Smoky Mountain Cabin Properties

Carolina mountain vacations are not just for summer fun.  Sometimes it is difficult for everyone to get together for the holidays.   Finding a family member with a house large enough to hold everyone, or central enough for everyone to travel to easily, can troublesome. 

A great way to take care of both those issues, and to add a fun twist to a holiday gathering, is to choose a location within a day’s drive of most of the relatives and rent a house there for the holidays.   The Great Smoky Mountains, for example, are within reasonable driving distance of most eastern and mid-western states, and driving can be much more affordable than flying with a large family.

Holidays spent at Smoky Mountain vacation properties are not soon forgotten.  Not only are the Smoky Mountains stunningly beautiful in any season, but the small towns throughout the mountains take holiday decorating seriously.  Cheerful lights and music twinkle and jingle with merriment throughout communities in the Smokies.  Shopping locally for holiday wines, cheeses, gifts and foods adds authenticity and yet another unique twist to a holiday gathering.  For a family looking to create a new, unforgettable tradition for the holiday season, Smoky Mountain vacation rentals can be a great starting point.

It does not snow in the Great Smoky Mountains as often as most people expect.  While winters can be cold, rain is more usual than snow at the lower elevations.  Up high on the Blue Ridge Parkway or on the ridges of the Great Smoky Mountians National Park, snow can be seen for short periods of time, but it is infrequent in the valleys, and does not last for long even when it comes.  We got lucky with some gorgeous snow falling this past weekend! X-C ski at Clingman's Dome, build a snowman, and go sledding in the yards of your Cherokee cabin rentals and Bryson City Cabin rentals!

It is a unique and exciting experience then, to hang out in a comfy mountain cabin and watch the snow fall quietly outside and cover everything in sight.  A cup of hot chocolate, a roaring fire in the fireplace, and good friends and family make for a special vacation in the mountains indeed.  Find your perfect Smoky Mountain vacation rentals and come on up to the mountains!  See you soon.

Starting November 5, 2010, visitors arriving in Bryson City, NC for a stay at one of the great Smoky Mountain cabin properties available to rent in town, will notice a lively winter spirit.  During November and December the Great Smoky Mountains come alive with the sounds of children's laughter and jingling sleigh bells as the Polar Express rolls into town. 

The Polar Express can the highlight of Carolina Mountain Vacations, especially for kids.  The Polar Express makes the journey to the North Pole where Santa and his Elves greet them in the best holiday style.  The book and movie come to life on a real live train ride through the mountains, complete with hot chocolate and bells for every child.  The wearing of pajamas is strongly encouraged, and not just for the kids!  Parents are invited to participate in all the festivities as well — right down to fleecy footed PJs.  We love to see the dozens of famiies wandering through town and having a great adventure. 

Dates and Times for the Polar Express this year are:

• November 5, 11, 12, 14, & 18 departs at 6:30pm
• November 6, 13, 21, 23, 24, & 28 departs at 5:00pm & 6:30pm
• November 19, 20, 26, & 27 departs at 5:00pm, 6:30pm, & 8:00pm
• December 1, & 8 departs 6:30pm
• December 5, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 24 departs at 5:00pm & 6:30pm
• Dec 2 & 9 (Homes School Day) 11am departure
• December 3, & 10 departs at 11:00am, 5:00pm, 6:30pm, & 8:00pm
• December 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, & 23 departs at 5:00pm, 6:30pm, & 8:00pm
• December 4, 11, & 18 departs at 2:00pm, 3:30pm, 5:00pm, 6:30pm, & 8:00pm

We know how great the fall season is here in the Great Smoky Mountains - fabulous weather, stunning color in the leaves and lots to do both outdoors and indoors.  Now everyone else gets to know it too! The Great Smoky Mountains have made Yahoo's Top 10 Fall Foliage Destinations list for 2010.  And no wonder!  We have over 100 species of native trees, including sugar maples, scarlet oaks, sweetgums, and red maples.  Our peak color season is October through November, though color starts showing as early as mid-September in some places.

Our many great Smoky Mountain cabin properties are perfect for bases of operation for fun in the fall.  Smoky Mountain vacation packages offer easy planning of activities and adventures, from Jet Boat rides and mountain hikes to Whitewater Rafting to old-time train rides. 

Located right next to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, our Cherokee NC cabin rentals and Bryson City NC cabin rentals offer great views of fall foliage and easy access to the roads and trails of this gorgeous park.

Music in the Mountains is a weekly event that takes place every Saturday evening at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Depot.   At 6pm, a local band or singer/songwriter takes the stage and offers up their talent to the public - for free!  It's a great way to add true local flavor to Carolina mountain vacations!

