The 1st quarter sales report for home sales in the greater Knoxville, Tennessee area are out.

As the national media continues with its doom & gloom message for the mythical “national real estate market”, the facts are different and present a more balanced picture.

There is no national real estate market but rather a lot of smaller markets driven by their own economic forces in addition to outside factors.

The greater Knoxville area is one of the positive pictures in the country along with a high percentage of other cities and areas.

“Days on market” (DOM) or simply how long it takes to sell a house is a good indicator of market demand. Knoxville’s dom for the 1st quarter of 2005 was 94 days, it dropped to 88 days in Q1 2006, back up to 93 days for Q1 2007, and 103 days in the 1st quarter of 2008 for a net gain of just 9 days in the past 4 years.

Median sales prices is also an indicator. Here’s the Knoxville picture since 2005

1st quarter 2005, 3 bedroom home  $131,000

1st quarter 2006, 3 bedroom home  $135,100

1st quarter 2007, 3 bedroom home  $145,500

1st quarter 2008, 3 bedroom home  $144,000

So even though it dropped $1,100 from 07 to 2008, there was still a 9% net gain from 2005 to the same time period in 2008.

Home sales figures is a subject near and dear to the National Association of Realtors; here’s some of their take on the current market: Roughly half of metropolitan areas continued to show rising home prices in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the latest quarterly survey by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®.

In the fourth quarter, 73 out of 150 metropolitan statistical areas show increases in median existing single-family home prices from a year earlier, including 11 areas with double-digit annual gains and another 12 metros showing increases of 6 percent or more; 77 had price declines including 16 with double-digit drops.”

The bottom line of all this number crunch is that now is still a great time to be buying a house in the greater Knoxville, Tennessee area, mortgage rates are still in the 5% range, and there is a great selection of homes for sale.

Visit www.KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to pick out a few and give me a call or email to go visit them.