WLTV Knoxville I got a call yesterday from  Whitney Daniel, a reporter for Channel 8, WVLT television.She wanted to come to my office and interview me about home sales in the Knoxville area and whether they were up or down relative to the so called “national market”.

Being a Knoxville Realtor, local home sales is a subject near and dear to my heart so I agreed.

We talked about the local market and I explained to her there was really no such thing as a “national real estate bubble” because there is no national real estate market. All real estate is local and local prices are mostly driven by what is going on in that particular area.

Usually the most important driving force is the local economy. Fortunately we have a very diverse economy in the east Tennessee area so our economy is most always good. Locally Knoxville had a 4.4% unemployment rate for the 1st quarter of 2006 which is pretty close to full employment so our area is doing well economically with steady jobs growth.

Statistically Knoxville home sales have been pretty robust compared to areas like south Florida where some section have experience as much as a 10% decline in values over the same time periond in 2005.

Since the latest numbers available are for the 3rd quarter of this year I used that for my comparisons.

3rd quarter average sale prices for 3 bedrooms homes

  • 2004  $145,000……….Average days on market…..80
  • 2005  $157,400……….Average days on market…..65 
  • 2006  $169,300……….Average days on market…..78 

You can see from thes figures that home prices in the greater Knoxville area have been increasing steadily over the past 3 years. The days on the market this year are also shorter than they were 2 years ago.

I have all the housing statistics for the past several years posted on my website KnoxvilleMLS.com so you can review them as they change and see how we’re doing locally compared to the mythical “national real estate market”.

No “housing bubbles” bursting in the Knoxville, Tennessee market and with interest rates still at historic lows and currently hovering around the low 6% range for fixed rates, now is a great time to buy a home in Knoxville.

My 15 minute interview got edited down to around 3 five second sound bites, so my 15 minutes of fame turned out to be more like 15 seconds.

Here is a link to my interview with both video and text.