In May 2026, a construction crew put the final coat of finish work on a five-bedroom estate tucked against the sixth hole of the Jack Nicklaus course at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove, the gated golf community bordering Pisgah National Forest in Arden. The home was delivered fully furnished, staged as a model, with a front-row seat to a golf shot the region hasn't seen from the PGA TOUR in more than eighty years. Walnut Cove was chosen to host the PGA TOUR's Biltmore Championship starting this year, the tour's first stop in the Asheville area in more than eight decades, and the event will return to the course annually for four more seasons.
That home is not an isolated curiosity. It is a large part of the reason South Asheville's headline price numbers look like they belong to a different planet than the one most buyers are shopping in.
A 62 Percent Jump That Is Real and Also Not What It Looks Like
Over the three months ending in May 2026, homes in the Biltmore Park area sold for a median of $1.3 million, up 62.4 percent from the same three-month window a year earlier. Homes there were also moving faster, a median of 41 days on market compared with 61 days the year before.
Read as a headline, that sounds like a neighborhood on fire. Read as a sample, it looks different: 18 homes closed in that window, up from just 6 the year before. When a median is built on 6 sales, a single ultra-luxury estate can drag the whole number sideways. When it's built on 18, the effect softens but doesn't disappear, especially when several of those 18 are new-construction homes inside a golf community that just landed a PGA TOUR event and is actively delivering estate-scale product to match the moment. One listing in that community, a 6,358-square-foot home under construction, is scheduled for delivery this fall.
This is not a story about Biltmore Park getting more expensive in any way a typical buyer would experience. It is a story about a small luxury enclave having a very good year for reasons specific to that enclave, and that story getting reported as if it described South Asheville broadly.
A median built on six sales and a median built on six hundred are not measuring the same thing, even when they share a neighborhood name.
Ten Minutes South, a Very Different Set of Numbers
Drive south from Biltmore Park along Hendersonville Road, and within ten to twelve minutes you're in Royal Pines, an established Arden neighborhood built mostly in the 1950s and 60s, full of brick ranches, mature trees, and the kind of lot sizes that let a driveway curve instead of just point straight at the garage. As of August 2026, the median sale price there sits around $399,000, down roughly 4 percent from a year earlier. Homes are sitting a median of 93 days before going under contract, well above the 56-day national average.
That is not a neighborhood in decline. It is a neighborhood behaving the way a much larger, older, more typical housing market behaves when buyers have leverage: prices soften slightly, timelines stretch, and sellers who want to move quickly start pricing to the market rather than to their expectations. Royal Pines residents are close to Sweeten Creek Road and Hendersonville Road, both quick commutes into downtown Asheville, and to neighborhood standbys like 12 Bones and Rocky's Hot Chicken Shack. None of that changed this year. What changed is how long it takes to find a buyer willing to meet a seller's number.
Here's what the two pockets of "South Asheville" actually looked like at roughly the same moment this year:
| Biltmore Park / Walnut Cove | Royal Pines (Arden) | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical housing stock | New construction, gated golf-course estates | 1950s to 60s ranch homes on larger lots |
| Recent median price | $1.3M (3 months ending May 2026), up 62.4% YoY | $399,000 (August 2026), down about 4% YoY |
| Days on market | 41 (down from 61 the year before) | 93 (vs. 56-day national average) |
| Recent sales volume | 18 closings in May 2026, up from 6 a year earlier | A much deeper, more typical inventory pool |
| What's driving the number | New luxury construction, PGA TOUR announcement | General buyer leverage, longer negotiation windows |
Two neighborhoods, one zip code's worth of geography, two completely different stories about what 2026 has been like for a seller.
What the County-Wide Numbers Actually Say
Zoom out to Buncombe County and the picture lines up much closer to Royal Pines than to Walnut Cove. Second-quarter 2026 data shows the county continuing to shift toward a buyer's market, though conditions remain fairly balanced rather than tilted sharply toward anyone. Average days on market reached the highest second-quarter level recorded since 2015, inventory increased across nearly every price range compared with the previous four years, and median price per square foot declined in most price categories, a clear signal of a market that is loosening rather than tightening.
Within the city of Asheville itself, the median home price eased from $506,000 in the first quarter of 2025 to $493,000 in the first quarter of 2026, while countywide the median moved from $450,000 to $446,000 over the same stretch. Sales volume in the city actually ticked up slightly, from 242 closings in the first quarter of 2025 to 255 in the first quarter of 2026, which suggests buyers haven't left the market. They've just gotten more selective, and sellers are having to work harder to meet them.
That context matters when you're staring at a single median for "South Asheville" and trying to decide what it tells you about a specific street. It tells you almost nothing until you know which of these two stories the number is actually describing.
The Airport Is Quietly Redrawing the Map Underneath Both Neighborhoods
There's a third force working on this corridor that neither median captures directly. Asheville Regional Airport, just south of both Biltmore Park and Royal Pines near Fletcher, is in the middle of AVL Forward, described by the airport authority as the largest infrastructure investment in the facility's history. The project is expanding the terminal from roughly 115,000 square feet and seven gates to more than 275,000 square feet and 12 gates. A new rental car facility opened in May 2026, and the full project is expected to wrap up in late 2027 or early 2028.
The airport authority has also flagged Airport Road, NC 280, as a rapidly growing corridor for non-aviation commercial development, with land actively being marketed for retail and commercial ground leases along the same route that Royal Pines and Walnut Cove residents use to get to I-26. None of this shows up in a monthly median price. All of it shapes what these neighborhoods will look and feel like in five years, and it's worth knowing about before you assume today's traffic patterns are permanent.
So Which Median Should You Actually Trust
Neither one, on its own. If you're comparing South Asheville to other places you might land, the useful question isn't "what's the median price" but "how many sales made that median, and what kind of homes were they." A number built on 6 to 18 closings in a gated golf community tells you about that community's momentum, not about what a typical 3-bedroom ranch nearby is going to cost you. A number built on a deep, decades-old inventory of homes tells you much more about the broader rhythm of the market, including how much room you might have to negotiate.
If you're weighing a purchase in this part of Buncombe County, ask your agent for the sales count behind any median you're shown, not just the number itself. Ask whether the comparable homes are new construction or established stock. And ask what's happening a few minutes down the road, because in South Asheville right now, a few minutes can be the difference between a seller's market and a buyer's one.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Compare Neighborhoods
Is South Asheville a buyer's market or a seller's market this year? It depends entirely on which pocket you mean. The established, larger-inventory neighborhoods are behaving like the rest of Buncombe County, trending toward more balanced or buyer-favorable conditions with longer days on market. The small luxury enclaves tied to new golf-course construction are moving faster and pricing higher, driven by scarcity and event-specific demand rather than broad market momentum.
Why did Biltmore Park's median jump so much in one season? A small number of closings, a mix shift toward new luxury construction, and the arrival of a PGA TOUR event at the neighboring Cliffs at Walnut Cove all landed in the same few months. That combination can move a median dramatically without reflecting what a typical home nearby is worth.
Does a longer time on market in a neighborhood like Royal Pines mean something is wrong with it? No. It generally reflects broader buyer leverage across the county this year, not anything specific to the neighborhood's condition or desirability. Homes there are still selling, just on a longer, more negotiated timeline than the ultra-fast pace of the past few years.
If you're trying to figure out which version of South Asheville actually applies to the street, subdivision, or price range you're considering, that's exactly the kind of read TFM Carolina does every week for buyers and sellers across the Asheville and Hendersonville area. Get Started, and we'll walk through the numbers behind the number with you.
