Yancey County Receives Surge of New Residents from Covid Flight

Yancey County has seen an influx of new residents since Covid-19 has shifted a large portion of the office-based workforce to fulfilling their job roles remotely. This shift has prompted many people to reimagine where they want home to be. With work no longer tethered to a brick and mortar location, there comes newfound freedom. Job flexibility combined with the stress of living in densely populated areas during a pandemic, means places like Yancey County are particularly appealing. 

Rural living naturally entails less people living on top of one another, and an accompanying sense of relative safety. With the allure of the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as reasonable access to all the amenities of the suburbs--Asheville and Johnson City a mere hour away, and a distinct richness of local color--it’s easy to see why this place has caught the eye of many people looking for a big change. There is a distinct best-of-both-worlds opportunity here; to be able to live in the heart of untouched natural beauty and small town comforts, while still cultivating a career path that used to be exclusive to cities.

This local pattern represents a trend in nationwide, post-Covid reorganizations of community makeup, as well as widespread lifestyle changes. The potential for large numbers of work-from-home employees has been around since the internet reached its heyday, or at least since video conference calls became commonplace. What’s made it happen now, is the necessity plus the sense of lived possibility. People have reclaimed time and energy once dedicated to a daily commute, and a higher degree of work-life integration means increased autonomy; not just literally, but on the level of subjective experience. If there is a sudden, compelling recognition that “my life is my own,” why not capitalize on it?

Photo by Ryan Stone on Unsplash

 

On the surface, Suzanne Honeycutt and Terrence Mueller don’t have much in common. They are in different stages of life, and have presumably different backgrounds. Suzanne works in public relations for a Christian radio station, and Terrence is a former WWOOFer (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Suzanne is caring for an elderly parent, and Terrance is expecting his first baby. Suzanne did not anticipate moving to Yancey County at this time in her life, and Terrance was preparing for the move well before the pandemic hit, which simply accelerated the process. Still, their reasons for moving to Yancey County are remarkably similar.

Back in Fort Myers, Florida, Terrance and his wife Lizzie arrived at a prenatal appointment post-pandemic, to discover eight members of the medical staff crammed behind one reception desk without any masks. In general, the Covid culture in Florida has become representative of the most extreme anti-lockdown states.“People were way more worried about mild tropical storms--which can be bad, but come through all the time and we were prepared for--than they were worried about the pandemic,” says Terrence. They lived in a neighborhood where the boundaries of personal property were often ignored. 

The stress of being out of alignment with the larger Covid culture norms in their area, inspired them to take steps to move to Celo sooner rather than later. Terrance and Lizzie fell in love with the beauty of the land and the wholesomeness of the community. Years prior, when they first decided to explore the area, they became close to their WWOOF host family, who happen to be doctors. “I mean, with Lizzie being pregnant, it was a big perk to be near doctors we trust, and we’ve always wanted to move here anyway.” Lizzie’s job for a clothing chain went remote, and Terrance has been building up his work as an online math tutor, making the move possible. In transition, Terrence says they have been living Weaverville, but they are excited to make the final move as soon as they can.

Suzanne moved here from Houston, Texas, where she held strong community ties, and was quite content with her life as it was. However, as a cancer survivor with a high risk family member, life in a big city during a pandemic began to feel on the edge of risk tolerance. When Suzanne and her husband (who works as a software systems manager for a chemical company) both went remote at work, they began to explore the opportunity to live somewhere else.

Suzanne and her husband used to vacation in Yancey, and so this place had always offered them a sweet escape and feeling of safe haven. Yancey County ticked all their boxes. “This community is just so wonderful. This place is beautiful. There are mountains, but it’s not too cold. And the artists, the shops, the people...the fact that we get to live in all this beauty, but still have everything we need in the town...what more could we want?” There was even an element of what could be called fate, “After we moved here, we just happened to learn that my husband has a long line of ancestry in the area.”

Terrance and Suzanne both report settling in nicely, and feeling well received by the community. Despite having just moved to North Carolina, they both concur that there is a feeling of home here, or at the very least the distinct promise of home. Arriving here has been a great relief, and a much needed new beginning. It is not lost on either of them that they are in a privileged position. What has afforded some people greater liberation, has cost others their lives, stability, and ability to meet basic needs. 

Photo by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

The larger reality of systemic inequality and random circumstance, has a hand in shaping new community demographics as well. Populations of newcomers tend to occupy certain broader socio-economic locations, although the particularities within those locations may be relatively diverse. In fact, real estate agents have noticed waves of city dwellers moving to rural areas for the past few years in particular, presumably due to increasing socio-political tensions in city hubs creating the conditions for unrest and activism, and/or the perceived danger of it. The pandemic merely accelerated these preexisting conditions, triggering a mass movement of “Covid flight” simultaneously. 