Downtown Bryson City is just a short way from most of our Smoky Mountain cabin properties and it's worth coming in after a day of playing in the mountains to relax to great music.

On September 4th, the RibTips will be playing their unique style of music played on fiddle, washbaord, guitar, and washtub bass. They will play some music of love, trains, and chickens -- yes chickens -- and perhaps a little tune called "Sylva and Bryson"...

You never know what is going to happen in the Great Smoky Mountains, and at 2am on October 25, 2009 a rock slide covered Interstate 40 at mile 2.6 near the NC/TN line.  The slide is similar to one that hit the same area in July of 1997, closing both lanes of traffic.  As with the 1997 slide, I40 will be closed for 3-4 months while the area is cleaned up, the road repaired and the mountainside stabilized.

Luckily there's more than one way around the mountains to our Smoky Mountain vacation rentals and all the fun happenings in our corner of the world.  Whether folks are coming to do some Smoky Mountain golfing, or to look at Smoky Mountain cabin properties, or to hike around looking at waterfalls, there are many ways to get here without worrying about Interstate 40!

Here are some alternative routes to Bryson City.

FROM VIRGINIA:

Asian Multi-Colored Lady Beetle, Japanese Lady Beetle, Japanese Lady Bug...all of these are common names for Harmonia axyridis, a common visitor to Smoky Mountain cabin properties windowsills in the late fall.  Like kudzu, japanese honeysuckle, nepalise browntop and english ivy, these little visitors are not native to the United States and love to gather in large groups in an annoying fashion. 

When the weather turns cold, the lady beetles group up in dry places to begin their winter hibernation.  In their native Asia, lady beetles winter in cracks on cliff faces and other naturally occurring cool, dry cubbies. In America, they settle for wintering in house, garages and other buildings.  Being sun lovers, they usually gather on the south side of buildings, and on sunny days, will wander around indoors even in winter.  From North Carolina to Michigan, these clever little beetles find there way into homes day after day.   They get vaccuumed up and the next day they're back - a harmless but somewhat frustrating part of life in these parts.   Luckily, in the spring, the lady beetles all return to the great outdoors and leave houses alone.

Asian Lady Beetles can be distinguished from native Lady Bugs, who prefer not to spend their winters indoors!  Asian Lady Beetles have an 'M' (or 'W' depending on how you are looking at them) on the top of their heads.

So if you meet a bunch of lady bugs on a windowsill or doorframe on your Carolina mountain vacation, know that they're just looking for a place to spend the winter.  They don't bite or sting and while they can be vacuumed up easily, there will probably be more of them the next day.  It's not the sign of a dirty house, just a creative beetle!  Remember all the aphids they'll eat off good garden veggies come summer time and smile at these colorful visitors.

Just a couple miles away from our Smoky Mountain cabin properties, on Old NC 288, is Lemon's Branch Boat ramp, a little-known put-in to Fontana Lake, where the Tuckaseegee river meets the lake.  But if you don't have a boat, there's another gem along the way.  Only minutes from town, away from crowds, on quiet backroads, is a surprise -- three picnic tables along side the river.

Like so many places in small towns, this one does not get much traffic from folks who don't live there.  If you bring your lunch to this location, you'll most likely have the place to yourself - expect for the occasional fisherman or duck floating by or a Blue Heron wading along in search of fish.   And there's also railed deck over the water -- a perfect spot for doing some land-based fishing in the smokies -- especially if you have kids.  So grab a sandwich and come enjoy an easy-to-get-to, quiet picnic spot in the mountains along the river.

Fall in the Great Smoky Mountains means color, color, color.  North Carolina does not have the abundance of maples that make New England famous for red fall color, we do have enough sprinklings of those fabulous flaming red trees to make these southern mountains glow.  Layer after layer of yellow, orange and red dappled peaks spread into the distance here, and the colors linger from mid October into November, making late season viewing a treat. We are seeing the color now, marching down the mountainsides. Very color.

Whether we're out fishing in the Smokies, or enjoying a round of Smoky Mountain golf, we are admiring the glorious color on our lovely mountains!  We're lucky enough that even where we're not out playing, our Smoky Mountain cabin properties - both the house and the office in town - offer us views of the fall extravaganza.  What a treat!  And lucky for folks visiting us that we also have Smoky Mountain vacation rentals so they can enjoy the same views we do!

Free Wireless Access for Yellow Rose Realty Homeowners, Renters, and Customers

Want a Smoky Mountain Vacation but can’t afford to be disconnected completely from the online world?

