I write here all the time about the monthly Knoxville home sale numbers and the general state of the Knoxville real estate market. However, there’s nothing like seeing a few good old fashioned line charts to put the current market into perspective.

These charts were part of my office’s most recent monthly sales meeting and my broker was good enough to pass them along to me to post here. The first one is from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and shows national single family housing inventory from 1992 to the present -

You see overall national inventory really start to break away from the norm at the very end of 2005 (the purply line, sort of fourth from the top), jump way up in 2006 (green line), continue to go even higher in 2007 (red line) and stay on up there so far this year. Notice, however, that May’s inventory dipped slightly back down. May was the best sales month nationally, and also here in Knoxville, so far this year.

So, that gives you a very clear indicator of what’s happening nationally, but what about what’s going in Knoxville?

Never fear, I have graphs for that too. These charts were put together by my office with information pulled straight from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors.

This first one shows active listings from 2005 to now by month -

Since this only goes back to ‘05, it’s hard to say if that as our “break out” year in terms of rising inventory, but you can definitely see that we more or less have followed along with the rest of the country in terms of inventory growth.

This represents closed units, residential and condo, from 2005 to the present by month. The line to watch here is that little aqua line way down underneath the others. That’s 2008. Ouch.

Here’s what we’re looking like in terms of supply -

Again, that shorter aqua line is 2008. You can see that we are way higher than last year in terms of months worth of supply, although we have come down a little bit from about 19 months worth of homes on the market in January to just under 15 months worth currently.

Please keep in mind that I share this information with you to educate you, not to scare you. Be assured that homes are still selling in Knoxville – the new tires I just had to put on my car and the 13 hour days I’ve been putting in can attest to that. There is simply a lot – a whole lot – of competition out there.  If you have to sell this Fall, here’s what I recommend:

1. Find yourself a really good agent.
2. Spit shine your house til it squeaks.
3. Remember that price conquers all.
4. Find a good hobby, because even if you and your agent do absolutely everything “right,” you still might have to wait a while before closing.