buying in rural NC

[GUNDERSON]

A friend of mine is moving to rural NC, north of Asheville, for work. Houses are quite cheap (lots of great-seeming ones between 120k and 180k) but rentals are extremely scarce, and supposedly pretty high; it seems very unlikely he could find a good rental for less than a mortgage would cost per month, and most likely the mortgage would be several hundred bucks a month cheaper. Seems to be a significant lack of capital in the local market. He has a down payment but no other significant investments or assets. He's not sure how long she will want to stay, but it will be at least 2 or 3 years. That's short for the costs of home ownership using most calculators, but it seems like buying is still probably the right financial decision... in addition to the monthly savings, it's possible Asheville's popularity might drive up home values, and there's possibility of getting a roommate or renting on airbnb, and he might end up staying longer than 3 years.

But neither of us has any experience with home ownership, so I wanted to ask if anyone has cautions. What might we not be considering?

[Morning Glory]

Following. That area is gorgeous and those houses pop up on my redfin feed all the time and I'm tempted, but I really want to live in a walkable neighborhood.

Buying is cheaper than renting in most places, as long as you don't need the flexibility to move when it's convenient. If comfortable rentals were cheaper than buying, landlords wouldn't make any money.

He could maybe buy it with the intention of keeping it as a rental when he wants to leave the area...Definitely check rental codes first... sometimes rentals are expensive because codes are so strict that you can't just rent out any house. That happened to me in a different part of the country. I had a 40s house and they wanted it to conform to today's standards before they would give me a rental certificate. They wanted the windows bigger and stairs to be less steep ffs. Would have taken years to recoup the remodeling costs  Ended up selling for a loss (market was very different at the time). No idea how north Carolina is in that regard.

[youngwildandfree]

Love that area. Couple things to keep in mind:

1) Cell service is spotty. Internet service is spotty.

2) Lots of black bears. Garbage/food storage is something to watch.

3) Lots of people vacation/take long weekends to that area in the summer because it's cooler and in the fall for the colors. That's likely part of the rental market drive as many people operate vacation rentals.

Honestly if you're just thinking 3 years I would just bite the bullet and rent. He might come out ahead based on appreciation if he buys, but doing so in a rural area without homeowner experience sounds high risk to me. It's both rural and populated with wealthy vacationers, so if something breaks he may have trouble finding help that is timely or affordable.

[SwordGuy]

I would rent short term until they know the area better unless an awesome buying opportunity presents itself.    The roads in the Asheville area seemed to get clogged easily but that's just from an occasional tourist, but be wary of commute times down winding country roads into the city.

Plus, urban Asheville is charming and fun, so not being close and convenient to that would be a big minus in my book.

[rothwem]

While buying might make sense, I would rent if possible to learn the lay of the land.  I live in Asheville, on the south side of town.  I like it, but it took me a while to figure out what our "use case" was and optimize for convenience. In general, the Asheville area is pretty damn inconvenient.  Give yourself an extra 5-10 minutes to get anywhere because the roads don't make sense, you'll probably get lost and people can't drive here.

How far north of town is your friend looking at living? Just like Woodfin? or all the way up in Madison or Yancy County?  I'm not sure if this is a concern for your friend, but things get really conservative really fast the farther you get from Asheville.  Mountain people are also not particularly friendly to outsiders, its not like the rest of the south.

[SwordGuy]

Mountain people are also not particularly friendly to outsiders, its not like the rest of the south.

Small towns in general are like that, north or south.   In places your great-great-grandkids will still be thought of outsiders.

[rothwem]

Mountain people are also not particularly friendly to outsiders, its not like the rest of the south.

Small towns in general are like that, north or south.   In places your great-great-grandkids will still be thought of outsiders.

I guess so? That hasn't really been my experience in the eastern part of the state.  Sure, still an outsider, but people are nice to you.  It, um, isn't really like that in the mountains unless they're selling something to you.