By Christine Huang at PSFK

Last week, we began a month-long expedition across eight cities in the US and Canada in search of inspiration in the way people live, work, play, and connect with one another. Over the course of our journey, we’ll be sharing dispatches from the road here -’snapshots‘ of the inspiring people, businesses, and ideas we come across in some of North America’s most unique, and uniquely livable, burgs.

Our first stop: Asheville, North Carolina, a smallish city of roughly 69,000 residents, situated two hours northwest of Charlotte at the foot of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.

Early Girl Eatery: Julie Stehling (above) and her husband John opened their restaurant Early Girl Eatery nine years ago with the intention of bringing quality, homecooked-style southern food to Asheville while supporting local farms and food purveyors. A large chalkboard propped up behind the register at the Early Girl displays the list of 20+ CSAs, family farms, and other local businesses that provide the ingredients for the restaurant’s offerings. Though the Early Girl has become a go-to spot in Asheville for locals and tourists alike, the restaurant has managed to stay true to its “made from scratch” motto (John’s parents still prepare all the baked goods for sale) while continually supporting and strengthening the local food community.

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If you enjoyed this article you might enjoy speaking with Katherine Kaderabek at Beverly-Hanks & Associates.

Neal Hanks, owner of Beverly-Hanks & Associates, announced today that he is now a 50% partner and co-owner of Private Mountain Communities (PMC) with Harry Redfearn, the Founder and President of PMC.

As the Western North Carolina real estate market continues to strenghten, Redfearn and Hanks believe timing is optimum for growing the company to meet predicted consumer demand for PMC’s services. “I’m very excited about the opportunity to have someone with Neal’s reputation and experience as a partner in PMC and Beverly-Hanks & Associates will create a myriad of synergies for our customers and the communities we serve in WNC,” said Harry Redfearn.

Industry Realtor Survey

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fbvM_wECO4

From the PDF Industry Realtor Survey

For those who may be unfamiliar with our survey, we center our indices around 50
so that readings above 50 indicate positive or improving trends and readings below
50 indicate negative or worsening trends. Please see page 5 for a full description of
our survey methodology.

Agents see additional pressure on home prices: Our Monthly Survey of Real Estate
Agents indicated further pressure on home prices in August, with the trend likely to
continue through at least the end of the year, but likely into 2011. Our price index fell to
22.9 in August from 26.8 in July, now back to the levels of early ‘09. The downward trend
to pricing was seen across markets. The key driver appears to be the lack of buyer traffic,
which has forced sellers to become more realistic about their asking prices, if they want
the sale to be completed in the short-term. In addition, the rising inventory levels are
problematic as there are more homes to choose between, but fewer buyers looking.
Clearly this doesn’t bode well for pricing. Our home listings (inventory) index fell to 30.0 in
August, down from 36.3 in July, and the lowest since early 2008 (lower levels indicate
rising inventory).

Traffic stable in August, but at depressed levels: Our traffic index was unchanged in
August from July, registering 17.0 vs 16.9 in July. This level of traffic is essentially
untenable, as it will lead both sellers of existing homes and homebuilders to cut prices in
order to spur additional traffic. August was the fourth month following the expiration of the
tax credit and the slowdown appears too prolonged to be just the impact of the expiration
of the credit. Buyers continue to have concerns about job security, the weak economy, and
especially lack any sense of urgency given the increasingly common expectation of lower
home prices in the future.

Consistent weakness in traffic, even in foreclosure heavy markets: All of the top
twenty markets that we survey had traffic readings below 30, reflecting the consistent
weakness seen in August. We saw the lowest traffic readings in Minneapolis, Chicago,
Phoenix, Denver, and Charlotte, but also foreclosure-heavy markets such as the Inland
Empire and Ft Myers have seen considerably less traffic than earlier in the year, as it
seems that some of the investor demand has passed.

Reversal of trends seems unlikely in near-term: We expect to see published pricing
metrics show weakness in the upcoming months based on the trends that we have seen in
our survey. In addition, we think that many of the sellers of existing homes will likely see
the need to reduce prices ahead given the high inventory of 3.98 million existing homes for
sale. Our concerns are reinforced by the lengthening time needed to sell a home. Our time
to sell index, which reflects both the level of traffic and inventory, fell to 19.1 in August,
down from 23.6 in July, and at the lowest level since October 2008.

From Keeping Current Matters - KCM Blog

There are going to be some tough headlines written about the housing market over the next several months. They may create apprehension and in some cases outright fear. The good news is these headlines will not reflect what is actually taking place in real estate. Some in the industry say we should just ignore this media blitz of problematic stories. That would be similar to trying to ignore a growling creature lurking in the shadows in the corner of the room. Instead, we want to shine a bright light into that corner to honestly evaluate how dangerous the creature actually is.

PROBABLE HEADLINE: Sales Plummeting. Housing Market Crashing

THE FACTS: The National Association of Realtors’ Pending Sales Report is a leading indicator for the housing sector, based on pending sales of existing homes. A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction has not closed.

Read the Full Article on the KCM Blog