From the Developer’s Desk

In our continuing effort to keep you informed, and provide the most complete experience in your search for mountain real estate, we are pleased to announce that The Headwaters now has its own dedicated channel on Youtube.

One question I often hear is "How are the roads in winter?" It’s a good question that everyone should ask when considering buying property in the mountains. It’s one thing to be enraptured by the scenic beauty in the spring, summer and fall, but if the roads are not properly maintained in the winter, your mountain experience can be unsettling at best and outright dangerous at worst.

The Headwaters at Banner Elk looks to end 2009 on a positive note.  What started out as a dismal year is ending up looking very respectable.  So far this year, we’ve written 19 contracts compared with 23 in 2008.  Given the national economy, that’s a very strong finish, especially when we see that most of those contracts were written since July.  Therefore, I’m very optimistic for 2010.

Here at The Headwaters, we've ignored the recession and continued with our tremendous momentum. We just finished the strongest September ever in the history of Headwaters. Our sales team wrote nine arms length contracts in the month. In fact, that is the second best month ever in the history of the community. I say, "arms length" contracts because it is easy to be fooled by some in this business who create inter-company transfers in an effort to boost the appearance of sales activity.

With all the turmoil in the real estate market this past year, some visitors ask the question, "How solid is The Headwaters?"  This is a valid question that should be asked of every development you consider.  Since late 2008, many large scale, high profile developments have faltered.  Many more are on very shakey grounds.  Unfortunately, from their marketing materials it is hard to discern the true financial health of the developer.  So ask the question.

Allow me to share the story of several recent visitors to The Headwaters. In the last few weeks we've had four families tour The Headwaters who had purchased at nearby developments. They were curious as to how we compared with what they purchased, hoping to validate their decision to buy in these other developments. Unfortunately for them, they realized that they had made a mistake. They all said the exact same thing, "We wish we had known about Headwaters and had seen your property first." Now they want to sell their properties in order to buy here at Headwaters, but sadly, the developments they are in have a large number of resale inventory properties and prices are depressed. In one case, the developer is bankrupt and nowhere to be found.

When searching for a mountain home, it is easy to be taken in by slick ads and beautiful photography.  But do they truly reflect the development you're considering?  Often times, developers use stock images, computer enhanced images and photos of models that have no relationship to the featured development. Here at The Headwaters, every photo in our ads is shot here on the property.  All the photos on our web page are taken here on site (except of course those photos of the town of Banner Elk).  I can't stress the importance of this enough.  Why?