Asheville Metro Economy Outlook

Last evening was the 10th Annual Asheville Metro Economic Outlook. We were unable to attend, and to our disappointment, there is scant reporting online.

The Economic Development Coalition For Asheville & Buncombe County has its economic snapshot up for May, 2009 at any rate.

Since that page does not appear to get archived, we will recap the numbers here vs. May, 2008:
Home Prices: (7.7%)
Homes Sold: (42.7%)
Building Permits: (56.8%)
Value of Building Permits: (56.7%)
Hotel/Motel sales: (13.8%)

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Filed Under: Asheville Real Estate Data

Tuesday Numbers

We're keeping a close eye on economic news lately, spurred by the notion that things are down, but not by as much. Not that this should be a basis for calling a bottom.

But still, the news bears watching for any turnarounds, and then, like any good commodities trader, to look for confirmation in the next month as new numbers get released.

Economic News of The Day: June, 2009 Retail Sales
US Retail Sales Rose: On the face of it a good sign. The key qualifiers to a headline like that however would be:

Sales at U.S. retailers rose in June, helped by incentives at car dealers and higher gasoline prices that boosted service-station receipts.

The 0.6 percent increase was larger than forecast and the biggest gain since January, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Purchases excluding automobiles and gasoline dropped for a fourth consecutive month.

It is important to note that those comparisons are on a month to month basis. Calculated Risk, looks at the same data with its usual array of great charts, noting that the June, 2009 numbers were 9.6% less than one year ago.

From Market Watch: A look at the back to school sales period where sales are expected to fall for the first time in six years. Back to school represents the second largest retail segment in the calendar year.

Personal Consumption Expenditures, (PCE), are traditionally a leading indicator out of a recession. They actually rise coincident with the end of a recession. When PCE shows some gains on a year over year basis, we will stand, take notice, and look for other indexes to follow suit. Still time for buyers or sellers to sit and watch.

Ironic Economic News of The Day
Bernard Madoff is headed to the same prison once occupied by Charles Ponzi.

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Filed Under: Real Estate Analysis, News, & Data

Monday: Things We Read

Just a collection of items from online publications, no deep analysis.

Department of Odd Juxtapositions
The Wall Street Journal reports on declining divorce rates, apparently caused by the recession.

A May survey by the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, a national organization for financial professionals who work on divorce cases, found that the recession was delaying divorces, and inspiring "creative divorce solutions" in living arrangements.

The Washington Post on the other hand notes that the national rate of household formation has dropped as a result of the recession.

Government data suggest that the recession has helped push down household formation. Between March 2007 and March 2008, the number of new households -- which is defined as any group of people sharing living arrangements -- grew by 772,000, to a total of 116.8 million, compared with an increase of 1.63 million a year earlier, Census Bureau data show.

Department of Mortgages
By way of Matrix, as many as one in four mortgage defaults are strategic in nature, wow. One of the functions in that study is the percentage loss of equity with falling home values.

What are the latest trends for defaults and delinquencies? We keep seeing that prime delinquencies are rising, and that loan modifications turn out to have a pretty high rate of redefault. Interesting chart on the matter here.

Home Values
A study of values getting a lot of exposure is this one from PMI Group, which examines more than 300 metropolitan statistical areas in the US.

The study assesses the risk of further price declines using percentiles. The study is short enough and can be read here, but the map gives a nice visual summary. As one would guess, red is high risk.

On The Local Scene
Harrah's Cherokee Casino bucks a trend and plans groundbreaking on a new 532 room luxury tower. Completion will be in 2012.

The Great Smokies, our national park gets ready to award stimulus funds to improve faciltities and the visitor experience.


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Filed Under: Real Estate Analysis, News, & Data

Travel & Tourism in a Resort Market

Today we look at travel and tourism for its particular importance to greater Asheville real estate.

The Basics
Like many resort, retirement, or vacation areas, our real estate market, especially in the adjacent counties, is traditionally fueled by buyers from outside of the region.

Today's visitors are tomorrow's buyers. Real estate and tourism are thus linked. There was an independent study in our county, presented by a developer that claimed as much as 80% of real estate activity here could be categorized as resort, vacation, second homes, retirement, and so forth.

Our outlook for tourism in the second half of 2009 is bearish. There are too many negative indications in that sector this far into the season.

