On the job
- Monica Mataloni was hired as general manager of Aloft Asheville Downtown, which is owned by McKibbon Hospitality. Mataloni comes from the Hampton Inn Hallandale Beach Aventura Hotel near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she was general manager.
- Patrick Laws and Phillip McRae Jr. have joined EXIT Realty Vistas.
- Broker Heather Howell has joined Weichert, Realtors – Unlimited, located in Asheville.
- Weichert, Realtors – Unlimited’s Carol McFalls has been named a seniors real estate specialist by the National Association of Realtors.
Real estate market reports
Compared to the same month last year, pending residential real estate sales for October 2018 declined 7.9 percent in the Asheville Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to Carolina Multiple Listing Services, that indicator is one measure of forward-looking demand from real estate buyers.
Most other statistics for the month continued to reflect recent strength in the area’s real estate market, with year-over-year home sales up 1.8 percent, and average and median sales prices up over October 2017. The pace of home sales was brisk, and the average number of days a property was on the market fell to 111 days compared to 123 days in October 2017.
The average sales price was $325,510.
In his fall real estate market trend report of Nov. 13, Dave Bluth of Blue Blaze Realty summarized his predictions: “Overall, I would say our sales volume is going to top out and lesser quality inventory is beginning to back up a bit. Higher prices, inventory availability and increasing interest rates will begin to push buyers onto the sidelines as they will wait to see how conditions change. Sales transactions will slow and the question will remain, how much inventory will be added over the winter and how quickly will the higher quality homes be closed out?
“This will in effect determine which way our prices go when looking six months out. Sellers are pricing homes less aggressively on the high side and are now realizing they need to price at or below the market to sell quickly.”
Soft touch
Christian and Saundi Theodossiou launched Helping Hound, a dog bed company, on Nov. 3, with a goal of helping animals locally and nationally.
“Through our ‘A bed for a bed’ program, our customers purchase a high-quality Helping Hound bed for their own pet, and we donate a bed for an animal in need,” Christian Theodossiou explained.
Helping Hound will partner with local and national animal shelters to uphold its “You Buy, We Donate” promise. The company’s first rescue partner is Asheville-based Brother Wolf Animal Rescue.
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