Have home prices in Asheville gone up or down?

From a post at inasheville.blogspot.com:

Ashevillians, we have a problem! The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce (in conjunction with the EDC) is reporting on its website that the average price of houses sold in the "Asheville Metro" area in April 2009 vs. April 2008 actually increased by 2.5 percent (see figures shown to the left as taken from the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce website).

Yet, Mark Barrett of the Asheville Citizen-Times published online, on June 24th, that First American CoreLogic, a real estate data firm, claims "prices in the Asheville metropolitan area fell 7.2 percent in April [2009] when compared to the same month a year ago [April 2008]..."

So, who's correct? There's a major disparity between the two numbers.

Comments

[Tim Peck]

Assistant County Manager Jon Creighton at the Economic Outlook Forum said, "We're not going to do a revaluation because property values are not going up."

Other realtors at the forum confirmed that values are dropping.

Speaking about the suspended reval, Board chair David Gantt said to the press, "This is an effort to try to give people a tax break."

It would only constitute a 'tax break' if the revaluations were lower and the county then raised the property tax rate to remain revenue-neutral. So you see, Gantt is saying that a reval would cost taxpayer more because he would raise the rate to compensate for lower values.

http://snipr.com/l2ny3 [www_citizen-times_com]

[Tom Tveidt]

The existing home price data the Chamber reports are from the local MLS, as published by the North Carolina Association of Realtors http://www.ncrealtors.org/market_statistics.cfm. We have been reporting the monthly figures for well over a decade as part of our monthly Current Economic Indicators http://www.ashevillechamber.org/economicdevelopment/demographics.asp Honestly, I can’t comment on the American CoreLogic data quoted in the Citizen-times. I suspect they use a different methodology. But the drastic difference in results is puzzling.

Tom Tveidt, Direct of Research, Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce

[Ash]

Tom, thanks for weighing in.

[JBo]

Rent keeps going up up up - if I could get a loan for a mortgage I'd be in a much better situation than being a renter who keeps getting stuck with terrible land-lords and no minimum housing standards. Is it too much to ask for to have no toxic black mold in a kitchen? Or how about a ceiling that is not falling in due to water damage? Floors that are safe and undamaged are a huge plus too! Good Luck trying to find all of these at a fair renting price in Asheville. :-P

Forgive the snarkyness, I'm just annoyed at my own personal situation and aggravated as heck when I hear many of my friends and peers going through similar events.

[Joe H]

Rent may keep going up up up but so do property taxes, house maintenance costs, and broker fees to sell a home. Since house prices in Asheville are so high compared to median household incomes and have yet to correct downward, there is a very high risk associated with purchasing a home in Asheville right now.