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What the Numbers Won't Tell You - The Story Behind the 2010 Mid-Year Real Estate Market Report for Murphy NC and Cherokee County

By
Real Estate Agent with Country Homes and Land Murphy NC Realtor

Home sales in Cherokee County, North Carolina have remained at the same level for three years.  Land sales have dropped 42% in the last two years.  True...or false?

If you use the statistics from the Mountain Lakes Board of Realtors, those are the conclusions you'd draw. 

But property listed and sold on the local MLS only tells part of the story.  According to this week's Cherokee Scout, 11 lot sales were recorded by the Register of Deeds in one local subdivision back in April.  Prices ranged from $19,000-50,000. 

But when I cross-checked these sales with the data fom our MLS, I realized that none of these sales appeared in the statistics I used for the mid-year market report.  So I decided to dig a little deeper.

I know three individuals who have purchased homes directly from local banks in the last 6 months.  Those sales didn't show up in any local market reports either.  So I tried to find out if there is another way to get more accurate information.

I put in a call to the Cherokee County Register of Deeds office and found out that it does not keep track of deed transfers on land separately from residential deed transfers.  There is also no way to distinguish actual sales from deed transfers back to a mortgagor in lieu of foreclosure, other than to search all the county records on a daily basis and note which ones were transfers of property from an individual back to a lender. 

This morning I spoke with an auctioneer from Knoxville who is coming to Murphy for an "event sale" this weekend.  An event sale is not the same thing as an auction - this is a one-day promotion of lot sales in a specific subdivision, with special pricing offered.  He told me his company has been involved in two other event sales in the Murphy area in the past few years.

In 2008, 49 lots were sold by his firm right here in Cherokee County.  None of them appeared on local MLS statistics.  Last year, another 40 lots were purchased in a local subdivision at a one-day sale.  These sales are advertised in the Northeast, the Midwest and all over Florida - the areas where the majority of our buyers live, but are seldom publicized here in Murphy.  

At Country Homes and Land, we only found out about one of the sales because a Florida client forwarded her brochure to us, asking us to look at the property for her.  When we checked on the land being offered at the event, we found out there were dozens of other lots for sale in the area with even better views, at lower prices.

So what does all this mean to buyers and sellers here in Murphy, North Carolina?

1.  Buyers are still coming to our mountains with checkbooks in hand, ready to snap up the bargains, both in home and land sales.

2.  There are a lot more people buying land here than you'd think if you only look at statistics from our local Board of Realtors.

3.  If you're one of those buyers looking for a bargain, purchasing land at a one day "event sale" without doing your homework and finding out what else you can get in the area may not be the best way to get that bargain.  

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