2007 Nashville Market numbers - prices still rising despite slow nationwide market

January 16th, 2008

I often have buyers moving from out of the area ask me how the real estate market is doing in Nashville.  Most of what they hear is bad news - homes not selling, sellers having to give price-reduction after price-reduction to just generate traffic, homes on the market for 6 months or more, etc.  The Nashville market has been buffered from the national slow down for several reasons, but in my opinion is the large influx of jobs which, of course, brings people to the area.  Last year over 150 people PER DAY moved to the Nashville area, which creates housing demand and keeps pricing stable.

Here is an article featured in one of Nashville’s local newspapers, the Tennessean:

Middle Tennessee home prices hold up
Jan 10,2008
Thursday, 01/10/08Middle Tennessee home prices hold up 2% rise in December defies 32% sales drop

By CHAS SISK
Staff WriterTennessean

More than a year after the housing downturn hit Middle Tennessee, home prices are holding steady and in some areas rising, leading some observers to predict a turnaround in the local market by the summer.

Home sales plummeted throughout 2007, with December sales posting the most severe year-over-year drop in nearly 17 years.

That did not translate into falling prices for homebuilders and sellers, according to data released Wednesday by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors. The median price for a single-family home sold in December was up nearly 2 percent over the same month in 2006, coming in at $187,900.

Median prices also were up in every county tracked by the association, except Sumner, where the median of $180,000 was unchanged compared with a year ago, the association said. The median price is the point at which half of the homes sold for less and half sold for more.

Prices rose because sellers were willing to wait longer to get their asking price and because buyers tended to choose larger, fancier homes over older construction, observers said.

“People are buying a little bit more expensive home,” said Edsel Charles, president of the research firm MarketGraphics. “It’s not that prices came up at all. People are just buying a little bit bigger square footage.”

Leading the pack was Williamson County, where the median price of a home sold in 2007 rose 7.4 percent to $379,369. Prices rose even though sales were down 20 percent, falling to 4,014 sales last year from 5,007 homes in 2006.

One buyer was James Ballard, a retired auditor who moved to Williamson County from Memphis over the summer.

Ballard and his wife bought a four-bedroom, 3,500-square-foot house in the newly opened Westhaven subdivision for $625,000 in June, choosing that neighborhood over more established areas like Green Hills and Sylvan Park in Nashville.

“Everything is kind of new and neat,” he said. “In Green Hills or Sylvan Park you either have to buy something somebody did a lot of remodeling on or go in and do a lot of remodeling yourself.”

Sales down 15% in 2007

Home prices appeared to hold up even in December, even though 1,000 fewer homes were sold compared with the same month in 2006. That translated into a drop in sales of 32 percent for the month, the biggest same-month decline from one year to the next since January 1991, according to figures from the Realtors association.

For the year as a whole, sales were down about 15 percent from 2006, during which local real estate agents set a record for sales.

Still, some people said they saw signs that the market was improving.

“It feels better than last January,” said Mandy Wachtler, president of the local Realtors association. “There seem to be more showings and more people calling in to say, ‘Can you show me a home?’ ”

Data on interest rates and jobs suggest an upswing in sales will start in August, Charles said.

A pick-up in sales would be good news for sellers, many of whom have dealt with the slump by holding on to their homes rather than settle for lower prices.

That strategy has inflated the inventory of homes on the market, which remained above 20,000 properties for the
ninth straight month, and extended the average time a single-family home is on the market before selling to 76 days, up from 65 days a year ago.

“We haven’t given up much value,” said J. David Pearson, an independent broker in Nashville. “What we’ve given up is days on the board.”

Also note that 2007 was the 4th best year on record for the Nashville Market!  All in all Nashville is still a good housing market.  While not a total sellers market, buyers don’t have nearly the leverage they do in most other markets in the US.

Mike Burchyett
Agent/Sales Manager
mike@nashvillehomesurfing.com

Posted in Mike's Posts | No Comments »

Nashville, the Southern version of an onion

December 1st, 2007

Nashville has become a creation born of it’s own history, offering stories of days past from every exposed brick wall and cracked cobblestone paving such local haunts as Printer’s Alley, and historic Second Avenue.

