Howdy, ho, Watchers.  In this week’s edition of  Knoxville Foreclosure Watch, active foreclosures were up by one, pendings were down just a bit, and closings were up to their highest level since May. And closings are always good news in my world.

In new listing news, our old buddy 37917 was back last week with 4 new foreclosure listings, giving it a whopping total of 94 so far this year. I’d say it will hit three digits in the next two weeks.  Other zips with more than one new foreclosure listing included 37912, 37918,  37920, and 37921.

There were 15 closed foreclosure listings last week and they were pretty spread out. There were 2 each in 37912, 37921, and 37922 and 1 each in 37909, 37914, 37915, 37917, 37918, 37919, 37920,37931 and 37932.

Now for the breakdown -

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 7/29/09 *

Current On-Market Listings - 190
Average Asking Price: $138,721
Median Asking Price: $85,565
Most Expensive New Listing: $419,000 (3 BR, 3.5 BA, 4200+ sq ft off Campbell Station Rd)
Least Expensive New Listing: $9,900 (2 BR, 1 BA,  900+ sq ft off Sutherland Ave)

Notable New Listings:

North: $110,000 (3 BR, 1 BA, 1600+ sq ft in Fountain City)

South: $24,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, 800+ sq ft on Sevier)

East: $55,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, 1200+ sq ft in Carter)

West: $379,000 (4 BR, 2.5, 3900+ sq ft log home on 4 acres)

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Current Pending Sales -129
Average Asking Price – $90,542
Median Asking Price – $79,900

Closed Sales July 22, 2009- July 28, 2009 - 15
Average Asking Price – $109,140
Average Sales Price – $103,980
Median Sales Price – $81,900
Average Days on Market – 58

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/29/09 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

As always, if you need more information on any of these properties, just drop me a line.

If you’d like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, send me an email with “Foreclosure List” in the subject line, and I’ll do the rest.  I don’t believe in spam.

Why take the chance of ever missing out on Foreclosure Watch? Make sure you get all your foreclosure goodness every week by subscribing to All Around K-Town today, either by RSS or email!

It’s everybody’s favorite time of the month – Home Sales Report time! And there’s actually GOOD news this month! And no, it’s not great news, but it’s not bad, and I’m just not that picky any more.

This month was a flurry of activity as I worked with first time home buyers who were scurrying to find a house and get their $8,000 check from Uncle Sam. And it seems those first time home buyers and their home sales helped bump up smaller home sales prices last month from the same time last year. Those sales may also have been what gave us a teensy, tiny increase in sales from last month to this month. Yep, the kids love the first time home buyer tax credit, and I know a lot of agents – this one included – who will be mighty sad when it’s gone in just four short months.

But you didn’t come here for my philosophical waxing. You came here for the numbers. So without further ado,  it’s time to  break down the April home sale numbers the only way that I know how — AAKT style. Aw, yeah.

First let’s start with our 3 whopping pieces of good news -

Average sales price for 2 or less BR homes is up.
June ‘08 – $85,500
June ‘09 – $96,500

Median sales price for 2 or less BR homes is up.
June ‘08 – $78,200
June ‘09 – $82,000

Average sales price for 3 BR homes is up.
June ‘08 – $162,900
June ‘09 – $180,400

Median sales price for 3 BR homes is down.
June ‘08 – $145,000
June ‘09 – $140,000

Median sales price for 4+ BR homes is down.
June ‘08 – $254,000
June ‘09 – $230,000

Average condo sales price is down.
June ‘08 – $166,100
June ‘09 – $159,200

Median condo sales price is down.
June ‘08 – $147,000
June ‘09 – $139,500

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

This week, Neighborhood of the Week heads back out to Farragut to revisit a relatively new subdivision called Inverness.

Located just off of Turkey Creek Road, Inverness is a newer community – about 5 years old – that is still in the process of being built out. There are several newly constructed homes available as well as the occasional resale.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

But Inverness has more going for it than being new and in Farragut. The neighborhood also features a community clubhouse, a pool, acres of undeveloped open space, and walking trails that tie in to the Farragut Greenway system.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Inverness is easily accessible via I-40, I-140, and Kingston Pike. It’s about 1/2 mile from Anchor Park and only 3 miles to all the shopping you can handle in Turkey Creek.

