It is, most likely, redundant to make any statement about how the real estate market has taken a downturn, but until our local newspaper, The Asheville Citizen Times, called me today to do some additional research on the sale of new homes sold in 2006, 2007 and 2008 through October, I had not fully absorbed how the new home market had been affected.

In Buncombe County, where Asheville is located, in 2006, the number of newly constructed homes that were sold was 916. That amounted to a dollar amount of $301,211,741 or an average of $328,834 per home. At that time the average selling price for all homes sold in Buncombe County was $274,844. There were a total of 4101 homes sold that year.

In 2007 there were 712 newly constructed homes sold. The dollar amount of those sales was $279,600,309 or an average of $392,697 per home. The average selling price for all homes in the county was $293,272. There were a total of 3427 sold that year.

In 2008, 478 newly constructed homes have sold through the end of October. The dollar amount of those sales is $168,941,917 which averages $353,435 per home while the average selling price for all homes in the county has been $280,363. So far this year there have been a total of 2179 homes sold through the end of October.

Our new home sales market has been reduced by 48% since 2006 and the dollar amount has been reduced by 44%.

When one thinks about the negative economic influence a slowing new construction market has on all of the various occupations, it is mind blowing.

Currently, the bad news is, there are a fair amount of builders, banks and developers that are holding new homes that have little or no market demand for the time being.

For the purpose of defining home sales, all single family homes, condos, townhomes and manufactured homes are included.

Copyright by Don Davies©