No cause for alarm, Asheville, but you may want to watch your back — those other towns are gaining on you.

Long the largest city in the mountains and the hub of the region's cultural and entertainment sectors, Asheville has always enjoyed steady, fairly robust population growth. Whether it's retirees looking to enjoy the natural beauty or millennials flocking here for cool music or West Asheville's quirky vibe, Asheville proper has been a magnet for newcomers.

That pipeline is not exactly drying up, but...

"In a nutshell, at a time in which most Asheville metro area cities/towns are experiencing increasing population growth rates, the city has gone the opposite direction in the last two years," said Tom Tveidt, an Asheville-based economist and founder of Syneva Economics. "Asheville city’s population growth rate dropped to 0.7% annually in 2017 and 2018, after averaging 1.5% annually over the previous six years."

Over the same period, most local mountain cities and towns have been experiencing fairly robust population growth rates. For example, Maggie Valley and Waynesville in Haywood County had 1.7% and 1.4% growth rates in 2018, respectively; while Weaverville in Buncombe County clocked a 1.6% rate and Mills River and Fletcher, both in northern Henderson County, tallied 1.2% rates.

More:Buncombe County median home price sets record, sales up from 2018

Asheville has a healthy population of nearly 92,500, but its growth rate is slipping in the category of 15 largest cities in North Carolina. For 2018, Asheville came in 12th place, outpacing only Jacksonville, High Point and Fayetteville.

"In terms of ranking by growth rates in the area, (Asheville) ranked between the third and sixth fastest growing between 2011-16, but dropped to 17th in 2017 and 13th in 2018," Tveidt said.

Mayor responds

Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer isn't alarmed by the trend but does find the numbers "interesting."

"I suspect that although the city’s growth is slowing, our region is still growing rapidly and because Asheville serves as a regional hub for Western North Carolina, it will continue to feel like the city is growing at a rapid pace," Manheimer said. "Asheville has the largest change in daytime to nighttime population in the state due to people coming into the city to work, go to the doctor, shop, visit, etc. — by some 49%!"

Also noteworthy, Manheimer said, is the city's legislative limitation on annexation. Adding population through annexation could boost those population numbers almost overnight, but special legislation "doesn’t allow the city to require annexation of homes that tap onto the city’s water system," Manheimer noted.

"This is unique to Asheville," she said. "Other cities require annexation when subdivisions are build on the outskirts of a city and tap onto the water system. It would take some serious research to figure out the effects of this but I suspect it plays a role."

The upshot is Asheville, as well as Buncombe County, are far from dwindling, but they're definitely in a lull.

"Buncombe was the fastest growing metro county as recently as 2012, but fast forward to the most recent years and Buncombe now is the slowest growing," Tveidt said. "Haywood was losing population 2011 and 2012 and is now the fastest growing county in the metro."

Real estate reflects the shift

In the sprawling neighborhood of Riverstone in northern Henderson County, evidence of the population growth shift is pretty obvious: hundreds and hundreds of new houses. Issued a special use permit in 2005 for 549 lots, the subdivision is now built out.

Justin Lentini freely admits they're "cookie cutter" style homes, but he also says it's a great neighborhood full of younger couples with kids.

And it was affordable.

"As far as why we decided to move to the Fletcher area, honestly, we couldn't afford to live in Asheville," Lentini said. "The cost of living here compared to Asheville was just so much more affordable."

He and his wife, a physician assistant at Mission Hospital, have two kids, ages 4 and 14. The couple had lived in Asheville's Beaverdam area in a home that had been in his wife's family, but it needed a lot of work.

Lentini is originally from Etowah, so Riverstone seemed like a good fit. When they bought five years ago, their home — a three-bedroom, two-bath one-story with a bonus room over the garage — was in the "low-$200s," he said. It's increased nicely in assessed value since then, and Lentini says he knows several people in Riverstone who have started out in smaller homes and traded up to the largest models in the five years they've been there.

More:Asheville real estate market hits 'healthy place' as housing sales dip, median prices rise

Henderson County has added about 10,000 people since 2010, its population rising from 106,887 to 116,748 in 2018, according to census data. Its growth rate over the past four years has ticked in at 1.5%, 1.6%, 1.5% and 1.1%.