Annie Harper, an associate broker for the local real estate agency Beverly Hanks, has seen such an increase in buyers post-Covid, it’s hard to keep up. “I feel like I can’t premiere two properties on the same weekend, because I won’t be able to respond to all the negotiations and inquiries as they come in.” Properties are consistently selling within a mere 48 hours of listing. Before the pandemic hit, Yancey County was already a seller’s market. But, yet again, the pandemic took pre-existing conditions and turned the intensity dial all the way up.

Bidding wars on houses and properties (especially move-in ready) have become so competitive, it is not unusual for buyers to offer significantly more than asking price, or for buyers to swoop in with cash offers and squelch any hopes of people buying on mortgage. “Cash is king,” says Annie, knowingly. The most desirable price range is between $200K-$300K, making the most competitive submarkets within the realm of lower middle class to middle class reach. Issues of economic stratification may come to a head when people with cash in hand buy up properties that are well within their means, but still a stretch for people on a lower rung of stable housing access. As a broker, Annie feels responsible for serving the best interests of buyers and sellers. Sometimes those interests are in conflict. It can be challenging.    

Whereas, in the past, there were similar occurrences in bidding wars here, due to high desirability of purchasing investment properties, second homes, vacation rentals, and AirBnB sites, current buyers are mostly people looking to live in Yancey full time and long term. Annie has noted, with interest, that she is seeing more intergenerational families looking to move here, suggesting that people are pulling resources and combining finances to make it happen. 

In addition to move-in ready homes at a reasonable price, people are looking for raw land in order to pursue homesteading, diversify retirement plans, or simply have a place to reside while they build. Often, the hope is to live in a camper or airstream in the interlude to something more permanent. With remote work enabling the feasibility of this lifestyle, the biggest concern seems to be whether they will have access to the internet from their campsites. In fact, the lack of reliable high speed internet access in Yancey County, is sometimes a far harder pill to swallow than the challenges of living off raw land. The absurdly high cost of building materials post-pandemic, only exacerbates the highly competitive seller’s market. Just because you manage to secure land, doesn’t mean you will be able to build on it.  

As with any big change in community makeup, there has been some talk among the longtime locals about how these newcomers may impact what they know and love about life in Yancey County. Whispers and grumbles in casual conversations, as well as on community forums like Burnsville Facebook groups, imply that this influx may not be entirely welcome. Will these newcomers push for changes in hunting regulations and hunting culture norms? Are they leftwing political radicals? Will Burnsville see the same fate as Asheville, with all its microbreweries and sky high rental prices?  

In adjacent sub-communities of so-called longtime transplants and pre-Covid transplants, there is concern about the accelerated disappearance of affordable housing, and consideration of how a more diverse population may heighten the dynamics of the already uniquely culturally and politically polarized region. Yancey is a red county, but the existence of Celo Community Inc., proximity to Penland School of Craft, Mountain Gardens, and related sub-communities, means that there is a significant population of craftspeople, artists, musicians, food sovereignty farmers, herbalists, rewilders, scholars, social and environmental advocates, back-to-the-landers, and unprogrammed Quakers; pursuits that tend to correlate with progressive ideology.  To put it lightly, Covid has rearranged and blurred the lines of ideological affiliation and social status in a way that can only mean increased confusion and chaos in the microcosm. 

But Annie believes that, while some of these concerns are understandable, other concerns may not be well founded. Not just because these are typical reactions to any influx of new residents (she has observed similar grumbles among locals in Asheville, so this is not exclusive to small towns), but because the county still contains swaths of family owned lands that will simply never be put on the market. There has never been great likelihood of land purchased with the intent of big development, and in recent years there has been a sharp decrease in the desirability of gated communities. Mountain Air residents will likely still find buyers, but big developers will not seek to replicate the neighborhood. “We’re just never going to see big housing developments here, because of that. That land is never going to be sold, and people don’t want to live in gated communities these days. So most of the county will still consist of undeveloped land, like it always has.”

Time will tell how changes in society at large will impact Yancey County directly, but the signs of imminent big change are certainly upon us already. It’s safe to surmise that with more and more transplants creating sub-communities within the local population, there will come cultural, social, and political changes as well, plus continued changes in an already highly competitive housing and property market. 

If you enjoyed this article and resonate with the value of indie journalism, please consider making a monthly contribution of $1 or $5 on my Patreon Page.