So if you’re looking for a new or newer home in Farragut that has easy access to a pool, parks, walking trails, and shopping, look no further than Inverness.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Here’s Inverness by the numbers -

Inverness*

Current On-Market Listings – 12
Average Asking Price: $325,083
Median Asking Price: $318,450
Average Square Footage: 2503
Most Expensive Listing: $382,900 (5 BR, 4.5 BA, 3200+ sq ft built in 2005)
Least Expensive Listing: $269,900 (3 BR, 2.5 BA, 2100 sq ft, built in 2006)
Middle of the Road: $309,000 (3 BR, 2 BA, 2200+ sq ft built in 2005)

Current Pending Sales -0
Average Asking Price – NA
Median Asking Price – NA

Closed Sales – 2nd Quarter 2009 – 2
Average List Price – $353,950
Average Sales Price – $349,500
Average Days on Market – 29

Closed Sales – 2nd Quarter 2008 – 10
Average List Price – $354,665
Average Sale Price – $339,000
Average Days on Market -35

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/27/2009 for Inverness proper, and does not include adjacent subdivisions, condos, PUDS or multi-family units.

As always, if you want any more information about any of these properties, or if you’d like to check one of them out in person, just give me a shout.

If you would like to receive a full list of properties for sale in this neighborhood, or if you would like to be notified of new listings, send me an email with either “Current Inverness Listings” or “New Inverness Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Spam is just plain tacky.

Know a great neighborhood you think has NOTW potential? Let me know about it and you might just see it featured here in the coming weeks.

The weekly poll is driving a hard bargain. Go help it with negotiations.

This week’s topic is listing prices and more specifically how much less than listing price you think the average seller is willing to take to sell their house. In this market it seems that no matter how close to market value you list a property, there are always buyers are going to offer a lot less and have no intention of winding up anywhere near to asking price. While some of these offers are ambitious, others are just downright delusional. And if everyone is lowballing, that makes pricing a listing even more challenging. If you price it too high, it won’t show. But if you price it at or below market, you’ve lost your “lowball” wiggle room. It’s a conundrum.

So I’m curious about what you think. How much less than list price do you think the average seller will accept in this market? Just a little or do you think most sellers have padded their prices by a hefty percentage?  Cast your vote and let me know.

You don’t have to drive a hard bargain to get  the latest news on the Knoxville real estate market  – just sign up to receive regular updates from All Around KTown in a feed reader or by email today!

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Well, hey diddle, diddle, Watchers.  In this week’s edition of  Knoxville Foreclosure Watch, active foreclosures were down, while pending & closed foreclosures were both up. You know what that means? That means you guys are out there buying these bad boys up! Good for you!

In new listing news, 37849 was the dark horse winner this week with 3  new foreclosure listings.  For the uninitiated, that’s up Powell way.  Other zips with more than one new foreclosure listing included 37914, 37917,  37919, 37921, and 37922.

Closed listings were pretty evenly distributed last week with 2 each in 37917 & 37919 and 1 each in 37914, 37915, 37918, 37920, 37921, 37923 & 37931.

Now for the breakdown -

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 7/22/09 *

Current On-Market Listings - 189
Average Asking Price: $137,131
Median Asking Price: $85,000
Most Expensive New Listing: $649,900 (5 BR, 3.5 BA, 5000+ sq ft in Montgomery Cove)
Least Expensive New Listing: $19,900 (3 BR, 1 BA, 1000+ sq ft off MLK Blvd)

Notable New Listings:

North: $52,900 (5 BR, 2 BA, approx 1800 sq ft off Central)

South: No new south listings!

East: $24,900 (2 BR, 2 BA, 1500+ sq ft off Cherry Street)

West: $86,130 (4 BR, 2 BA, 1600+ sq ft in Rocky Hill area)

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Current Pending Sales -133
Average Asking Price – $91,934
Median Asking Price – $79,900

Closed Sales July 15, 2009- July 21, 2009 - 11
Average Asking Price – $102,664
Average Sales Price – $105,635
Median Sales Price – $56,000
Average Days on Market – 77

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/22/09 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

As always, if you need more information on any of these properties, just drop me a line.

If you’d like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, send me an email with “Foreclosure List” in the subject line, and I’ll do the rest. The only spam here is in a can. And even then I won’t touch the stuff.

Why take the chance of ever missing out on Foreclosure Watch? Make sure you get all your foreclosure goodness every week by subscribing to All Around K-Town today, either by RSS or email!

© 2009 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

This week Neighborhood of the Week heads west to a little lakefront community with big dollar homes: Victoria’s Inlet.

Located off Toole’s Bend Road in West Knoxville, Victoria’s Inlet has the best of both worlds: a secluded lake front setting that is also just a short drive to Northshore Drive and I-140.

© 2009 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

It also has the distinction of being home to UT’s new football coach, Lane Kiffin. Kiffin managed to outdo Bruce Pearl’s $2,100,000 Gettysvue purchase when he bought a 6 BR, 5.5 BA, 7800+ sq ft lake front spread on 2.5+ acres for $2,600,000 this past May. Not too shabby.

© 2009 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Needless to say, homes in the neighborhood are on the large side, many were custom built, and most are less than 10 years old. And while some homes have very nice lake frontage, others have — at best — only a very nice lake view.

