The Tennessean
Local & Business
Friday, July 10, 2009
Hone price declines soften
Sales drop, too, but at slower pace
The housing market continues to fall, but maybe the pain is finally easing here.
The median price of a single family home in the Nashville area fell 32 percent in June to $177,700 from a year ago, which wasn’t as dramatic a decline as previous months had experienced.
Overall, the number of completed sales of homes, land and condominiums also didn’t drop as sharply in June as previous months, falling 193 percent compared with a year earlier. In May, sales had fallen 29 percent from the previous year.
The latest home sales data released by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors on Thursday gave some hope to a long-battered real estate industry.
“If anything, I don’t want to say it’s turned around, but it looks like it might be stabilizing,” said Mike Nichols, the president of the Realtors group.
Lisa Culp Taylor, an affiliate broker with Bob Parks Realty in Brentwood, said June had been her busiest month this year.
One Brentwood home she is selling for more than $200,000 had three offers and 27 showings in less than a month.
“It’s been good for me,” said James Greene, who is selling the home.
Greene hung out and petted his cats Thursday while two buyers who have signed a contract on the home took a second walk through the property.
Marc Jenkins, the 32 year old attorney who is planning to buy the four bedroom home with his wife, Lindsay, said he probably will have to sell his Green Hills condo at a bargain price, but believes he is getting a nice Brentwood home for less than he would have paid when the real estate market was booming.
He already has reduced his condo’s list price from $289,000 to $258,000.
Taylor said she sees older homes in Franklin and along Old Hickory Boulevard in Brentwood selling well.
A less encouraging sign, though, was in condo sales in the month of June. Sales of the condos in the region dropped off 52 percent to 234 in June compared with a year ago, when condo sales were particularly strong.
The median price of a condo fell 18 percent to $152,870 last month, the Realtors said.
The mid-year data also breaks our sales information for each county in the region, and some suburban counties were among the most stable.
Homes in Williamson and Maury counties, in fact, have held their value better than other Middle Tennessee locations on average. The median home price for the first six months of the year stood at $360.000 In Williamson County, down 2.7 percent compared to the first half of last year.
That amounts to a decline of $10,000 in the median price of the typical single family home in Williamson County, compared to a decline of $13,500 in Davidson County’s median over the same time period. Davidson County’s median home price fell 8 percent to $155,000, the report shows.
Maury County fell just 1.9 percent to $152,000 during the first six months of 2009.
Rutherford County fell 7.4 percent to $146,000; and homes in Wilson County fell 9.4 percent to a median of $185,000. Sumner County’s median fell 5.1 percent to $177,900.
Richard Exton, an appraiser here said median prices may be dropping more dramatically in places such as Davidson or Wilson counties because those areas have more first time buyers and people are seeking more moderately priced homes than the typical Williamson County shopper.
A shift in homes sales toward the lower end of the price spectrum moves a median price downward.