Consider that seasonal operations like white water rafting make their money in literally 60 days, from June 15th and August 15th. More than 400,000 people take a NC raft trip each summer. Visitor traffic in that industry drops off drastically five weeks from now by as much as 60%, and then drops again after Labor Day to a relative trickle.

The good news is that attractions and accommodations will be discounted, many are at present. There is after all, a concerted effort to market Asheville as a value destination. Back in May, USA Today mentioned us as a top summer bargain, some nice publicity.

Summer Travel
July 4th weekend kicks off the most intense six weeks of summer travel. Gallup however reported for the week of July 4th, 2009 that Americans spent 37% less money than the same week in 2008. Hot dogs won out over steaks is the tongue in cheek analysis.

2008, the year of $4.00/gal gasoline, gave birth to the word "staycation" indicating that we were spending leisure time at home. Despite lower gasoline prices in 2009, Vehicle Miles Driven, as reported by the US DOT have dropped strikingly since late 2007.

On a percentage basis, Americans have cut back on their driving to a larger degree than in either of the great oil shocks in the past 35 years.

People in local tourism often say that one of our great strengths is that we are within a day's drive of half the population in the US. With five weeks left in the peak season, that observation seems to hold less weight than in the past.

Hospitality Indexes
Hotel RevPAR, (Revenue per available room): This is reported weekly. Occupancy was down 6.0%, rates were down 7.4%, with RevPAR down 13.0%. The Asheville Citizen Times reports similar trends during the month of May, not a precise time line comparison, but nevertheless, (ED Note: Citizen Times articles eventually disappear from their original locations):

Hotel sales in Asheville were down by almost 14 percent in May compared with the same period last year. The occupancy rate was down 11 percent for May, the last month for which figures are available.

This trend has been going on nationally for some time. Bloomberg takes an in depth look at the hotel industry. Indexes are in the post September 11th ballpark, with larger decreases at the luxury end. The Wall Street Journal echoes similar numbers from a Commerce Department analysis in Mid June.

Restaurants are down on a national basis. May, 2009 marked 21 consecutive months of traffic declines, as reported by The National Restaurant Association.

And Locally?
Beyond the occasional newspaper piece, hard data is difficult to come by in local tourism. Most of it is anecdotal, but leisure and hospitality employment is down almost 10%. Asheville's flagship destination looks to be in a cut back mode for 2009, with rumblings about other noted mountain destinations as well.

Last summer, a couple of large attractions were on record about shrinking their marketing strategies. An example would be to weight brochure distribution more heavily within a 4 hour radius of Asheville. Formerly, some attractions distributed to a 12 hour radius or more.

One would assume, with five weeks to go in the peak season, that similar strategies are in effect for 2009. Time will tell us soon what transpires in real estate, at which point we will all anticipate leaf season traffic.

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Filed Under: Asheville News & Analysis

Asheville Events

Let's get away from statistics and trends for a while. Here's a quick roundup of some events of note for the coming days.

Opening Friday July 10
From The Asheville Travel Blog: Nantahala Gorge Canopy Tours. Let's explain.

One of the peculiarities of weather in a mountainous region such as ours is that certain areas get a lot of rain. In fact, some portions of Western NC are categorized as temperate rain forests. The canopy tours are a combination of zip lines and "sky bridges" allowing a first hand look at several ecosystems in a veritable rain forest environment.

Saturday July 11
The 4th Hot Doggett 100: Right here in Mars Hill. Three different bike rides including a 3 mile family option. Event organizers stress that the entire event is a ride, not a race.

More than 300 riders are expected, and we have seen a number here all week riding and acclimating to our back roads. Nice maps, courtesy of UNC-Asheville, with a narrative from The Citizen Times as well.

Saturday and Sunday, July 11-12
From Ashvegas, a rundown on 3 outdoor fairs in various locations in town. The events range from sales of recycled goods to The Big Crafty on Sunday, smack downtown at Pack Square. The Crafty features more than 100 independent artisans from the area.

A fan of street fairs? Stay in touch with the Asheville Street Markets blog, and The Asheville People's Market.

And of course, what is by now a tradition when we do these kinds of postings, This Weekend on a Shoe String.

July 16-19
The 62nd Edition of The Crafts Fair of the Southern Highlands
July 16-19, full details at the website, and cheap too, kids under 12 free, adults just $7.
crafty

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Filed Under: Asheville Cool Stuff

Real Estate Statistics: May, 2009

The May, 2009 numbers were reported over the last portion of June. We covered them individually at the time, but round them up here in one place each month. A little late this time around, but nevertheless.

