March 29, 2024

COVER STORY

The Carolina Connection

Floridians are buying up homes in North Carolina -- and Florida builders are hot on their heels. But the Sunshine State's brand of development is creating tension in the hills.

Cynthia Barnett | 10/1/2007

Indeed, this summer, residents were debating growth and development issues in counties all across the Appalachians. In a scenario familiar in Florida, the newcomers often were the ones spurring on the local governments to act. Having found a slice of natural beauty and slow pace of life, the most recent batch of immigrants is trying to keep the next batch from lousing it up. Jackson County, home to Cashiers, took the boldest step when it slapped a moratorium on all new development pending a tough new subdivision ordinance, which passed in August. The high-end Florida developers there supported the new law. “I don’t think anyone wants to see the mountains chopped up,” says Tampa’s Umansky.

» “People are suddenly seeing the mountains being chopped all up to pieces, and there’s finally a groundswell to do something.”
— Jody Higgins, publisher of Yancey County Journal

On the opposite side of Asheville to the northeast, Mitchell County has begun to discuss a subdivision ordinance, — but only after a real estate scheme at a development called the Village of Penland scammed investors out of more than $100 million. The developers, including one from Bradenton, used inflated appraisals and phony second mortgages as down payments and convinced investors to borrow millions, promising them enormous profits. The developers failed to finish a single home on the 1,200-acre project. They instead used the money to fund other failed projects in South Carolina and St. Thomas, according to North Carolina’s attorney general.

Having experienced a seedy side to the housing boom, western North Carolina is beginning to see there can be a downside, too. Asheville-area counties that had bucked the national housing downturn began to see a slowdown this summer that in some cases is tied directly to Florida’s. Every real estate broker seems to have stories of buyers who couldn’t close on the purchase of a mountain home because they couldn’t sell a home in Florida. At Century 21 All Seasons in Asheville, broker-in-charge Joe Grady advises sellers not to make deals that are contingent upon a home sale in Florida. He’s even advising his brokers not to bother with Florida customers who have to sell their homes in Florida: “Do not get them in your car; do not play chauffeur; do not give them the tour,” he says. “In our experience, it is taking them a long, long time to sell.”

Just ask Daniel Longen, 64, and fiancée Susan Brady, 60. Last year, with their Naples home on the market, the couple bought a home in the western Asheville suburbs, looking forward to four seasons. When their Naples home languished on the market, “I woke up in the middle of the night one night and said we’re not in too bad shape today, but this could get to be a really bad situation,” Longen says. The couple decided to put the Asheville home up for sale, too, and to live in whichever one didn’t sell. Two weeks later, they headed back to Naples.

“I’m disappointed, but not terribly because Naples isn’t that bad, and people really seem to be working on the things we were critical of, like homeowners insurance and taxes,” Longen says. “But those mountain vistas sure were nice.”


“A lot of Florida developers have been doing some real high-quality stuff, but there’s a few that have come in and done it wrong.”
— Jose Rosado, Florida developer
[Photo courtesy Great Camps of the Smokies]

Tags: North Central, Housing/Construction

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