© 2009 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

So if you’ve got deep pockets and you’re looking for a very nice, conveniently located lake front home, or maybe een just a super swanky pad with a nice lake view,  look no further than Victoria’s Inlet.

© 2009 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

Special thanks  Bob Stockdale for these great shots of Victoria’s Inlet. You can see more of Bob’s work on his website.

Here’s Victoria’s Inlet by the numbers -

Downtown Knoxville Condos/Lofts*

Current On-Market Listings -1
Asking Price: $1,099,999
Details: 5 BR, 5.5 BA, 5500 sq ft, no lake frontage

Current Pending Sales -1
Asking Price: $749,900
Details: 4 BR, 3 full BA, 2 half BA, 4100+ sq ft with gated entrace, not lake front

Closed Sales – 1st & 2nd Quarter 2009 – 1 (Coach Kiffin’s pad)
Asking Price - $2,889,000
Sales Price – $2,600,000
Days on Market – 196

Closed Sales – 1st & 2nd Quarter 2008 – 0
Average Asking Price – NA
Average Sales Price – NA
Average Closed Price Per Sq Ft – NA
Median Sales Price – NA
Average Days on Market – NA

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/20/09 and does not include adjacent neighborhoods or single family residences.

As always, if you want any more information about any of these properties just give me a shout.

If you would like to receive a full list of properties for sale in this neighborhood, or if you would like to be notified of new listings, send me an email with either “Current Victoria’s Inlet Listings” or “New Downtown Victoria’s Inlet Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Spam just ain’t cool.

Know of a great community that would make an equally great NOTW? Let your voice be heard in the comments.

The weekly poll is getting an inspection. Go help it decide what repairs to ask for.

This week’s topic is all about home inspections and whether or not you’ve ever walked away from a home because of one.  Home inspections are a really important part of the home buying process, and  having been through a lot of them with a lot of clients — both seller and buyers — I feel pretty confident in saying that no home is perfect. However, some homes are, well,  a lot less perfect than other ones. And some are just downright scary. While it doesn’t happen all that often, I occasionally do have a deal that just completely falls apart because the home inspections turns up something that is just too much for the buyer to handle, be it a cracked foundation, a falling in roof, or a case of “creative” electrical wiring or plumbing.

So what about you? Have you ever walked away from a home because of the home inspection? Were you glad you did? Or maybe you didn’t walk away and now wish you had? Cast your vote and let me know.

You don’t have to hire an inspector to uncover the latest news on the Knoxville real estate market  – just sign up to receive regular updates from All Around KTown in a feed reader or by email today!

photo credit: idan586

Hey, hey, hey, Watchers.  In this week’s edition of  Knoxville Foreclosure Watch, active and closed foreclosures were up, while pendings were down.  A little bit of a mixed bag, but no major movement in either direction, so I’ll take it.

37914 was the surprise front runner this week with 4  new foreclosure listings.  Other zips with more than one new foreclosure listing included 37721, 37918,  37919, 37921, 37922, 37924, and 37931. And, of course, 37917 is still in first place with 88 new foreclosure listings so far this year.

In closed listing news, 37920 was the standout with 3 closed foreclosure listings last week. There were also 2 in 37917 and 37918 and 1 each in 37919, 37931, and 37938. And Fountain City appears to be the place you guys want to buy your foreclosures, since 37918 has the most closed foreclosure listings with 38 so far this year.

Now for the breakdown -

Knox County Foreclosure Property Statistics as of 7/15/09 *

Current On-Market Listings - 205
Average Asking Price: $133,656
Median Asking Price: $85,000
Most Expensive New Listing: $720,000 (4 BR, 4.5 BA, 4800+ sq ft in River Club)
Least Expensive New Listing: $12,000 (2 BR, 1 BA, 1000 sq ft off Asheville Hwy)

Notable New Listings:

North: $108,000 (3 BR, 2.5 BA, 1900+ sq ft handyman special in Powell)

South: $99,000 (4 BR, 2.5 BA, 2100 sq ft in South Doyle)

East: $67,500 (5 BR, 3 BA, 2700+ sq ft off Chilhowee Dr)

West: $114,900 (5 BR, 2.5 BA, 2400+ sq ft in Westwood)

dklj;lskj;dlk

Current Pending Sales -127
Average Asking Price – $97,353
Median Asking Price – $79,900

Closed Sales July 8, 2009- July 14, 2009 - 10
Average Asking Price – $78,920
Average Sales Price – $73,900
Median Sales Price – $50,750
Average Days on Market – 56

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/15/09 for Knox County single family residential properties only, and does not include condos or PUDS.

As always, if you need more information on any of these properties, just drop me a line.

If you’d like to receive new foreclosure listings automatically, send me an email with “Foreclosure List” in the subject line, and I’ll do the rest. There ain’t no spam goin’ down around here.

