Sugar Top Condo Rental - Sleeps Six
NEW: Click here for special discounted rates
As low as $175/night. For rates and availablility, Click
here.
Visit the Western North Carolina Mountains! Spring, 
Summer,
Fall, or Winter, there is no place like it! We offer great rates on our
condominium and discounts on the house rental, too. Email
us for information on special low prices. We can help you keep the
cost of your vacation low. Looking for available rooms
or vacancy in the North Carolina mountains? We often
have space available for rent, but the earlier you email
us, the more likely it is that we will have something
for you.
Sugar Top Resort sits atop one of
the highest mountains in North Carolina, Sugar Mountain
North Carolina, and has panoramic views of the region
including Grandfather Mountain. Our unit at Sugar
Top Resort is
on the tenth floor (the highest floor) and is nicely
appointed in a warm, country style. It's 1100 square
feet of living space has one king bedroom, two twin
beds, with an additional pull-out sleeper sofa to sleep
six adults comfortably. Resort has mega, indoor heated
pool with hot-tub, jacuzzi
hottub, sauna, steambath and
full exercise room facility.
Sugar Mountain House Rental - Sleeps Ten
As low as $220/night. For rates and availablility, Click
here.
This spacious home sleeps has three bedrooms and three full baths, 
plus
two additional sleeper sofas. See long range views from wraparound
deck or sit back in front of the fireplace and watch
the snow fall outside. Easy
access to town and slopes with 5 minute drive. The
North Carolina mountains are a favorite vacation destination for all
seasons--winter, spring, summer or fall. The ski mountains of western
North Carolina are
the finest in the region. The North Carolina Mountains
have some of the finest hiking in the country. Linville
Caves are a favorite destination. Sugar Mountain, Beech Mountain and Hawks
Rise have challenging skiing and snowboarding for all skill levels. SugarTop
condominiums are located on the very top of Little Sugar Mountain. It overlooks
Sugar mountain ski areas and a free mountain shuttle brings you directly
to the ski area. There is an inner-tube run for non-skiers or those with
young children. Mountain lodging and accommodations include
hotels, motels, ski lodges, homes and condos for rent.
In the spring, you can sit in the hot tub and look out
through the steamed atrium windows to the early season
buds bursting. Summer in the North Carolina Mountains
is perfect for hiking, swimming and boating. Autumn may be the most picturesque
season. Go no further than your balcony to see the mountains leaves painted
with blazing red, orange and yellow. Winter again and time for another
ski season. Forget the beach. Don’t ski Colorado or Utah, don’t
ski Wyoming, Montana or Idaho. Forget Vail, Sun Valley, Tahoe and
Park City. Don’t
even THINK of going to Canada to ski. Places like Whistler
or Calgary or Baanf. They’re way far away, take too long to get
there, and too long to get back. Oh, and they're incredibly
expensive. SKI NORTH CAROLINA, SKI NC, TUBE NORTH CAROLINA, SNOWBOARD
NORTH CAROLINA. You’ll
be glad you did. Great skiing, great price, perfect
for kids, easy to get there. Come visit Western North
Carolina and vacation in the North Carolina Mountains.
The land of Daniel Boone. Looking for a Winter Rental, Spring Rental, Summer Rental or Fall Rental? Come stay with us, for a
day--or a season.
Why it makes dollars and sense to rent in todays housing market...
Home Not-So-Sweet Home
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 23, 2008
While homeownership rose as the housing bubble inflated, temporarily giving Mr. Bush something to boast about, it plunged — especially for African-Americans — when the bubble popped. Today, the percentage of American families owning their own homes is no higher than it was six years ago, and it’s a good bet that by the time Mr. Bush leaves the White House homeownership will be lower than it was when he moved in.
But here’s a question rarely asked, at least in Washington: Why should ever-increasing homeownership be a policy goal? How many people should own homes, anyway?
Listening to politicians, you’d think that every family should own its home — in fact, that you’re not a real American unless you’re a homeowner. “If you own something,” Mr. Bush once declared, “you have a vital stake in the future of our country.” Presumably, then, citizens who live in rented housing, and therefore lack that “vital stake,” can’t be properly patriotic. Bring back property qualifications for voting!
Even Democrats seem to share the sense that Americans who don’t own houses are second-class citizens. Early last year, just as the mortgage meltdown was beginning, Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who is one of Barack Obama’s top advisers, warned against a crackdown on subprime lending. “For be it ever so humble,” he wrote, “there really is no place like home, even if it does come with a balloon payment mortgage.”
And the belief that you’re nothing if you don’t own a home is reflected in U.S. policy. Because the I.R.S. lets you deduct mortgage interest from your taxable income but doesn’t let you deduct rent, the federal tax system provides an enormous subsidy to owner-occupied housing. On top of that, government-sponsored enterprises — Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks — provide cheap financing for home buyers; investors who want to provide rental housing are on their own.
In effect, U.S. policy is based on the premise that everyone should be a homeowner. But here’s the thing: There are some real disadvantages to homeownership.
First of all, there’s the financial risk. Although it’s rarely put this way, borrowing to buy a home is like buying stocks on margin: if the market value of the house falls, the buyer can easily lose his or her entire stake.
This isn’t a hypothetical worry. From 2005 through 2007 alone — that is, at the peak of the housing bubble — more than 22 million Americans bought either new or existing houses. Now that the bubble has burst, many of those homebuyers have lost heavily on their investment. At this point there are probably around 10 million households with negative home equity — that is, with mortgages that exceed the value of their houses.
Owning a home also ties workers down. Even in the best of times, the costs and hassle of selling one home and buying another — one estimate put the average cost of a house move at more than $60,000 — tend to make workers reluctant to go where the jobs are.
And these are not the best of times. Right now, economic distress is concentrated in the states with the biggest housing busts: Florida and California have experienced much steeper rises in unemployment than the nation as a whole. Yet homeowners in these states are constrained from seeking opportunities elsewhere, because it’s very hard to sell their houses.
Finally, there’s the cost of commuting. Buying a home usually though not always means buying a single-family house in the suburbs, often a long way out, where land is cheap. In an age of $4 gas and concerns about climate change, that’s an increasingly problematic choice.
There are, of course, advantages to homeownership — and yes, my wife and I do own our home. But homeownership isn’t for everyone. In fact, given the way U.S. policy favors owning over renting, you can make a good case that America already has too many homeowners.
O.K., I know how some people will respond: anyone who questions the ideal of homeownership must want the population “confined to Soviet-style concrete-block high-rises” (as a Bloomberg columnist recently put it). Um, no. All I’m suggesting is that we drop the obsession with ownership, and try to level the playing field that, at the moment, is hugely tilted against renting.
And while we’re at it, let’s try to open our minds to the possibility that those who choose to rent rather than buy can still share in the American dream — and still have a stake in the nation’s future.