We understand! Yellow Rose Realty offers free wireless high speed internet for our vacation rental homeowners, real estate customers, and vacationing guests, here at our Bryson City, North Carolina office.   Enjoy 24/7 wireless access - just as fast as home (maybe faster!).   Last week the Mire family was here visiting from Louisiana. They own the cabin “Far Horizon”. They spent some time on our porch, overlooking our recirculating waterfall, getting caught up on all things online, thanks to our free wireless service. 

Ask us about our free evaluations on potential property investments for purchasers. See last week’s July 8th blog about What Makes a Successful Cabin Rental – Part 1, for more information on investing in your own vacation cabin rental.

Last week I started my blog about What Makes a Successful Vacation Cabin Rental - Part 1, by focusing on Location and Cabin Floor Plan/Layout.

I get that question "What Makes a Successful Vacation Cabin Rental" so often from our vacationers who enjoy this area of Western North Carolina (right next to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park) so much. They want to investigate rental property management, that is, purchasing a cabin that they can turn around and rent when they aren't here for their Carolina Mountain Vacations.

So, you have identified a cabin that meets your first two selection criteria for successful vacation cabins:
1) Location: in the right location to be attractive to vacationers, e.g. near attractions, mountainviews, creekside, etc.
2) Inviting, open floor plan and right number of bedrooms for your target market.  Now, it’s time to address what amenities are most important for vacation cabins, and how to decorate them for maximum “screen to curb appeal”.

We manage over 60 vacation cabins and have more than a decade of experience in this specific mountain vacation market. Here is what we’ve learned:

The most important amenities: (Remember, the fewer the amenities you have, the smaller the target market your cabin appeals to.)

1. A Hot Tub is a MUST. Period.
2. Here’s why, even in the height of summer: Water activities are big spring through fall in our vacation market. Even in heat of summer, a hot tub is appreciated after the cold water of the Nantahala River rafting, Deep Creek tubing, or other cool lakes and mountain streams.
3. We have found that people may not have time for hot tubs at home, but they definitely make time to enjoy hot tubs on vacation. Vacationers expect to get a hot tub when they rent a mountain vacation cabin. One of our new luxury homeowners experienced this in spades this spring:

The Nantahala River Retreat, is a new luxury home that had no hot tub. Well, the house sat there for 60 days until the homeowner put in the hot tub.  As soon as the hot tub went in, Yellow Rose booked 4-5 weeks worth of reservations in one and a half weeks alone! Don’t you want that working for YOU?!

Fireplace: Gas fireplaces are indeed better than wood ones because gas fireplaces minimize wear and tear in the home, guests don’t always understand to open the damper in a wood fireplace, etc. I encourage homeowners to replace wood fireplaces for gas ones if they are turning the cabin into a rental.

Dining seating capability: if sleeps 8 must have same # of seating for all that number. sitting down to share a meal together is really really important on vacation time. Remember, your cabin is a silent facilitator of vacationers’ Quality Time.

Furniture:

1. I get asked what kind of beds are most preferred. Can you guess? Yes, king size beds are truly preferred. Trundle beds for extra sleeping are useful, twin beds are good for an extra bedroom but not for main bedrooms because it limits couples.
2. Futons are better than sleeper sofas. Sleeper sofas without springs are better than those with springs.
3. Sofas, chairs, recliners, dining/kitchen tables, etc.: Go for comfortable. You want guests to see furniture that invites them to relax in it.
4. Pool table or game room is a great advantage. Again, folks may not play much at home, but on vacation they will use them.

Decks/Porches and What’s On Them:
These are Quality Time amenities! Think socializing and relaxing. Vacationers to our beautiful mountain area want to enjoy the outdoors and each other on their vacation. Anything that facilitates this is helpful.

1. Rocking chairs, good seating on porch, hammock, porch swings, double gliders, etc.
2. Table(s) (with enough seating!) for eating out, with umbrella for shade or covered porch.
3. Good grill is essential.
4. Some yard is helpful, but the porch is the big thing. The yard is a bigger benefit to families with young children.