Why take the chance of ever missing out on Foreclosure Watch? Make sure you get all your foreclosure goodness every week by subscribing to All Around K-Town today, either by RSS or email!

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

This week Neighborhood of the Week heads to the center of the city to revisit what has undoubtedly been the most popular neighborhood yet: Downtown Knoxville.

As I mentioned when I first wrote about them, covering downtown condos and lofts is a fairly daunting task. Not only is there a good bit of history and intrigue surrounding all of those building and developments, but there are also just an awful lot of them: roughly 70 active listings on the north side of the river in over 14 different developments. For a long time I was  torn between trying to feature them each separately or to just lump them together somehow.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

But then I was up in the Sunsphere – for the first time since ‘82 no less – talking to some folks about the general state of the Knoxville real estate market when the conversation turned to downtown and how it’s faring in the current real estate market. Was it doing better than the rest of town? Worse? And how much are all those places selling for anyway? Can anyone actually afford to live there?

And that’s when I thought to myself, “Self, why not just give your friendly AAKT readers a general overview of how the downtown condo scene is doing and then worry about breaking each development down individually later?”

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

And that’s what I did back in December: I gave you guys a rough idea of  what’s selling – and what’s not selling – in downtown K-Town. I had planned then to go back and cover individual developments – and I still hope to do so, so if any of you live somewhere in the downtown area you think is worth featuring here, please give me a shout. I’d love to have some juicy insider info to pass along.

© 2008 Robert Stockdale Photography, All Rights Reserved.

But for now,  I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at the downtown sales stats and see if anything has changed there – for better or for worse – in the last 7 months.

And thanks (as always)to Bob Stockdale, who provided these great shots of downtown. Hopefuly they will give all you out of town readers a better idea of what downtown living is like in our fine city.

So without further ado, here’s downtown Knoxville by the numbers -

Downtown Knoxville Condos/Lofts*

Current On-Market Listings -76
Average Asking Price: $360,556
Median Asking Price: $329,261
Average Sq Footage: 1517
Average Asking Price Per Sq Ft: $238 - exactly the same as 7 months ago

Most Expensive: $1,100,00 (3 BR, 3 BA, 3400+ sq ft Penthouse in The Holston building - reduced from $1,250,000 in Dec)
Least Expensive: $169,900 (1 BR, 1 BA, 600+ sq ft in River House on W Hill)
Middle of the Road: $379,900 (2 BR, 2 BA, 1500+ sq ft in The Residences at Market Square)

Current Pending Sales -8*
Average Asking Price: $252602,
Median Asking Price:$199,523
*I chose not to include 10 listings that have been “pending” for well over a year.

Closed Sales – 1st & 2nd Quarter 2009 – 11
Average Asking Price - $254,340
Average Sales Price – $235,364
Average Closed Price Per Sq Ft – $194 (up $11 per sq ft from Dec ‘08)
Median Sales Price – $215,000
Average Days on Market – 156

Closed Sales – 1st & 2nd Quarter 2008 – 14
Average Asking Price – $283,633
Average Sales Price – $269,637
Average Closed Price Per Sq Ft – $205
Median Sales Price – $267,750
Average Days on Market – 173

*Data taken from KAARMLS on 07/13/09 and does not include adjacent neighborhoods or single family residences.

As always, if you want any more information about any of these properties just give me a shout.

If you would like to receive a full list of properties for sale in this neighborhood, or if you would like to be notified of new listings, send me an email with either “Current Downtown Condo Listings” or “New Downtown Condo Listings” in the subject line and I’ll take care of the rest. Save the spammy for yer mammy.

Know of a great community that would make an equally great NOTW? Let your voice be heard in the comments.

Special thanks to AAKT’s in-house photographer, Robert Stockdale. Without him, NOTW would be just a bunch of boring text. Find out more about Robert’s work here.

The weekly poll is thinking about refinancing. Go help it make its mind up.

This week’s topic is about your home mortgage and what kind of interest rate you have on it. Rates are still at near historic lows, hovering right around 5% and most of the buyers I’ve worked with this year have managed to secure at loan below 5.5%. Loan officers are telling me that they are keeping super busy with homeowners who are taking advantage of the current market to refinance out of higher rates they got just a few years ago. Of course, I also talk to people who got adjustable rate mortgages with great intro rates back when the market was swingin’ and ARMS were all the rage. Unfortunately, those low intro rates have now adjusted to 8% or higher. Ouch.

So what about you? What’s the current interest rate on your home mortgage? Are you one of the lucky few who got in super low or are you shouldering the burden of a much higher rate you can’t get out of? Cast your vote and let me know.

No matter what your interest rate, you can always get the latest info on the Knoxville real estate market  – just sign up to receive regular updates from All Around KTown in a feed reader or by email today!

photo credit: ralphunden