Greybeard’s Blog
GreyBeard Realty is a full-service real estate company with a focus on real estate sales and vacation and long-term cabin rentals in Black Mountain, Montreat, and Asheville. As we enter our 10th year of business, we are launching this new blog with the goal of providing useful information regarding the real estate market, vacation ideas and any other random thoughts and news.
Greybeard Realty began in 1999 with a very modest business plan: Create a niche in the greater Asheville real estate market by providing clients with the highest quality service in real estate sales, rentals and management in the area.
“When I started the company ten years ago, I knew if we focused on our service quality rather than our growth in numbers that the growth would come,” company president and founder Chip Craig explains. “Obviously, quality leads to growth as long as there’s continuity in that customer service.”
Greybeard Realty now provides property management services for 230 homes in the Asheville area. At present those homes include 115 vacation cabins, 84 long term rental homes, and 31 furnished monthly rentals. Overall in its first decade of business, Greybeard has logged 14,000 reservations and in 2009 alone the company will have more than 2,000 rental check-ins. The five full-time employees who handle rentals provide extraordinary customer service with personal attention to each of their clients. During 2008, 99.6% of Greybeard guests who completed a customer satisfaction survey indicated that they would recommend Greybeard Realty to their friends.
The real estate arm of Greybeard continues to grow, despite the national and local downturn in the real estate market. In 2008, Greybeard Realty sales increased by 10 percent while Buncombe County home sales declined by 32%. For last year as well, Greybeard’s average home sale price was $335,000 which is 22% higher than the area MLS (Multiple Listing Service) average of $274,000. The ten Realtors at Greybeard sell more per agent than any other area firm of comparable size.
The original plan of commitment to service appears to be working. In 2008, Greybeard became the largest real estate office in Black Mountain. For the same year, in the Asheville Area MLS, Greybeard Realty grew to be the eleventh largest real estate firm in the area, up from nineteenth the year before. With those positive numbers it appears that ten years later, the original business plan still works.
