Real Estate Slump in Tennessee? (Memphis, Knoxville: for sale, foreclosures, insurance)

[Margel]

Hello Tennessee,
Just curious here. I am selling my home in Philadelphia and it's been on the market since last April. I know Tennessee is a popular relocation destination. Has the market slump affected your state? I know many states are having problems with this issue. Just wondering if how you are all doing with selling houses.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Margel

Hello Tennessee,
Just curious here. I am selling my home in Philadelphia and it's been on the market since last April. I know Tennessee is a popular relocation destination. Has the market slump affected your state? I know many states are having problems with this issue. Just wondering if how you are all doing with selling houses.

It depends on the area. I know I've read that Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville are experiencing a drop in real estate sales, although it hasn't been nearly as dramatic as in places like Florida and Nevada. But in Cookeville it's up about 2% over last year, and I believe mbmouse said things haven't slowed much in the Tri Cities, either.

[Capt. Dan]

And if home prices keep going lower I am going to buy buy buy!!

[WOWAddict]

Relatives I have in Chattanooga and Maryville. Are seeing more for sale signs and they are staying up longer. I constantly am asking them how the market is.

[gemkeeper]

I heard on CNN news this afternoon that nationwide sales are down close to 9% over the last 12 months. There are only 3 metro areas where they have not dropped: Charlotte, NC, Portland, OR (I think) and I forget the third.

(Boy am I a terrible news supplier. This is how rumors get started, kids. Don't try this on your own without adult supervision!!)

I'll get back to you on the other cities - both were west coast. Gotta go check with my anonymous source - Deep Doo-Doo Market!

Here is the info according to Money: CNN.
New home sales*plunge as glut hits prices - Feb. 28, 2007

After checking Money and Investments on MSN, the picture is much rosier!

I guess, in some of these situations, it depends on which guru you want to accept as knowing what he's talking about.

[goodbyehollywood]

I believe the third city is Seattle, if that's the same article I read this morning.

In a sense, statistics are very misleading, because they clump large DMAs together, when different neighborhoods within one large grouping can be undergoing vastly different scenarios. I have been looking in one Knoxville neighborhood for a year now, and prices haven't dropped at all, and the good listings still move briskly. Other areas, not so much. Different neighborhood, different picture.

But overall, the picture looks less than rosy, unless you're a sidelined buyer. There's always a silver lining somewhere.

[hiknapster]

I've been looking over the foreclosure news from the past couple of days and Tennessee is not the top state in trouble, but it isn't in great shape, either.

For January 2008, it's ranked 12th in foreclosures.

FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY INCREASES 8 PERCENT IN JANUARY

[Margel]

Then it really isn't great anywhere! And talk about luck...I bought new home at top of market and trying to sell existing home at the bottom of market. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!

[gemkeeper]

Not necessarily dumb, Margel. We all knew that the rate that home prices were rising was going to come to a nasty end, but no one (except Hik and GBH!) had a clue as to when.

We bought 5 1/2 years ago out of necessity with a job transfer, but are now stuck holding that house - that we really didn't like in the first place - until somebody with a 23 member family comes along to buy it!

We all get caught up either out of choice or necessity, and unless we have the savvy of goodbyehollywood, hiknapster and others with their foresight, we can get into a jam that is going to cost to extricate ourselves.

Hiknapster, we really never would have expected those kinds of numbers for Tennessee as we had been hearing the whole second half of 2007 how healthy the TN market was!

I have to hand it to you and GBH and a couple of others who saw the light while they rest of the world was trying to see through the wool pulled over their eyes!

[hiknapster]

I don't know. I think I had an unfair advantage. I happened to be in the middle of things.

I lived in Florida when it was very affordable, moving there in 1996.

When housing prices shot up in southwest Florida, it just didn't make sense that they could be sustained. The area existed on low-paying service jobs, which was great back when housing was cheap, but wouldn't work now that those $60,000 houses were now going for $240,000. I also knew a lot of people that got mortgages that it didn't seem possible they could ever pay. It was all based on the speculation that prices would keep rising and they would get lots of equity and refinance.

But how could housing prices keep going up?

Figuring out the Knoxville market was pretty easy since I knew that a lot of people in Florida were chomping at the bit to move here due to lower insurance and property rates, but were going to get stuck not being able to sell their houses once the market crashed.

Local developers didn't see it that way and just kept building on the anticipation that people from bad housing markets would get out and move here.

It was common sense, really, but maybe you had to once lived in ground zero for the housing market implosion to really see it.