Buncombe, meanwhile, jumped from 238,737 residents in 2010 to 259,103 last year, but its growth rates registered 1.1%, 1.2%, 0.9% and 0.7%.

A small business owner, Lentini doesn't pretend to be a demographer. But he also sees nothing but growth for the outlying communities like the one he calls home, in part because it's a 30-minute commute to Asheville and Brevard, less to Hendersonville.

And regular working people can afford to live there.

"It is urban sprawl," Lentini said. "As homes in Asheville become more expensive, it's going to drive locals and service industry workers and people who support the tourist industry to move to the outskirts, to places like Fletcher and Weaverville."

Riverstone is not technically in the town of Fletcher, but it's right on the border.

'More home for the price'

Chuck Johnson, a broker with Keller Williams Elite and president of Johnson Property Group, sells homes in Buncombe and Henderson County, and he puts together the market reports for Keller Williams. He points out that Asheville's population growth is still plenty healthy, and that in 2016 it had the highest percentage growth of any year since 2011.

Johnson also notes that Asheville's growth rate means it's still adding about 650 people a year.

Still, home sales reflect the trend of slowing population growth. Citing MLS statistics, Johnson noted that Asheville and Buncombe had the largest drop in home sales in 2018 — 5.26% in the county (including Asheville), 7.39% for Asheville by itself — compared to Haywood, Henderson, Madison and Transylvania counties, which had just a 0.47% decline.

Initially, Johnson said, prospective home buyers often express a preference to be as close to downtown Asheville as possible.

"Once they start looking and viewing homes, many decide to look farther out because they can buy so much more home for the price," Johnson said. "We hear very often, 'As long as I am 20-30 minutes from downtown.'" Well, depending on traffic, that brings in a lot of areas where they can buy more house for the same money."

In a nutshell, it's economics at work.

More:This is how much it costs for a two-bedroom rental in Asheville

"It is much more difficult for people on a tighter budget to purchase within the city of Asheville than out in the county or surrounding counties as a whole," Johnson said.

Tveidt also mined some real estate data, and he notes a generational shift.

"The housing choices of a working millennial couple differs from a retired baby-boomer couple," Tveidt said. "The average sales price of a home in the city of Asheville is $368,198 (as of June 2019) versus $282,776 in the city of Hendersonville and $248,902 in Haywood County."

Neal Hanks, president of Beverly Hanks Realtors, also follows multicounty trends closely. People still want to be in or close to Asheville, he said, but as far as sales...

"A lot of the growth we're seeing is taking place in the surrounding counties, and we believe most of it is cost-driven," Hanks said. "The cost of housing in Buncombe County is the highest in the nine-county region we cover. So, you can go to Haywood or Yancey — particularly those two — and they're a lot more more affordable."

Canton the new 'West-West Asheville?'

Haywood County Manager Bryant Morehead said they are noticing the population swing.

"It's not just that a dollar goes farther on a house, although affordable housing is a problem everywhere," Morehead said. "It's also that this is just such a great place to live. I think the housing could be dirt cheap, but without having a place as wonderful as this place is, you wouldn't have people moving here."

He noted that the county's towns are seeing an influx of people, with some joking that heavily industrial Canton — near the border with Buncombe County — is the "new West West Asheville."

"We have a lot of people who live here who work in Asheville and Buncombe," Morehead said. "There's a big migration east in the mornings."

A national trend

Heidi Reiber, director of research at the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, pointed out that Asheville population growth slip reflects the same trend for Buncombe County, the Asheville metro area, the state and the U.S.

She also stressed how healthy Asheville's growth has been overall, noting that population growth going back five years standing at 7%, and since 2010 registers at 11%. Those levels "exceeded the state, nation, metro, and surrounding counties which is typical," she said.

"The longer view somewhat adjusts the recent slowdown," Reiber said, pointing out that Asheville had population jumps in 2014-15 (at 1.74%), and 2015-16 (at 2%).

Reiber also pointed out that growth in the broader, four-county metro region of should hit 500,000 as early as 2025. In 2018, it stood at 459,585.