The Quick Summary
New homes remain a very troubled sector. Existing homes, if not exactly showing signs of recovery, are at least less bad. A whole slew of forward looking indicators continue to languish. Most numbers hover around record levels, though less new records were set this month.

Supply and Demand Data
New Homes
Permits, Starts, and Completions: The index is comprised of several sectors, the most important indicator being single family units which declined by 35.1%, 40.9%, and 43.4% respectively. The amount of single family activity here hovers near record lows dating back to 1968.

Inventory and Sales: Perhaps the big story is that despite such drastic declines in permits, etc, for more than two years now, that inventory on a months of supply basis has declined only 4.7% in the last year.

New home sales now represent the lowest number since record keeping began in 1963, and have declined 75% from their peak in 2005. A major factor in this trend has been the low prices and large percentage of distressed/foreclosed properties in the existing homes data.

Existing Homes
Inventory and Sales: Inventory declined. The raw number of homes vs. one year ago is no longer setting records, though still high. Months of supply dropped to 9.6, still more than we would like to see.

Sales were 3.6% less than one year ago, while prices dropped 16.8% over the same time period. In the South, sales of existing homes fell 9.9%. Distressed sales which had routinely been 45% of the total dropped to 33%.

In the existing home sales sector at least, this is a collection of numbers that are less bad. There is still a distance to go to find equilibrium. We stand in the camp however that waits for new sources of inventory to enter the market as signs of life show themselves.

Looking Ahead
New inventory would come from would be sellers who have held off for better times, as well as distressed properties not yet listed by banks. This will slow any recovery. In particular we look ahead to new and rising rates of foreclosure that will make inventory reduction more difficult.

The idea of a new wave of foreclosures has been out there for some time now. This link is a particularly good recap and graphic that illustrates the notion.

The PHSI, (Pending Home sales Index), is not persuasive in terms of calling a bottom, and has lost its capacity as a forward looking indicator with the market distorted as it is. The MBA, (Mortgage Bankers Association), Application Survey does not show any indications of support. Time to sit back and watch.

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July 4th Weekend

Yep, the peak of summer is upon us.

Here is quick round up of things to do on the holiday weekend if you plan to be in the area. The weather looks to be pleasant, in the low 80's as this is written.

Friday July 3
Check out the Pritchard Park Drum Cirlce from 6PM until 9:45PM, for a taste of something uniquely Asheville. For those unfamiliar, check out this 47 second video to get a flavor of what it's all about.

From Ashvegas, at one of the main live music venues in town, The Grey Eagle, at 9:00 PM T Model Ford, authentic Mississippi blues.

From 5:30 to 8:30PM, at the Asheville Area Arts Council, the opening of a new photo exhibit, by Dark Topography. We love that name, and do peruse his website from time to time.

Saturday & Sunday July 4 & 5
The Citizen Times: Listing of July 4th events by town. It's 4 pages long, they didn't miss much.

Mountain Express provides its own lineup, including the latest edition of This Weekend on a Shoestring.

The Lexington Avenue Bizarre Bazaar, a downtown must see, is on for Saturday from 11AM until 4PM. The Bazaar runs every 1st and 3rd Saturday.

Shindig on the Green, a celebration of mountain music and heritage returns at 7:00 PM. Click for maps, and a fun time.

Visit a North Carolina historic site. All 27 are closed on Friday however.

For those driving, NC State Troopers will be out in force, with an emphasis on speeding. AAA Carolinas is projecting a decline of 2.7% for road travel vs July 4, 2008.

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What They Mean By Faint Praise?

Here is a little quote, it seemed funny at the time, on home prices from yesterday's Charlotte Observer, (emphasis added):

All 20 urban markets measured by the index remain in negative territory, but April was the third consecutive month that the index's overall decline didn't set a record.

This notion has popped up often in recent media, ranging from commentary on auto sales to real estate, something to the effect of "such and such is down, but not by as much". To our minds, this is an idea where one makes a mental note, but it is not a basis for proclaiming a bottom to anything.

The article never says, but the index mentioned has to be The Case-Schiller. More on CSI here.

The article ends by making an important point, one that we have made ourselves many times in the past. Seasonality is what we want to know. If it's normal for sales to rise anyway, then by all means say so.