 Take an onion (be sure to get one that’s nice and ripe, tears are good for you)…and slice it in half with a nice sharp knife….there’s a satisfaction there, you must admit. But the real work is when you begin to peel off that outer layer, which is actually quite brittle in most cases, and almost transparent.

 The outer layer of this onion we affectionately refer to as ‘Nash-Vegas’ is what the world knows: country music, syrupy sweet Southern hospitality, and the land of many legends. While all good things, so much more lies just beneath the surface of that very ripe and mulit-layered onion. Once you get to the good part, you realize the outer layer was merely a protective covering for the sweet spicy core.

 Here the ‘good part’ is a mixture of hidden value in rehab properties, spicy new opportunities in large condo developments in the heart of Nashville, and strategically seasoned homes that have been reduced in price and are ripe for the picking.

 Buyers are enjoying a fat market in their favor right now, and they should be taking advantage of what may only last into the middle of 2008. Investors are happy too, with the ability to pick and choose what they take on as their next pet project. New home buyers are able to view more homes in their price ranges, and have more negotiating power right now because of the increase of average days on the market for most new and existing home sales.

My advice? Buy now, or at least soon, if you are going to purchase in the Nashville market. While buyers won’t be out of luck later next year, forecasts according to several local and national models show a possible turn in the market that would benefit sellers more in the late summer or later next year.

At the moment, it is not out of the question to shoot for the stars, ask for closing costs, extra allowances or other buyer incentives. Mortgage companies right now seem to be offering a lot of buyer incentives as well that are quite attractive to those that will be financing most or all of their purchase.

There is so much info out there, and I am no analytical thinker by any stretch, so I won’t bore you with an ongoing drone of reprocessed info that is easily accessible online…I just feel that it is important to tell buyers what kind of gift they really have in Nashville, and start cooking….heavy on the onions.

 Happy cooking! Erica Sandlin, Nashville, Tennessee    erica@nashvillehomesurfing.com

Posted in Erica's Posts | 1 Comment »

Nashville Drivers Are Some of the Best

November 15th, 2007

I read an article recently that named Miami as the city with the worst drivers. Nashville was actually ranked as one of the cities with the most courteous drivers.  Yay!  Us “Nashvillians” should take a  moment to pat ourselves on the back (is that possible?) for your lack of road rage.

I know people in Nashville like to complain about the other drivers in the city, but trust me, it is worse elsewhere. I don’t remember Miami being particularly bad, but I have driven enough in Boston and Los Angeles to know that THEY do deserve to be singled out for being horrible!!

In Los Angeles there are just too many cars, and it takes way too long to get anywhere. It is enough to bring rage to the most passive drivers.  Boston on the other hand suffers from horible urban planning.  The streets in downtown Boston are actually the paths that the cows and other animals took over 200 years ago. There are also very few lines painted on the roads (I think the wear away from all of the salt and snow plows in winter).  As aggressive a driver as I can be, this is the only city that truly brought me to tears as I was trying to maneuver around it in my vehicle.  One of my favorite cities,  just will never drive there again.

It is surprising that Atlanta made the good list. Atlanta is a weird place to drive on the interstate…. It seems like everyone goes between 80 and 90mph. The one good thing about Atlanta is that people don’t change lanes. Then again, why would you need to change lanes if every lane is the fast lane ;)

 Anyway….Good for Nashville…. Glad most people are waving and not throwing the finger. :)  Thus, another reason why I love Nashville.

