Igor Blevin's, "A Native Californian in Knoxville" (Maryville: days on market, top neighborhoods)

[crltn19]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

I have no clue if it is a good or bad time to buy a home in Knoxville.

I don't think homes are going to get any cheaper in the future, as Knoxville is hot and people keep moving in. Mortgage rates are only going up. With our high inflation, even if you lose 20% or 30% from peak buying now, it won't be long before inflation pushes home values back up to where you are even or better.

At the same time, housing feels "bubbly" and I would rather wait to see if prices flatten with leaping interest rates. Either way, there is just no selection for me right now and homes are still selling quickly.

Knox County Property Assessor's Office recently updated 2022 appraisals and assessments (last time it was done in '17) which can now be looked up online. My North Knoxville property is appraised at more than double the previous amount and then for a friend's property in South Knoxville it is like over 3x than before. I feel a lot of homeowners are in for a rude awaking when they receive their tax bills later this year.

[Igor Blevin]

I enjoy a good electrical storm. The beauty. The drama. The power.

Yesterday we had a unique one I had not seen berfore, since moving here 15 months ago.

It started around 7:30 pm with no rain. Just dark clouds. The electrical storm began with some far off lightning, then clouded over solid and the lightning began to blink frequently over the course of the next 10 hours, just sitting on the Knoxville area, if not more widespread. I don't know.
again, bone dry. No rain.

I was up most of the night just watching.

This wasn't a storm were you see glaring bolts of lightning rip through the sky followed by booming thunder, but the type where the lightning stays high up and just blinks through the clouds in soft flashes at random locations all around. I noticed 3 places where the lighting and flashes were most concentrated, but it was above, behind and just all around. A very beautiful display. Sometimes a bolt of lighning would show itself beneath the cloud cover, but rarely. Most was above.

After a nine hour light show, at around 5 am, the skies opened to a violent downpour and then the electrical storm took on a more typical character, with blinding bolts of lightning crasing down from above, toward the ground. That lasted another hour before the storm broke.

Of note, the wind seemed to change directions with the downpour and typical lighning show. For nine hours the clouds blew west to east as typical, but for the last hour they seemed to move atypically east to west. Maybe it was an illusion.

Just a delightful display of nature's power and wonder. It never gets old. It might have been around 80 degrees all night, but I can't remember for sure.

New to Knoxville, I did wonder if the unique electrical storm was characteristic of tornadoes. I understand that tornadoes often strike at night in Knoxville but I could not find any sign of tornado alerts last night, so that was comforting.

[DubbleT]

Heat lightning? Yeah, it's like an awesome light show and somewhat common around here. I'm jealous of your rain though. Over the last several weeks I've had quite a few rain showers come close, blocks away even, but my little patch of ground usually gets passed over for whatever reason. And I do miss the occasional wild and wooly thunderstorms of the midwest, not all that common in TN in my experience.

Haven't been around a tornado in east TN (knock wood) but in west TN, hail during a thunderstorm can be a warning, and during the day the unusual yellowish green of the sky.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by DubbleT

Heat lightning? Yeah, it's like an awesome light show and somewhat common around here. I'm jealous of your rain though. Over the last several weeks I've had quite a few rain showers come close, blocks away even, but my little patch of ground usually gets passed over for whatever reason. And I do miss the occasional wild and wooly thunderstorms of the midwest, not all that common in TN in my experience.

Haven't been around a tornado in east TN (knock wood) but in west TN, hail during a thunderstorm can be a warning, and during the day the unusual yellowish green of the sky.

We were bone dry all June but the rain gods finally woke up in July. No clue how we compare to averages for June and July so far.

[TheShadow]

Knox county averages 1 tornado a year. They're almost all F-0 or F-1. There've been a couple F-2s in the last 50 years.

I agree that tornados here are often preceded by a thunderstorm with hail, but that's definitely not a pre-requisite. Typically the most common time for a tornado to hit is in the later afternoon, with the hottest air rising at that time, and producing very tall thunderheads. The local TV stations are quite good at predicting tornados with the doppler radar that they have now. They can see the intensity and direction of the storm, adn even the radar signatures of rotation when it occurs. They will issue watches and warnings as needed. If you are worried about tornados coming in the night while you're sleeping, activate a storm warning type app on your phone, or subscribe to the local news channels' weather alerts. You will have to turn off "do not disturb" on your phone though, and you'll end up being woken up unnecessarily 90+% of the time.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by TheShadow

Knox county averages 1 tornado a year. They're almost all F-0 or F-1. There've been a couple F-2s in the last 50 years.