Spring and early summer are typically the best months for sales, he said, “so it will take some time to determine if a recovery is really here.”

Wise words for the time being that put it all into context. As any decent futures trader would do, we look for confirmation before going long or short in the market.

Summary
Of course, no decent trader takes a position without first examining supply and demand.

For us, the biggest concern despite lower prices, is the huge inventory levels. These need to be looked at along with sources of new inventory such as; homes and land waiting to be listed, rising foreclosure rates, stalled subdivisions waiting to to restart, and other sources.

To illustrate the impact, this last item alone means as many as 20,000 or 30,000 homes waiting to be built in greater Asheville.

These will all combine to slow any decline in inventory and keep downward pressure on prices. This is essentially what keeps us in the bear's camp for a while yet.

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Pending Home Sales: May, 2009

The PHSI, (Pending Home Sales Index), for May rose 0.1% from April, and stands 6.7% higher than one year ago.

The Context
PHSI, as the name implies, represents contracts signed not sales that have closed yet. Historically, (probably pre-2006), the index was a reasonable predictor of future sales. The subsequent distortions in the market have made it notably less reliable.

For example, the PHSI rose by 3.6% in April 2009 vs 2008, while existing home sales in May 2009 fell by 3.6%, and new home sales fell by 35% vs. the same month in 2008. Why is that?

From The Wall Street Journal: An article that outlines some reasons why PHSI is no longer a solid predictor. Among these would be higher rates of contract cancellations than in the past. Contracts fall apart for many reasons, lack of financing being one key.

Others have noted the run up in interest rates, tighter lending standards, falling equity, and the inability of home owners to sell their homes back home as factors in the rising cancellation rates.

The last item is one of particular importance in greater Asheville, and the mountain counties, relying on buyers from feeder areas as we do.

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Spotlight Asheville

In some ways it is the age of lists, but still, Asheville makes more "top tens" than we can count.

Recent designations range from best outdoor towns, to best places to retire, best arts destinations, the ultimate best places to live, and so on, ad infinitum. And now...

From The Asheville Travel Blog: We are now a Top Ten Dog Friendly Resort Region.

From Good Morning America Weekend, click for a 2 minute and 22 second segment from the show about our fair city. It covers the usual attractions, our favorite quote however, "a place you can come and be a part of something".

And from Scrutiny Hooligans: A list Asheville ought to be on, the greenest cities in America, and why.

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Home Warranties: Newly Popular

Some observers have noted that the home warranty industry is experiencing a rise in revenue, but what are these things?

A home warranty is different than its more familiar cousin, the builder's warranty which is associated with new home sales. The home warranty is an instrument applied to the sale of existing, or pre owned homes.

Home warranties are designed to cover the systems and components of older homes against unexpected failures. Depending on the individual warranty new owners might be protected from financial loss on anything from appliances to central air conditioning and more.

Rising Popularity
During the housing decline, private sellers have struggled with how to add value and induce buyers without spending a lot of money. At a cost of $250 to perhaps $650/year, the home warranty has thus seen new popularity.

But there are a number of cautions. The process is more than paying some money for peace of mind. Let's take a look at some of the basics.

Things to Know
The NC Attorney General's Office: Provides six useful tips. The biggest thing a person can do is read and think before you buy, but the bullet points include such things as; possibly waiving your right to court proceedings if unsatisfied with a repair, exclusion of certain failures or systems in the house, replacing failed equipment with brand names of their choice, and so forth.

The NC AG recommends having your attorney look a home warranty over before you buy and never should a home warranty be a substitute for a home inspection as part of the purchase process.

Liz Pulliam Weston from MSN Money Central extends the buyer beware theme with such questions as; What is a pre existing defect? Where exactly does my plumbing "end"?

Here is a good quick reference check list from Elizabeth Weintraub at about.com including, items typically covered, not covered, and some general means by which payment can be denied.

The web is filled with anecdotes of home warranty nightmares. One is tempted to say that most of these came from not reading the fine print. The bottom line is to go slow, think, and seek good advice.

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Filed Under: Tips for Buyers, Tips for Sellers

New Home Sales: May 2009

32,000 new homes were sold in May of 2009. This is 35% less than a year ago, and 75% less than the peak in 2005.

Sales were 11% less than the previous record low for May, (1982), and now represent the lowest number of new homes sold since record keeping began in 1963.

