Knoxville August 2008 Home Sales Report
It’s that special time of the month again. The time when we pause to reflect on the previous month’s real estate activity. My people call it Home Sales Report time. August Home Sales Report, to be exact.
August seems like a million years ago now, what with all the craziness that the financial markets have seen so far this month, but it was just a few short weeks ago that Fannie and Freddie were not government controlled entities, Merrill Lynch was not Bank of America and Lehman Brothers was not totally screwed.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll get to deal with the fallout of all of that fun stuff in the September Home Sales Report. Right now it’s time for the August Home Sales Report breakdown just the way you like it — All Around K-Town style.
I think we could all use the good news first:
Average sales price for 2 or less BR homes is up.
August ‘07 – $95,500
August ‘08 – $98,100
Median sales price for 2 or less BR homes is up.
August ‘07 – $80,000
August ‘08 – $85,000
And yeah, that’s about it for the good news. Now for the not so good news:
The number of homes closed using FHA loans is more than 5 times what it was this time last year...
August ‘07- 43
August ‘08- 237
… while the number of homes closed using conventional loans is less than half what it was this time last year.
August ‘07 – 1314
August ‘08 -627
Then there’s the “it’s not good news, but it’s better than it has been” news:
Residential active listings are only slightly up.
August ‘07 – 14, 641
August ‘08 -14,778
Finally, here’s the “it’s taken at least 6 months, but sellers are starting to get the hang of this buyers market stuff” news -
The average list price for new listings actually went down.
August ‘07 – $233,100
August ‘08 – $290,400
- The Knoxville condo market has finally taken it’s long overdue turn in the toilet.
- Residential sales are still very, very soft.*
- Lower end homes are continuing the rally they started last month.
- Buyers are continuing to go FHA either voluntarily or by necessity, as conventional loans become harder and harder to get.
- Sellers are finally seeing the light and realizing that price does indeed conquer all, even a crappy market.
- Forget starving children in China. With a 34% decrease in closed sales, think of all the starving Realtors in Knoxville the next time you don’t want to eat your brussel sprouts.
If you’re interested in looking at both reports yourself, here is ‘07 and here is ‘08. Enjoy, and please let me know in the comments if you notice anything interesting that I missed. I wouldn’t want to miss anything interesting.
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Hard working Knoxville real estate agent by day. Intrepid Knoxville real estate blogger by night. 
5 responses to "Knoxville August 2008 Home Sales Report"
[...] that puts us in a little bit of a rough spot. We’re not the only ones in this situation, and there are numbers to back this [...]
[...] you know I’m not one to sugarcoat things and there’s no doubt from the latest set of numbers that things are looking, well, rough out there right now. But what’s the problem, exactly? [...]
Hey Suzy,
I love your blog. Even if the news is depressing your comments are intelligent and witty.
Alexis
Thanks, Alexis!
[...] of Home Sales Reports, there was also a chart from the August Home Sales Report data that I thought was interesting. It shows August closings for the entire Knoxville Area [...]
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