A boisterous crowd in a packed auditorium on the campus of Blue Ridge Community College engaged in a lively two-hour give-and-take with Congressman Mark Meadows over the economy, gun laws and the Mexican border wall, but most of the audience had just one thing on their minds — health care.

Since before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was chartered in 1934, Western North Carolina has been a sought-after destination for tourists from across the country and across the world. 

A recent designation by the North Carolina Department of Commerce could have a detrimental impact on Haywood County’s economic development efforts.

In the first installment of this series on Haywood County’s economic development, the analogy of a bathtub was used to illustrate the county’s economy: water flows in, water drains out and the freeboard is always changing, but amidst all the splashing, insular yet interconnected bubbles of industry rise and fall and swell and pop.

Within the residential real estate industry lies an interesting contradiction. 

SEE ALSO:
• Haywood housing demand is high but inventory is low
• Macon making sustainable growth in real estate market
• Real estate rebounding in Jackson
• Mountain cabins in high demand in Swain

Brian Cagle is vice president and managing broker at Beverly-Hanks in Waynesville. Beverly Hanks doesn’t sell real estate, however; Beverly-Hanks sells a lifestyle.

It hasn’t been a quick or easy recovery, but Macon County real estate is back on the rise and Realtors see that trend continuing into 2017.

With the recession nearly a decade in the rearview mirror, the real estate market is once more robust in Jackson County — especially in the southern end of the county around Cashiers.

Sherry and Gary Patterson vacationed in Bryson City for the first time about 20 years ago and now they can’t get enough of it.

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, R-Cashiers, introduced a bill last week to halt the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to ban floating homes on all of its 49 lakes.