Inventories remain high at 10.2 months of supply, something more like 6 months of supply is seen as normal. This is 4.7% less inventory than a year ago.

The reduction of new home inventories was achieved at great expense by builders. For many months now, builders have cutback on new permits, starts, and completions by 30% to 50%, barely outpacing the decline in demand in their effort to pare back inventory.

In the South, new home sales were down 36% from May, 2008.

The Dynamics
For a over a year, builders, (and individual sellers of existing homes), have been utterly unable to compete with the number of foreclosed homes for sale at low prices. Distressed sales have accounted for 45% of existing home sales, falling to 33% in May 2009. Still a staggering number.

The result has been a relative increase in the market share of existing homes, at the expense of new ones. The persistence of this pattern has fundamentally changed historic ratios in the overall market. New homes have lost a lot of ground as a market component, leading to speculation, graphs, and analysis as to what it might mean for a recovery.

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Filed Under: Real Estate Statistics and Data

Existing Home Sales, May 2009

Reported yesterday with headlines such as, May Existing Home Sales Continue Rising Trend, or similar ones at Yahoo News, as a sign of stabilization.

The headlines compare May with April, 2009. A number of articles noted it was the third consecutive month of increases. One has to dig a little to see that existing home sales were around 3.6% less than 2008, and that sales rising over the previous month is the norm at this time of year.

The Context
The headlines might be called misleading because 33% of sales are distressed/foreclosed properties, the implications of that are obvious on the numbers. Maybe more important, certainly more basic, is that sales always rise from January though the summer, click for a great chart and commentary that demonstrate typical seasonality in real estate.

Oh would that it were different but from our perspective May was consistent with recent patterns, still down on a year to year basis, though by less.

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Asheville White Water Rafting: 2009 Edition

Summertime is upon us, and before the year is out more than 400,000 people will take a white water rafting trip somewhere in greater Asheville, one of the best white water towns in America.

The NC Drought Monitor looks better than it has in more than 30 months, so the exceedingly low water which plagued the industry moves to the sidelines for the foreseeable future. Even so, there are a number of factors to bear in mind to choose the trip that's best for you.

What To Know Before You Go
Commercial rafting operations need a special set of conditions in order to provide a suitable product. Rivers that can typically support rafting fall into two categories: 1) Those with predictable flows from hydro electric plants, and, 2) Those with less predictable flows, but large supporting watersheds.

For dam controlled rivers, the main factor is, "When does the river have water?". The water level in the second type of river is variable with rainfall, and is key to your experience. Fortunately in the age of the internet water levels are readily available, but how can the uninitiated assess the meaning of the flow that week?

Resources
Click here for a detailed primer on three rivers close to Asheville, The French Broad, The Nolichucky, and The Big Pigeon. Our article includes age requirements, water schedules, and the kind of trip to expect at the water levels when you go.

Click here for the lowdown on two other popular rivers, The Nantahala, and The Tuckeseege. A bit farther from Asheville, but not without merit.

Happy Rafting!

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Filed Under: Sights, Sounds, and Attractions

Greater Asheville Real Estate Market at Mid Year

Well, almost mid year.

A couple of weeks back The Asheville Citizen Times ran a story under the headline, Home Prices Decline Slight in Buncombe. Buncombe is Asheville's home county. (ED Note: Citizen Times articles eventually disappear from their locations).

A couple of pertinent quotes will summarize:

The number of existing homes sold in the county so far this year was down 34.4 percent from the same period of 2008 and was less than half the number sold for the first four months of 2006...

Home values, however, have held up relatively well. Not all experts and statistics agree, but several sources say the decline in values has been less than 10 percent on an annual basis and possibly in the low single digits.

At the same time, inventory expressed as "months of supply" has ballooned to 27.3. This is around 4.5 times the number we would like to see.

CNN Money recently took a look at the most under and overvalued markets, where Asheville makes the number 10 spot on the most overvalued list.

In Madison and Yancey Counties which we also watch closely, the situation is similar:
Madison & Yancey Counties
*Home Sales: Down 32% from 2008, and down 63.6% from 2006, months of supply is 56.3.
*Land Sales: Down 66% from 2008, and down 91.6% from 2006, months of supply is 229.4.

Added Factors & Summary
A number of times we have noted the special mechanisms of greater Asheville's real estate market. Simply that buyers in our region come from somewhere else with Georgia and Florida providing the lion's share. They are the feeders for our local market.