Nationally, the country has seen a shift from urban to more suburban areas. In a May 24 article titled, “Big city growth stalls further, as the suburbs make a comeback," the Brookings Institute stated:

"As we approach the end of the 2010s, the biggest cities in the United States are experiencing slower growth or population losses, according to new census estimates. The combination of city growth declines and higher suburban growth suggests that the 'back to the city' trend seen at the beginning of the decade has reversed."

Tveidt stresses that none of this is alarming, but the local shift seems to be mirroring those national trends. While real estate certainly plays a key role in the population growth shift, so do birth and death rates and "in-migration," or people moving in from other areas.

"The Asheville metro is unique in that virtually all of its net population growth is due to domestic in-migration — people moving from within the nation," Tveidt said. "So people come here by choice versus by birth, and the recent trends shows people are choosing to live in the suburban/rural areas rather than urban."

Millennials with young families and singles between 20 and 34 are also moving to the Asheville area, after decades in which baby boomers, often retirees, were the dominant group moving to the mountains, Tveidt said.

Small towns are winning

Hanks said Brevard in Transylvania is another popular spot, and he notes that a lot of these older downtowns are enjoying a resurgence.

Brevard City Manager Jim Fatland isn't arguing, noting that the town issued 32 permits for new houses last year with a total value of $10.9 million, as well as 116 permits for additions and alterations at just over $4 million. Those can run the gamut "from anything from a minor remodel to completely renovating a dilapidated house."

Brevard's population is not exactly exploding, having risen from 7,682 in 2010 to 7,900, but it did go from a 0% growth rate in 2016 to 0.8 the next year and 0.9 in 2018.

Fatland sees three development trends in Brevard:

• Repairing existing housing stock "by purchasing dilapidated homes and completely renovating from the ground up." This is considerably cheaper than new construction and often non-conformities, such as setbacks, are grandfathered in.

"Short-term rentals sparked a surge in remodeling underutilized residential property," Fatland said.

• Finding forgotten parcels in established neighborhoods and filling in the gaps with new homes.

• Resubdividing already improved lots to squeeze in another house or two.

"The city recently increased density in residential zoning districts to encourage growth where services already exist," Fatland said. "As a result, developers are purchasing homes on extra wide lots or situated on double-fronted lots where they can easily subdivide and build another house and still meet minimum setbacks."

In northern Buncombe County, Weaverville Town Manager Selena Coffey said residential building permits have been on the rise, indicating population growth and demand for housing. In 2015, the town issued 27 permits, a number that rose to 79 in 2016 and 102 in 2017. It then leveled off at 100 last year.

"As it relates to trends, we do expect these permit numbers to maintain their present levels based on the number of projects that are in the development review process now," Coffey said. "A noticeable change, as it relates to the type of housing, has been the interest in apartment complexes locating in town."

Weaverville's 2018 population stood at 3,974. Its growth has been slow — it was just 0.1% in 2016 — but that rate jumped to 1.1% in 2017 and 1.6% last year.

As far as factors driving growth in Weaverville, Coffey cited comments from prospective residents, developers and visitors. They say they “love the small town feel” of Weaverville and its proximity to Asheville (10 miles).

Like most mountain towns, it also has standard infrastructure amenities such as public water and sewer, and it's close to shopping and restaurants, as well as recreational opportunities including Lake Louise Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, fishing. They also love that Weaverville is walkable.

Twelve miles south of Asheville, just across the Henderson County border, Fletcher is not quite as walkable, but it's growing nicely, its population jumping from 7,225 in 2010 to 8,333 last year.

Noticeable along or near U.S. 25 are new apartments, including the completed Seasons at Cane Creek, with 192 units, and the Groves at Town Center, which is nearly finished and will add 168 units.

Town Manager Mark Biberdorf cites proximity to Asheville, more affordable housing and good infrastructure, as well as a lower tax burden and "good bang for the buck in terms of local services."

Dave Jackolin, a construction manager on the Groves at Town Center apartments in Fletcher, was busy lifting carpet padding to upper level apartments. A few buildings are already open and leasing, he said, and they had a push on to finish the rest.

He and his girlfriend recently moved from Arden in Buncombe County to a development in the town of Mills River in Henderson County.

He sings a familiar song.

"It's so hard to find a house at a reasonable price (in Buncombe)," Jackolin said. "The housing crisis drove us to that area. Being on the development side, most of our stuff is migrating away from the city.”