March 2009 Knoxville Home Sales Report

April 21, 2009

It’s just past the middle of the month and you know what that means – it’s Home Sales Report time!

March is typically the height of the Spring selling season, but as you’ll see, things were still down quite a bit from this time last year. Bummer.

However, good news may be on the horizon: I’m hearing a lot of buzz from agents all over town that business is starting to pick up and I, for one, am absolutely slammed working with first time home buyers who are taking advantage of the $8,000 tax credit and killer rates. And I know that showings of listings at my office are way up from last month and we already have more pending sales for this month than the last.

And while that may not be hard evidence of a market turnaround, after months and months of hearing nothing but moaning and wailing from agents, I’ll take any positivity about the Knoxville real estate market that I can get. We’ll just have to wait until this time next month to see if there’s possibly a light at the end of this housing slump tunnel.

But that will be then and this is still now, so, without further ado, allow me to break down the March home sale numbers the only way I know how, AAKT style. Enjoy!

Let’s start with just a little bit of good news -

Average sales price for 2 or less BR homes is up.
Mar ‘08 – $84,600
Mar ‘09 – $92,100

And one day – hopefully not to long from now – we’ll have more good news than that, but for now let’s look at the not-so-good news -

Median sales price for 2 or less BR homes is (slightly) down.
Mar ‘08 – $70,000
Mar ‘09 – $69,000

Average sales price for 3 BR homes is (way) down.
Mar ‘08 – $158,800
Mar ‘09 – $145,400

Median sales price for 3 BR homes is down.
Mar ‘08 – $143,000
Mar ‘09 – $134,000

Average sales price for 4+ BR homes is down.
Mar ‘08 – $291,100
Mar ‘09 – $265,900

——————

Median sales price for 4+ BR homes is down.
Mar ‘08 – $229,900
Mar ‘09 – $220,000

——–

Average condo sales price is down.

Mar ‘08 – $172,200
Mar ‘09 – $161,800

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Median condo sales price is down.
Mar ‘08 – $153,100
Mar ‘09 – $138,000

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Total number of single family units sold is (way) down.

Mar ‘08 – 1,051
Mar ‘09 – 757

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Total number of condo units sold is (way) down.

Mar ‘08 – 121
Mar ‘09 – 66

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Days on market is up.

Mar ‘08 – 104
Mar ‘09 – 116

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And then there’s the “yes, conventional loans are still hard to get” news:

—

Conventional loans were once again way down…
Mar ‘08 – 692
Mar ‘09 – 346

…while FHA loans were up.
Mar ‘08 – 121
Mar ‘09 – 152

And here’s the “condo owners aren’t skeert of this market” news-

The number of new residential listings was down...
Mar ‘08 – 2,973
Mar ‘09 – 2,499

…but the number of new condo listings was up.
Mar ‘08 – 340
Mar ‘09 – 296

Finally there’s the “OMG – sellers are finally getting the hang of selling in a buyers market” news-

—

The average list price for new residential home listings is down…

Mar ‘08 – $242,200
Mar ‘09 – $231,400

… and the average list price for new condo listings is down.
Mar ‘08 – $220,000
Mar ‘09 – $191,800

—

As always, here’s my completely unscientific analysis:

Knoxville residential and condo sales are still soft as an overripe melon.*
Small home prices continue to rally, maybe because of all the first time buyers in the market right now.
FHA loans continue to rise in popularity as conventional loan qualifying standards continue to do the tighten up.
Sellers are finally coming down on their list prices, which is one small step for their agents and one giant step toward reducing the too-large Knoxville housing supply.
While new residential listings are down, condo listings are up, perhaps because UT graduation time also means student condo selling time.
Despite this crappy market and all of the bad news surrounding it, people are still buying and selling homes. Trust me, would I be working 12-15 hour days if they weren’t?

If you’re interested in looking at both reports yourself, here is ‘08 and here is ‘09. Enjoy and please feel free to share your thoughts and observations.

*No need to freak out. Lower average sales price and lower median sales price do not necessarily mean that your personal home has depreciated.

From Hong Kong to Knoxville: A Reader’s Analysis of the March Home Sales Report