Being states that are at the center of the foreclosure and credit crisis, our buyers are unable to sell their homes back home. Our traditional buyers are on the sidelines.

When prices refuse to fall in such a situation, local buyers disappear as well. The result is excessive inventories, and declining sales volume with the bottom a good ways off just yet.

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Filed Under: Asheville Real Estate Statistics

Behind The Headlines: Housing Starts-May, 2009

There was noise this week about a 17% "surge" in housing starts. Our reaction was like, "Wait a second, that makes no sense, new home inventories are huge already, must be some quirk in the data."

So What Really Happened?
Single family starts are but one component in the larger data series that was reported, although it is the most important segment there. Something accounted for the rise, but it was not the single family units.

The single family sector for May is actually 41% less than last year at this time. It did rise, by around 7% over April. A rise May over April is normal, and as we have often noted month to month comparisons are meaningless when reported as stand alone items.

Credit goes to Diana Olick of CNBC in her article entitled High Housing Starts Don't Reflect Reality:

First of all, the biggest part of the gain was in multi-family, up 61.7 percent month to month, but that’s after falling 49 percent in April.

To any observer of housing numbers, this should be no surprise. The multi family sector is notoriously volatile and has an occasionally disproportionate impact on total numbers.

We covered this very phenomenon last May. A rise in multi family construction, unaccompanied by an increase in single family starts, cannot be called a sign of a normal, healthy real estate market.

There are more quirks in the data such as the sampling, and margin of error to explain this erroneously reported rise in housing starts. These are covered by Barry Ritholtz over at The Big Picture, who also takes Jim Cramer to task for having proclaimed yet another bottom on his TV show.

For greater context, Calculated Risk has a graph of housing starts from 1968 to the present, we remain somewhere around record lows for one unit structures.

There you go.

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Filed Under: Real Estate Statistics and Data

Greater Asheville News Bits

New Construction is Nice
The blog Ashevegas fills us in on a local development in The River Arts District that had escaped our notice.

An actual groundbreaking during tough economic times. This is welcome news for any neighborhood.

Phish Concert
As testament to the vibrant live music scene here, the city was abuzz this week for the long awaited and first ever Asheville appearance by the band Phish. Streets were closed and bus lines altered around The Asheville Civic Center as a crowd of around 10,000 convened. The Citizen Times takes a look at the event.

NC State Budget
The NC budget is a source of discussion and rancor these days, particularly the impact on education. In greater Asheville the topic was enough to draw more than 1,000 teachers, students, and parents to a local rally.

The Charlotte News & Observer outlines how the legislature is remaking portions of the tax code to avoid, or at least mitigate the shortfall in revenue.

In Madison County
The print edition of our county weekly also featured budget constraints and the impact on education. The main story online is the ongoing meetings regarding permits for a concrete plant outside the Town of Marshall, our county seat.

Easy General Economic Info
This is a fairly new site, maybe just a week or two old, but check out blytic. It's an utterly convenient tool for assessing the general economic conditions for places with which one is unfamiliar.

The amount of information for a location seems to be related to population density. Here are the current charts on file for Asheville, for Buncombe County, for Madison County, and Yancey County.

A user at blytic can even overlay charts, for example, Asheville unemployment vs previous recessions. Some of the data might be in arrears by a month from its official agency release, but nevertheless.

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Filed Under: Asheville News

Asheville on the Weekend

Yes, it's that time, here is our latest collection of things to do.

Friday June 5
Check out the evening drum circle, a downtown tradition that begs to be called uniquely Asheville.

Saturday June 6
Speaking of uniquely Asheville, one simply does not visit here without taking a walk on Lexington Ave downtown. No better excuse to do so than this Saturday for the Lexington Avenue Bizarre Bazaar, held from 11AM until 4PM on the first and third Saturday of every month. Website here, and photos from the first Bizarre Bazaar here.

Now Thru June 7
The Physics of Happy Hour from The Asheville Contemporary Dance Theater. Here is a review from Mountain Express for what their website describes as "quirky and edgy" for all fans of dance out there.

Other Stuff
Entertainment Section of the Asheville paper, personal pick is the opening of the new Carolina Cinema, with its auditorium concept, including cinema lounge and bar.
Outdoors Section of the paper.
Theater Section of the paper.
More theater resources and reviews.
The weekend on a shoestring from Mountain Express.

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Filed Under: Sights and Things To Do