Kingsport-Bristol MSA 14th nationally in home price appreciation (Johnson City: sales, mortgage)

[kamoshika]

Home prices in the Kingsport-Bristol metropolitan area rose at an annual rate of 4.75 percent in the year ended June 30, the 14th-highest percentage out of 291 areas nationwide, while Johnson City’s metro wasn’t far behind with a 2.86 percent gain.
Kingsport-Bristol MSA ranks 14th in nation for home price appreciation

[exileinsc]

OFHEO data tends to show differences from the more prominent Case-Shiller indices used by the S&P primarily due to:

1. OFHEO data contains refinanced homes, whereas Case-Shiller leaves out refinancing.

2. The Case-Shiller indices use value -weighting, which emphasizes the imapct of more expensive homes. OFHEO uses equal weighting, so OFHEO data tends to be a better tracker of less expensive home prices.

So what to make of this. My observation for the area is that you are seeing a lot of refinances still, often taking advantage of lower mortgage rates to pay off more expensive debt.

Further, while home sales are decent here, most of the action is in the sub $350,000 homes markets.

However, even a cursory glance at the MLS listings for the area show that there are a lot of houses even in these markets that are sitting for a long time (+8 months).

This is not to say the market in the tri-cities is bad. It's just not as good as the OFHEO numbers might suggest.