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There are many factors for your client to consider when searching for a mountain homesite to build their second home or primary home.

My current focus is sales for the Creston Community outside of Black Mountain, NC. Buyers from all over the country (usually from "flat land") are searching for Western North Carolina mountain properties and the majority of them are not sure what questions to ask until well after they've wasted a lot of their own precious time. I want to share a checklist that a recent Buyer in Creston put together. This couple covered close to 3000 miles in eight weeks looking around WNC and Eastern Tennessee before purchasing in Creston. Of course, not every buyer has the time to accomplish that feat of odometer turning during a weekend visit here and there. As a result of these miles covered this couple became extremely educated on what to look for and what their needs really were. As you all know an educated buyer is such a pleasure to work with. Hopefully, a combination of their checklist and items we all share on this blog will be useful to your future mountain homesite buyers. I look forward to reading your thoughts and input.

Here is a sampling of the checklist compiled by my clients and how their Creston homesite ranked for them with rankings being Excellent, Very Good, Neutral, Poor and Unacceptable. Every buyer will vary and put more emphasis on certain areas than others.

Lot Selection Criteria

Region
            Region Center Distance e.g. Asheville30 minutes (Creston-Very Good)
            Region Center Quality e.g. Asheville (Creston-Excellent)
            Local Center Distance e.g. Black Mountain 15 minutes (Creston-Very Good)
            Local Center Quality     e.g. Black Mountain (Creston-Very Good)
Community
            AmenitiesHiking, (Creston-Excellent)
            Utilities- underground (Creston-Excellent)
            Broadband internet/cable TV    in place (Creston-Excellent)
            Developer Reputation-Mountain Community Track Record (Creston-Excellent)
Lot
            Facing - Southeast, (Creston-Very Good)
            Vegetation - Rhodendron, Hardwoods (Creston-Excellent)
            Views- Mixed Long and Short (Creston-Excellent)
            Distance to nearest home - 400 feet (Creston-Very Good)

My personal favorite questions to ask are: What will be the total density at buildout? How much will be set aside as greenspace? What exposure? What elevation? Broadband internet availability? Usable acreage?

Posted by Corey Atherton on 02/11/2007 05:19 PM

Comments (10)

asheville, creston, black mountain, mountain homesite

10 Comments on There are many factors for your client to consider when searching for a mountain homesite to build their second home or primary home.

FEB

2007

Interesting to get a close-view of your work and region, community, lot selection criteria. Your favorite questions ...What will be the total density at buildout? How much will be set aside as greenspace? What exposure? What elevation? Broadband internet availability? Usable acreage?...could be of immense value to those looking at conservation development properties. For sure, the answers will show which is an authentic conservation property (50%+ in conservation) and which is not. That brings us to another subject...green washing"...

Exposure - that is my favorite. Face it the sun comes up Every morning. Why not use that to our homes advantage!

FEB

2007

I think asking about the total density at buildout is a key question. Corey...how does this relate to green-washing?

JaneAnne--
I think the key question, after asking for the total acreage of a community, is really twofold. How many total homes or sites and what is the % of greenspace protected by recorded covenants and/or recorded easements? And sometimes just asking how many homes per acre can sum it all up. Or simply asking for an actual sitemap or tax map of the community paints a much clearer picture if any "green-washed" marketing isn't really matching the product being sold. ---Corey

Dena---
Thank you for sharing your favorite. To expand, my favorite exposure is southeastern for a year round mountain home. Morning sun in the winter to warm up quickly. But, I don't think you can go wrong with southern exposure in general. If everything else is equal when making a tough decision on a purchase southern exposure acts as a great tiebreaker. ---Corey

So it would be a good idea for investors in conservation developments to request a site map. That would give a fast "view" of the development and would make it easy for folks to tell just how authentic it is. Is that something you would provide at your conservation development? Would it be easy to obtain?

FEB

2007

JaneAnne,
We make out site map easy to obtain. It can be found on our website http://www.creston-nc.com/siteplan.shtml and we send a detailed map with all of our marketing materials. Even from Day 1 when we didn't have an exact layout in place we showed a general layout of the sites so there wouldn't be any surprises at total buildout. The very first buyer in Creston knew what the site plan would look like in 5, 10, 15 years down the road and so on. This was done in place of just leaving a large portion of the map blank with the ambiguous title of "future development".

I hear a key word..."ambiguous"...that is something I will let my clients know... I am wondering if Creton also offers consultations in terms of green-built homes.

FEB

2007

JaneAnne,
Our "suggested" list of architects and builders have been a great resource for our owners on the topics of green-built homes. And we hope to increase the presence of green-built homes as they are a perfect fit in a conservation-based community. ---Corey

I am wondering if there is an organization that would provide information on green builders and LEED certified or Healthy-Built Homes in your area, Corey. If so would you tell us a little bit about it and if you are involved? Also...Are you involved with HUD Projects?

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