Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

While real estate “doom & gloom” continues to dominate the national news, homes sales in many parts of the country continue rolling along.

Our greater Knoxville, Tennessee is one of those “rolling along” areas. 😉

In 2007 our total number of units sold had a modest decline, “dropping from 17,401 homes sold in 2006 to ‘only’ 15,508 sold in 2007”. However Knoxville’s average sales price jumped 4.4% to $173,700 for a typical 3 bedroom home. Obviously waiting to buy is not a good plan in the greater Knoxville area. Prices of homes continue to increase and waiting can only cost you more money for the same home.

2008 is off to a great start for me. So far in the first 3 weeks of the year I’ve closed on a $340,000 new construction home, had 3 closings from December sales, and have 1 buyer coming in this weekend for a follow up visit to pick out a new home as well as 3 local buyers ready and pre-approved to buy as soon as we find the right home for them.

I also listed a great 5 bedroom home over in Hardin Valley for $289,900; you can see it on my “Featured Homes” section of KnoxvilleMLS.com soon. I’m happy to start 2008 off with such a great listing since all my listings from 2007 are now sold and closed.

2523 Berringer Station Lane, Hardin Valley, $289,900, move in condition, big family areas, 5 bedrooms, and huge kitchen.

I talked with my favorite mortgage banker, Debbie Nieto of CTX Mortgage today about current interest rates and where they might be heading.

Debbie Nieto & Jim Lee

“With the financial markets continuing their upheaval and uncertainly mortgage interest rates have been volatile lately”, Debbie said. For example yesterday the benchmark 30 year fixed rate was at 5.25% at the start of the day. However with a huge flight of stock funds into bonds, that drove up bond prices pulling mortgage rates along with them and they settled at around 5.50% for the day.

Rates fluctuate daily so if you’re ready to buy or even if you’ve just started looking, a smart thing to do would be to call Debbie at (865) 693-6200 or email her at [email protected] to get the best & latest information and to get pre-approved before we start looking.

 

The long awaited 2007 sales figures are now online for the greater Knoxville, Tennessee area.

Compiled by the Knoxville Area Association of REALTORS®, these figures present the 2007 sales activity.

It seems the greater Knoxville area continues to escape most of the real estate malaise affecting several parts of the United States. Knoxville’s sales volume posted a modest 10.8% decline, dropping from 17,401 homes sold in 2006 to ‘only’ 15,508 sold in 2007.

The Knoxville area average sales price did increase again from $166,100 in 2006 for a 3 bedroom Knoxville area home to $173,700 in 2007, a 4.4% rise.

Days on market DOM (time to sell) rose slightly from 83 days in 2006 to 92 days in 2007. However the DOM was 84 back in days in 2004 so I don’t see the 9 day increase as statistically significant.
Visit my Knoxville real estate website to find a new home for your and your family in 2008. From cottages to castles, Knoxville, Tennessee continues to be a great place to live, work, play, and buy or sell real estate.

Cute Cape Cod home in Knoxville, Tennessee

Beautiful home located in Farragut, Tennessee, a prominent Knoxville suburb.

The first question you may ask youself is just what the heck is “rock harvesting” anyway?

Rock harvesting is the practice of removing native stone, in this instance Tennessee mountain stone, to feed the ever growing demand for the attractive stone’s use in buildings, walls, walkways, and landscaping.

No problem so far……but, the issue begins when rock harvesters began harvesting stone from public lands like the Justin P. Wilson Cumberland Trail State Park which is located about 50 miles north of Knoxville and along the Cumberland Trail itself.

The Cumberland Trail is the centerpiece of a state linear park with the 300 mile long Trail running from Signal Mountain near Chattanooga north to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. Cumberland Gap was the first gateway to the western lands during Indian and pioneer days.

Imagine hiking through this pristine wilderness and rounding a bend to come across the photo below! In some instances the rock harvesters are working above the trail and huge boulders and debris falls downhill across the trail.

Rock harvesting with heavy equipment along the enviromentally sensitive Cumberland Trail. 

Not surprisingly rock harvesting, like strip mining, is not enviromentally friendly since the rocks are mostly below ground level. Heavy equipment is used to dig them up and remove them leaving huge scars on the landscape.

To further exacerbate this pillaging of the land it seems the State of Tennessee neglected to buy the mineral rights when it acquired a lot state park lands and some of the lands along the long planned Cumberland Trail. Tennessee is in litigation to determine if mountain is actually a mineral and covered under the state’s mineral rights laws.

Whatever the outcome this practice is bringing horrible results to formerly pristine mountain lands, state parks, and the Cumberland Trail.

The Devil’s Racetrack natural stone formation. This is visible from Interstate 75 north of Caryville, Tennessee and a part of the Cumberland Trail system.

If this is as big a concern to you as it is to me I urge you to join with us to put a stop to this practive before scenic beauty like the natural stone formations above are destroyed forever and lost to future generations.