EMBRACING THE CURRENT REAL ESTATE MARKET

After a steady decline to start the year, mortgage interest rates have crept back up over the past few weeks due to better than expected US economic news.  The expectation is still that rates will decline throughout 2024 and into 2025.  However, the rate and significance of this trend will likely be longer and slower.

Despite slightly higher interest rates and higher sales prices, the number of homebuyers seems to be slowly increasing as we enter the spring.  The overall demand for housing is still very high in the Knoxville area, driven mainly by a robust job market and favorable cost of living relative to many other parts of the country.

We’re also seeing more and more homebuyers actively looking to purchase homes who have been patiently waiting on the sidelines over the past 3 to 4 years.  Most of these people are saying that their motivation to buy a house right now is linked to changes in their families and personal lives.

From a home seller’s standpoint, the number of days-on-market continues to rise.  However, average home prices still remain higher than they were at this time last year.

We do expect the overall housing inventory to be on the rise this year.  If this inventory gets high enough, it could negatively impact home prices.  That said, we are still pretty far away from that scenario coming to fruition with our local housing inventory being 1/3 of what it was in 2018/2019.