Is Marshall the next 'hot spot' in greater Asheville?

One of the most common questions I get from buyers and investors is this: "Hey, Jon, where is the next 'hot spot' going to be in Asheville?" If we could only peek into the proverbial crystal ball to see what Asheville would look like in the next 5 or 10 years! I can remember coming up to Asheville in 2002 from Atlanta and the entire town of Asheville looked like a "blue light special" to me. I ended up buying a 3 story historic house in Montford for $219K and most of the local residents & old time neighbors were enraged at how much I paid. That same house today would easily sell for $650K+. I learned back then that it is the locals who have been here for so long that are usually the ones that offer some of the worst advice on where Asheville is heading. The main reason is because they take this amazing place for granted. I would always tell them: go and live in Atlanta for 1 year and then come back and talk to me. They didn't understand what serious highway congestion and road rage was all about. If you have have the time to watch that movie, Crash, it offers some really interesting perspective on living in a big city (Los Angeles) and the stress involved. Moreover, I think it also offers a lot of insight as to why people desire to live somewhere like Asheville. Life is simpler & easier & more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, after living in Montford for a few years, I came to realize that I was becoming one of those 'locals' who didn't really understand where Asheville was heading. Case in point: I remember reading an article in Men's Journal about "best places to invest in housing". It had about 20 of their top places to invest and one of their top choices was West Asheville. At that time, there was only 1 little pub (Westville Pub) and there was a super cool little coffee shop & bakery called West End Bakery. The problem I kept having with West Asheville was that you would see a few really adorable homes and then you'd see one or two other homes that looked like they truly were about to collapse or might be a nold vinyl sided home with zero character. I would later learn that, in Asheville, this didn't matter at all. You see, I was following the old rules of "conformity" and thought that homes all needed to conform to one another to really escalate a neighborhood's value. I was completely wrong. What I would later learn is this: if you were within 5 to 10 minutes of Asheville and you could walk or bike to a restaurant/pub/brewery, you were golden. Subsequently, these houses in West Asheville began to double & triple in value over the next 5 or so years. The fact that New Belgium brewing decided to locate their East Coast facility didn't hurt either. But then a myriad of really cool restaurants & pubs started popping up all over West Asheville. You could see that downtown Asheville rents were getting too expensive and that the real true blue Asheville people were moving to West Asheville. And, as you will see now throughout West Asheville, you will see a brand new modern house that goes for $550K sitting right next door to an old tear-down clunker and nobody cares. In fact, in West Asheville, it's considered kind of cool! Who knew....

So, going back to the headline, where is the next 'hot spot' in greater Asheville? Although we can never be sure, here is what I have learned. About a year ago, I met up with a bunch of late 20's & early 30's Appalachian State 'kids'. They were wanting to buy a very large piece of land (about 100 acres) and start a quasi-commune / Eco Vilage. I was able to find them a really neat 100 acre farm that adjoined downtown Marshall. And if you think about it, what an amazing idea?! Get all your best of friends together, buy a large farmable piece of land, and divide your skills and create an amazing eco-village. One person in charge of the chickens, another handling the gardening of leafy greens & carrots, another one doing the bee keeping, etc.. After meeting all the members of this soon-to-be LLC, they let me know that a lot of their friends & contacts who had made out on their homes in West Asheville were moving to Marshall. Why Marshall?! For one, it's got that cool & funky Asheville vibe. The Marshall downtown is making huge strides with Zuma Coffee, Good Stuff pub, MadCo brewing, and the Sweet Monkey Cafe. As well, it's only 30 - 35 minutes from downtown so you could easily commute to work from Marshall. They have an amazing farmers market on Sunday mornings that really brings the community together. As most people will now agree, downtown Asheville is becoming too crowded...and so is West Asheville. Right now, you can live in Marshall where things are not so 'go go go'; you can really become part of a unique community where you might watch a bluegrass at Zuma with a "just moved here from Atlanta" guy and a farmer from Revere Rd; and still be around 30 or so minutes from downtown Asheville!

My only caveat for Marshall: if Marshall is to really blast off like West Asheville, it's going to need for 'density' in the 3 - 5 mile radius. Meaning: they need more homes, condos/apartments before it can really take off and reach its potential. But, as I've seen in Asheville, time takes care of all of that as it seems there is never a shortage of developers with deep pockets ready to capitalize. In 10 years, it is my prediction that Marshall will rival the Black Mountain area with a unique small town environment with neat shops, pubs, and restaurants juxtaposed in between Hot Springs & Weaverville.