ASHEVILLE - Recent reports indicate the market didn't change much in the first six months of 2024 compared to last year. In 2023, home prices broke records. This year, that fact remains the same.
At $512,000, the second quarter of 2024 saw Asheville's highest quarterly median home sale price on record, according to the Asheville-based Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty. Buncombe County broke the same record at $507,500.
Yet, considering the region's market, the news is "not that surprising," said Mike Figura, owner of the Mosaic Community Lifestyle Realty. Figura noted that halfway through 2024, Asheville's housing market has been remarkably similar to 2023's, which continued to see record prices amid high inflation.
"There's a little bit of fluctuations within certain price ranges, but it's not meaningful enough to really draw any conclusion that anything significant is happening," Figura said, noting that inventory and days on the market make up some of the few differences.
Though inventory in the area has increased slightly compared to the second quarter of 2023 — with some price ranges seeing an added one-to-two months' worth of home inventory — sales data is almost identical. In 2023 and 2024, Asheville had 585 homes sold through the first half of the year. In Buncombe County, 1,136 homes sold by the end of June — only three less than during the same time in 2023.
As prices have risen, homes have remained on the market longer. In the second quarter of 2024, homes were on the market for an average of 52 days in Buncombe County, up 18% compared to the same time in 2023. Asheville saw an average of 43 days, a 22% increase.
And while still setting records, home prices for the full year provide a more "stable" look at the market, Figura said. Asheville's median home sale price ended 2023 a record high of $485,000, up $30,000 from 2022. But by the end of June 2024, the median home sale price has stayed the same. Buncombe County's has increased by $15,000.
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'Slow shift' toward a buyer's market, NAR says
The report that the second quarter broke price records in Asheville comes as the National Association of Realtors announced that June 2024 saw the highest median sale price for all housing types in the United States at $427,000. It's the second month the record has been broken.
The NAR recently released June 2024's Existing-Home Sales report, with its Chief Economist Lawrence Yun suggesting that the market is experiencing a "slow shift" from a seller's market to a buyer's market.
"Homes are sitting on the market a bit longer, and sellers are receiving fewer offers. More buyers are insisting on home inspections and appraisals, and inventory is definitively rising on a national basis," said Yun in a July 23 statement, adding that "further large accelerations" in the market are unlikely.
“Supply and demand dynamics are nearing a balanced market condition. The months' supply of inventory reached its highest level in more than four years," Yun continued.
Efforts to address housing costs include the recently released city of Asheville Affordable Housing Plan — developed by Enterprise Community Partners — which found that the city needs to produce 14,000 homes by 2050 to keep up with population growth. The statistic doesn't include how many would need to be built to allow the market to be qualified as "affordable."
Executive Officer of the Builders Association of the Blue Ridge Mountains Megan Carroll told the Citizen Times in early July that the reported price increases in the region indicate the necessity of building more homes.
"That problem is just becoming more and more exacerbated, and I think has been brought to a head through that cost conversation," Carroll said.
Calls to address gaps in the housing market have led local officials, homebuilders and city staffers to propose multiple plans to address avenues to new, affordable home development in Asheville. Some solutions have been suggested to be the expansion of Missing Middle Housing — a form of housing that includes cottages , duplexes and fourplexes — and easing city restrictions to residential development.
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Will Hofmann is the Growth and Development Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Got a tip? Email him at WHofmann@citizentimes.com. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Tim es.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: At $512,000, Asheville home prices broke quarterly records; US prices reach all-time highs
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