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: So much has changed. And my thing is the biggest problem is perspective. The people don't realize it's changed so much because most people don't sell houses very often and we can't blame them for that.
• 27:04
  Speaker B: About 8 is average for the normal real estate agent up here a year
• 27:08
  Speaker A: to sell eight houses for six to eight.
• 27:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's the average.
• 27:13
  Speaker A: But an average human, the selling and buying their own homes to live in and, and such that the statistic is seven years every seven years. So we had a lot of people buying and selling in 2020 and 2021 and it has not been seven years since then. So they, you know, there's a lot of people that still think that that's going on. And of course your pre shirt is awesome.
• 27:37
  Speaker B: That's a good show. That was really good.
• 27:41
  Speaker A: Anyway, how do you love the short term shot, man? That's what I'm talking about. How do we get a hold of you?
• 27:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, just J and then the short term shop at gmail. Com.
• 27:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, jay@shorttermshop.com j@the short term shop.
• 27:57
  Speaker B: Com.
• 27:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, easy. All right, cool. Well, we appreciate you and we'll catch up again soon.
• 28:03
  Speaker B: All right, man, Sounds good.