I agree that tornados here are often preceded by a thunderstorm with hail, but that's definitely not a pre-requisite. Typically the most common time for a tornado to hit is in the later afternoon, with the hottest air rising at that time, and producing very tall thunderheads. The local TV stations are quite good at predicting tornados with the doppler radar that they have now. They can see the intensity and direction of the storm, adn even the radar signatures of rotation when it occurs. They will issue watches and warnings as needed. If you are worried about tornados coming in the night while you're sleeping, activate a storm warning type app on your phone, or subscribe to the local news channels' weather alerts. You will have to turn off "do not disturb" on your phone though, and you'll end up being woken up unnecessarily 90+% of the time.

Thanks for the scoop.

I am not terribly concerned with the threat of tornadoes in east Tennesssee, as I understand it is very low. Central TN may be moderate risk but east Tennessee is low. I think I posted this link on my blog. 15 tornadoes in the past 70 years in Knox County. Memphis and Nashville metro hit hardest.

https://www.weather.gov/images/ohx/s...17_cropped.png

I didn't know intensity, so thank you for filling that in. I did notice they don't tend to go miles over ground like tht 200 mile tornado from Arkansas to western Kentucky, but dissipate quickly. It is just that when the outlier does hit, the tendency to hit at night makes them more deadly, which I am sure you learned far sooner than me. Tornado alley is slowly moving east toward us, but doubtful it changes the risk significvantly in my lifetime.

I did buy a severe weather alert radio on the tiny chance it is ever seriously needed.

Thanks for the accurate report.

[TheShadow]

Where we're at in Loudon, we're in this little pocket that lots of storms seem to split and go around us a lot of the time. We get our fair share, but the big ones seem to split around us, or dissipate just as they get to I-75.

[Igor Blevin]

I am south of Farragut and have gotten many fun lightning storms since moving here. Yesterday's storm went a good couple of hours, with a lot of nearby lightning and very loud thunder. I wish I could sit on the balcony and watch instead of being locked inside. I am sure the risk is not extreme, but it is discouraged. I don't want to be a lightning statistic. It is just so much more fun outdoors. But that is OK, I will take it! Very fun and dramatic storm yesterday, to the point of shaking the apartment walls a couple of time.

I have to admit, I am glad I don't own a dog yet. It would have been a very scary day for him yesterday.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by arctictropical

While you were waiting to buy, homes went up a lot in one year alone. They went up a lot even since spring. Waiting is a gamble. Inflation helps pushing those prices up and up, and I don't see the quick end to inflation. In the 70s it took a decade to bring it back down.

I wasn't so much waiting to buy a home but just had bad timing.

For the year before recently deciding to buy in Knoxville, I was following the good advice that you should always rent in a new place before committing to buying a home. I only moved here April 2021.

For the year before moving here, I was in Covid lockdown in California. It took me a year to feel certain I could move somewhere during the pandemic. The news made it sound like masses were still dropping dead in Tennessee and I had no clue if I could visit or how hotels were or if appartments were showing units.

My timing was just bad. I mean, who saw Covid coming? Who saw 9% inflation coming because the Fed would print $15 trillion on 2 years? Who saw a housing frenzy driven by 0% Fed rates and a work-from-home revolution caused directly by Covid?

By the time I decided to buy a home in Knoxville, it was May of 2022. Had I lucked out and been born 1 year earlier and retired just 1 year earlier, I would have moved to Knoxville in early 2019 and been looking for a home before Covid ever hit.

[Igor Blevin]

Knoxville's future is bright. It is up and coming and a growing metro. I know that my patience will pay off and I will get a decent home in a good area. My first priority is still location, location, location.

I hope the housing downturn will force builders to build starter homes again to sell to the lower end of the market, but they paid so much for the land it may not be possible.

My best bet will likely be a home built before Covid and a longer time homeowner with room to come down in price a little and still retain good profit.

Everything cycles. Patience is the key. There are a lot of homes going up around town. Here is hoping they build some smaller ones.

I still recall all of the "move to Farragut" threads but nobody mentioning that it was an expensive area. Maybe I just "should have known". It is obviously more expensive today. New homes in surrounding areas are starting in the $600,000s. Nothing new in the $400,000s near Farragut.

There is a new subdivision by Ball Homes and the cheapest home is $649,000. Ball Homes tend to have a ton of complaints by homeowners and you still get anything under $650,000.

I may wind up in Maryville yet.