Posted in Tiffany's Posts | No Comments »

Why I love Nashville

November 14th, 2007

The other day I was driving around running errands that I never seem to have a chance to get done. I had to go in a building downtown, and as I was walking along the street there was a man on the corner clapping his hands and singing at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t help but smile. I don’t remember the song he was singing, but as soon as I crossed the street and came right up to him, he started singing an old hymn. He had the biggest smile on his face.The man was dressed nicely…He didn’t appear to be homeless, but his name badge had something like “Homeless Outreach” on it. I said hello and he tipped his hat to me. As I crossed the street again, I started to notice other people’s reactions. Some were obviously annoyed. Some smiled like I did. Others laughed at him. I overheard a man say, “Oh, my buddy’s still here.”The normal sounds of downtown quickly drowned the voice of the sweet man. As I got in my car, I couldn’t help but drive by the corner where he was singing just to make sure he was still there. Traffic on Broadway was slow at that time of the early evening. It was warm outside, but I decided to roll down my windows and listen to the sounds of my beloved city. There was a Predators game, so people were everywhere. I watched as tourists stepped into the road to take pictures of the “Batman” building. As I passed all of the restaurants, bars, and honky tonks, I could hear each house band warming up their crowds. Part of me thought about finding a parking spot and joining the party.

I saw about 10 guys standing on the sidewalk or sitting on doorsteps playing their guitars. It seems like they all want to be discovered. Or maybe they just want someone to listen. Could it be that they just love to play and they would do it if no one was there at all? Regardless of the reason, it wouldn’t be

Music
City without them… I love Nashville…. It’s a really great town, not too big, not too small….just right, as Goldielocks would have said. I have lived in suburban Nashville for 8 years now….EIGHT years? Wow….can’t believe I’ve stayed in one place that long….Goes to show how much I love it here! Since I have been here I have not run out of things to do or people to meet. So I asked myself, “Self, why do you like Nashville so much?” Here are some of my conclusions.

1.) Nashville is a town that actually has character. “It’s not just another cookie cutter” town. It’s Music City, people! People from all over the world know about it for country music, even though countless numbers of locals say they hate country music. You can walk downtown and see tons of honkey tonks and small local music venues with no-name, up-and-coming, and well-known artists performing and immediately know it’s Nashville. We’re so lucky to have all kinds of talent and local music shows about 15 minutes away at any given time.

2.) I can go to a restaurant or Starbucks and see someone famous and I don’t know that they’re famous. I just think, “Oh, they’re definitely in a band” and go on with my day. I don’t normally see star-struck fans who run up to someone famous and bow down and ask for an autograph. For the most part, they’re treated like normal people and just want to blend in. Also, so many of us are connected to at least someone working in the music industry.

3.) Once I figured out the interstates and the main roads around town, the city became much smaller and managable. (It can be crazy at first!)

4.) There are so many good cities to travel to from Nashville that are just hours away. Basically, it’s not like we’re confined to just a small area on one coast or another and have to travel 15+ hours to go anywhere interesting. We have options. :)

5.) The weather. All four seasons can be experienced. (The trees are INCREDIBLE this time of year! And let’s just face it, Nashville is just plain pretty…a great place for a Sunday drive….

6.) There are so many good places to eat and hang out! I won’t even begin to name them because I am sure I will leave plenty out….I’ll save that for another blog…

7.) The Churches here are AWESOME…..

8. ) There are great summer activites like “Movies in the Park”, “Dancing in the Park”, “Concerts on the River”, Flea Markets, Festivals, etc……. It’s just fun!!!

Anyway…..my point is, I love Nashville, and so would anyone thinking of moving here. Let me know how I can help in your home search and I’ll take you down Music Row and show you the sights!!! Until next time!! :)

Posted in Tiffany's Posts | 2 Comments »

Nashville Real Estate

November 10th, 2007

Hello clients, friends and web surfers.

 As many of you know, there are currently challenges in the mortgage market which have spilled over into the greater real estate market. I have to tell you, in spite of all of the “bad news”, our team is having a banner year, and our clients are able to get into the market at the price they choose.  We are seeing buyer clients from all over the US come in and pick up great homes… sometimes for considerably less than list price. 

 Please email us at team@nashvillehomesurfing.com if you have any questions or want to be emailed current market conditions for the greater Nashville area.

Thanks,

Mark

Posted in Mark's Posts | 2 Comments »