Home Sales in Nashville Slowing – Is it Still a Buyer’s Market?
As projected, Nashville homes sales were stimulated by recent tax credits and home buying assistance programs. With the majority of these campaigns coming to a close at the end of April, 2010, Realtors and real estate market experts projected a lull in home sales – they were correct.
After two months of consecutive rises in home sales, Nashville, along with the rest of the country, saw a 1.8 percent fall in pending home sales during September, 2010. The National Association of Realtors was cited on the News Channel 5 website as saying their “…index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes dropped 1.8 percent in September to a reading of 80.9. Contract signings fell in every region of the country except the West.”
The following month, Nashville saw a huge dip in land and property sales. “Nashville-area residential home and land sales in October fell 30.3 percent from the same month last year, according to figures released…by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors,” reported the Tennesean.
Single – family home sales fell by 28 percent, while Nashville condo sales dropped by more than 50 percent.
President of the Realtors group, Lucy Smith, concurs that the fall in real estate purchases is coming on the coattails of the expired tax credit programs. However, she contends it is still a buyer’s market, with interest rates being favorable in the greater Nashville area.
Whether or not it is truly a buyer’s market in Nashville is up for debate. The median price for a single – family home in October, 2010, was around $173,000 thousand dollars.
According to November 12th’s broadcast on Realty Times, Fannie May’s most recent, national housing survey claims that 70 percent of people believe it is a positive time to purchase a home, a statistic up from this time in January, when only 64 percent of people felt confident about home buying. However, 78 percent of people are confident that home prices will hold steady or increase over 2010 and into 2011.
Smith is quoted in the Tennesean as saying, “with the state of the general economy still causing some uncertainty, it is understandable that consumer confidence is low.”
Regardless of flattening or rising home prices, a drop in home sales and the continued instability of consumer confidence, the Nashville home market is improving – as are real estate sectors across the country.
If you want to learn more about the home buying climate in the greater Nashville area, it’s important to contact an experienced, involved real estate agent. Consult Todd Taylor at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