Vacation Amenities: Convenience is Key

1. Dishwasher
2. Washer/Dryer
3. Microwave, Toaster/Toaster Oven, other small kitchen appliances
4. A kitchen stocked with enough pots, pans, place settings, mixing bowls, and storage bags/plastic wrap/foil for leftovers. Vacationers will cook in your cabin; make it easy for them to do so! It is frustrating to try to cook a nice meal for your family on vacation when you don’t have the right “equipment”.
5. Satellite TV, DVD Player, Alarm Clocks
6. Stereo or music channels through the satellite TV. And/or, how about a portable speaker set for Ipods/MP3 Players?
7. High Speed Internet: While this is a really attractive amenity to offer guests, depending on your cabin location, it may not be very realistic. DSL is still not widely available in our mountainous, sparsely populated area. Satellite Internet is available, at greater cost. If your vacation home is managed by Yellow Rose, you get access to free wireless at our Bryson City office (conveniently in the middle of town with easy access). Wireless access is free for renters and homeowners.

Interior Decorating:
Successful vacation cabins have great “first impression appeal”. In other words, they immediately convey the feeling of a warm, comfortable mountain home, perfect for vacation.  It’s what I call "Screen to Curb" Appeal. We all know what “curb appeal” is with homes for sale. Well, nowadays, most vacationers will find your home online, so your “screen appeal” needs to be exceptional, in order to attract renters to choose your cabin over others.  How do you accomplish this?

1. Mountain décor. Leave the floral prints and seashell lamptables at the beach, and decorate your home with art and colors that blend well with our Appalachian mountain landscape and sensibilities. Your guests want to feel like they are indeed in the mountains.
2. Wall hangings and/or pictures are important. Don’t try to save some money by sparsely “decorating” the cabin. Attractive walls can be as powerful as furniture and layout in online pictures.
3. Green plants are warm and inviting. Can’t have real ones? Go for a synthetic arrangement (at least for pictures), and maybe offer fresh plants/flowers for each visitor. You can bet guests will appreciate this.

Follow our tried and true guidelines and you are on your way to a successful vacation cabin rental. Good luck!

Welcome to my first “Waterfall Chat on Mountain Real Estate”.  Our new blog world offers a chance for me to share real estate insights that could help you make smarter investment decisions, whether it be for a primary or vacation home, investment property, or land development.

Customers frequently ask me what is going on in our mountain region regarding the current real estate market. Is it down, flat, up - and how has the mortgage crisis affected our area for real estate sales? I have been in Bryson City, North Carolina real estate now for almost 15 years, and have lived through the land, home, and investment property sale trends of mountain real estate over all of that time.

There is a great deal of anxiety and real hardship with the current mortgage problems in many areas of the country. The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae liquidity problems in the news this very week certainly don’t help alleviate consumer fears. Our mountain region has not experienced the residential foreclosures, excess of homes on the market, or sharply dropped home or land values.

Our western North Carolina region, specifically Swain, Graham, and Jackson counties adjacent to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is a very different market from more populated regions of the country that have a much higher concentration of private land. Swain County, for example, is 87% national forest or national park lands. What private land there is, holds its value for the simple reason that there isn’t much of it. Consequently, land prices have not declined measurably in value, especially land that borders public lands because it is (at least somewhat) protected from encroaching development.  Demand has softened, but values have not declined proportionately. (It’s a classic supply issue, there is no new land being “made”!)

Our current real estate market reflects the pre-2005 market. Late 2005 and 2006 is when we saw the beginning of upper end real estate buying. Pre-2005, there was not a large volume of trading in wintertime, and activity picks up through the summer months. What has happened is we have returned to more of a normal market – in other words, the market has corrected to reasonable levels. The volume of sales has slowed, but the value of the homes and land in this region has held consistent. Of course there are always those who sell for lower prices than they otherwise could, due to other personal reasons driving their need to sell quickly. To date, area MLS sales records show a small discount over 2007 sales.

The 2006 and 2007 markets were ones of strong demand for mountain property, where buyers could purchase high and still make a profit on the resell. In 2008, we see a correction such that you can still make a profit on sales, but you have to be more careful to buy at a cheaper price. Knowing what price to pay becomes so much more important in a market where demand has softened.  That’s where experienced realtors in the opportunities and challenges of mountain property come in.  Slope, drainage, access, development proximity, home floor plan, materials used, builder’s experience and history, all these things are critical to a sound purchase. A realtor who knows the area well, what sells and why, who builds and how, etc. is especially useful to the area newcomer. Real estate buyers in our market are typically not looking to move here to work. This is a prime vacation market. The buyers largely represent the second home market and split their time between the Smoky Mountains and their primary home elsewhere. Real estate targeted for this market is a large percentage of the inventory in this area.

Yellow Rose Realty didn’t reduce pricing in the homes and land in our listings, due to our philosophy of pricing right from the start. If you look in the real estate guides, you’ll note a variety of “price reduced” listings. Look carefully, the value of the home and land didn’t decline, the price was inflated and now has been dropped to a reasonable level.  We have a very large percentage of repeat customers in our real estate business, and vacation rental guests who turn into real estate customers, buying their first vacation rental cabin from us as an investment and ongoing income source. We know this is because we work very hard to price properties at levels that provide fair and reasonable returns to both buyers and sellers.  How do we know? Our customers tell us!

In our next Waterfall Chat on Mountain Real Estate, I’ll look at historical real estate trends in Swain County, and cover the real income picture on land sales. Let me know what you’d like to hear about in my blog. Comments are welcome, just click on the comment link at the bottom of every entry.

Investing in a Cabin in the Mountains for Rental Property Income
So you are thinking about buying some property in the Smoky Mountains so you can have access to a vacation cabin, and you’d like to turn it into a vacation cabin rental to generate income while you aren’t there.

What kind of property offers the best chance for rental success?
I get this question frequently from homeowners and prospective rental property buyers. Johnny and I (Dena) have managed vacation cabin rentals through our company, Yellow Rose Realty for over 15 years now. We have learned from experience with actual historical rental patterns to back it up, what “rents” well and what doesn’t.

Here are tips to help you identify the best property to achieve your rental cabin goals:

Location and Cabin Floor Plan/Layout are the two most important elements in your purchase of property.  Amenities and Interior Decorating come next in importance. We’ll talk about Location and Cabin Layout in this blog entry, and look for tips about Amenities and Interior Decorating in Part 2 next week.

Location:
The top requested cabin rentals in our Smoky Mountain vacation region that includes Bryson City, Cherokee, Nantahala, Fontana, and Dillsboro have Creekside and Mountain Views.  Creekside rentals are, of course, more limited than mountain view rentals, so you will benefit from some built-in excess demand if you can find a good creekside property. Creekside properties are exceptionally popular for families with kids and the numerous stocked trout streams in our region make for a high value additional benefit for renters who like to fish.

Access:
Good roads to your cabin rental are important because vacationers do not necessarily have four-wheel drive vehicles, and/or they are not familiar with rugged terrain driving.  Motorcycles are an increasingly popular target market with world-class motorcycle touring less than an hour from Bryson City, NC (Cherohala Skyway, Tail of the Dragon, and Blue Ridge Parkway to name just three).


Cabin Floor Plan/Layout:

Maybe you found the perfect property and want to build your own cabin, or maybe you want to buy an existing cabin and turn it into a rental cabin.

What kinds of physical layouts (cabin design) are most popular with renters?
Here they are:

1. The best renting cabins have open floor plans with great rooms and cathedral ceilings. This big open room (living room, dining room, kitchen area all in one central area of the cabin) is really important. It gathers together your rental family/group and encourages shared activities, conversations, and time together in the one large gathering space.
2. If you find a beautiful property with great mountain views or creekside access that has lots of separate rooms (i.e. no great room), definitely consider a renovation. Your repeat rental business depends on your renters loving their time in your cabin!
3. How many bedrooms are ideal for maximum “rentability”?
4. We manage over 60 vacation rentals and find that the two bedroom is the most popular and consistent for year-round target rentals. The three bedroom is the next popular. One bedrooms cabins are great for honeymooners and couples looking for a romantic retreat, but are less useful for broader target customers. The four bedroom and larger cabin is perfect for large groups and families, and rentals tend to be limited to holidays and summer months as a result.

The most important thing to know: Get an assessment on your prospective property from a rental property manager who has long term (more than 5 years) experience in mountain vacation rentals BEFORE you buy. Our vacation market offers specific challenges and opportunities due to our geography and seasonality. Yellow Rose Realty offers free evaluations on potential property investments for purchasers. Take advantage of our expertise, with no risk and no cost. You deserve to maximize the income from your rental property. The wrong cabin or the wrong location can’t achieve your goals.

Read more next week in our blog on What Makes a Successful Cabin Rental – Part 2, Amenities and Interior Decorating.

Welcome to our new Yellow Rose Realty blog. We are Johnny and Dena Ensley, owners and founders of a small real estate and vacation cabin rentals company located in the heart of the Smoky Mountains in far western North Carolina.  We have over a decade of experience in successfully buying, selling, and managing mountain real estate, property management, and cabin rentals for our customers. In this blog, we and our staff will share tips, challenges, and resources specific to mountain properties so you can successfully buy, sell, or invest in your own properties and meet your dreams.  Most of our staff grew up here in this area, like us, and as a result we have an in-depth knowledge of the nuances of this popular vacation region.