Knoxville Tennessee Real Estate Blog

Number of units recorded week of February 15th

All the Knoxville area Realtors I’ve been talking with during this past week are saying their showing activity is up and lots of traffic coming through Sunday open houses.

I was at a closing for a sale last Thursday on a home built by Saddlebrook Homes and the site agent said they had 8 more closings by the end of February.

Here’s what you can buy in Knoxville today in the various price ranges.

In the Northshore Drive/Choto area this lakefront beauty can be yours for $2,300,000 or so.

Beautiful lakefront home in knoxville tn, $2,300,000. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 531-2020

Elegant 6,000 square feet, 6 bedroom, 4 bath home near West Town Mall in west Knoxville. $699,900, brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 588-3232

All brick beauty with glowing hardood flooring and over 3,000 square feet. Priced to sell at $388,500. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 693-3232

Reduced $20,000, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and all on one level. $209,900. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 593-3232.

Oops, this one just sold in north Knoxville. listed for $129,900, 3 bedroom, 2 baths, 2 car garage. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 688-3232

Delightful rancher with big, level yard is just $99,900. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates 693-3232

401K take a hit lately? Real estate remains a solid investment. $49,900 and rented for $625 a month. Brokered by Realty Executives Associates, 693-3232

President Obama is signing the new stiumulus bill into law today. Part of that bill includes a new, $8,000 tax credit for new homebuyers this year that meet the guidelines.

The guidelines are pretty simple:

1. Maximum credit amount is increased to $8,000 or 10% of the purchase price; whichever is less.
2. This is a cool part. Homebuyers who don’t intend to buy a home until the end of 2009 can legally alter their withholding to save up money for a downpayment. But if they don’t buy they have to repay the tax underwithheld
3. An eligible property is any single family residence; including condos, co-ops,  or townhouses that will be used as your principal residence. Investment or second home properties do not qualify.
4. The new law allows taxpayers/homebuyers to treat qualified 2009 home purchases as a 2008 purchase so you can claim the credit on the return you file in 2009.
5. It’s refundable unlike the former ‘credit’. That means you can reduce or eliminate your income tax liability up to the $8,000 limit for the year of purchase. Any unused amount can be refunded to you in cash in the year following your qualifying home purchase.
6. An individual with adjusted gross income of not more than $75,000 or $150,000 on a joint return are eligible.
7. Although it’s called the “First Time Homebuyer” tax credit, as long as you have not owned a home in the past 3 years that was your principal residence you probably qualify.
8. Homebuyers who use state revenue bond financing, in Tennessee that would be the Tennessee Housing Development Authority (THDA) qualify under the new, $8,000 credit; they did not under the $7,500 program.
9. The $8,000 is a true credit and does not have to be repaid.
10. If you sell the house you buy and claim credit for during the 3 years following the purchase all of the credit is subject to recapture (you have to pay it back).
11. This program begins January 1, 2009 and ends December 31, 2009.
12. Any revisions are effective as of January 1, 2009.

There you have it; a true $8,000 credit if you buy a new home during 2009. There’s a huge selection of homes out there and most buyers are willing to deal (a lot) so let’s get started finding you one.

KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is the place to begin.

Some good economic news for people thinking of buying a new or resale home in the greater Knoxville area.

Congress has just passed, as part of their gigantic economic ’stimulus’  package, a tax credit of up to $8,000 for persons buying a home between January 1st of 2009 and December first of the same year.

A few changes from the $7,500 credit created last July. Here’s the new deal:

1. Maximum credit amount is increased to $8,000 or 10% of the purchase price; whichever is less.
2. This is a cool part. Homebuyers who don’t intend to buy a home until the end of 2009 can legally alter their withholding to save up money for a downpayment. But if they don’t buy they have to repay the tax underwithheld
3. An eligible property is any single family residence; including condos, co-ops,  or townhouses that will be used as your principal residence. Investment or second home properties do not qualify.
4. The new law allows taxpayers/homebuyers to treat qualified 2009 home purchases as a 2008 purchase so you can claim the credit on the return you file in 2009.
5. It’s refundable unlike the former ‘credit’. That means you can reduce or eliminate your income tax liability up to the $8,000 limit for the year of purchase. Any unused amount can be refunded to you in cash in the year following your qualifying home purchase.
6. An individual with adjusted gross income of not more than $75,000 or $150,000 on a joint return are eligible.
7. Although it’s called the “First Time Homebuyer” tax credit, as long as you have not owned a home in the past 3 years that was your principal residence you probably qualify.
8. Homebuyers who use state revenue bond financing, in Tennessee that would be the Tennessee Housing Development Authority (THDA) qualify under the new, $8,000 credit; they did not under the $7,500 program.
9. The $8,000 is a true credit and does not have to be repaid.
10. If you sell the house you buy and claim credit for during the 3 years following the purchase all of the credit is subject to recapture (you have to pay it back).
11. This program begins January 1, 2009 and ends December 31, 2009.
12. Any revisions are effective as of January 1, 2009.

There you have it; a true $8,000 credit if you buy a new home during 2009. There’s a huge selection of homes out there and most buyers are willing to deal (a lot) so let’s get started finding you one.

KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is the place to begin.

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Knox County has some great parks but only a couple of them offer real hiking opportunities. House Mountain State Natural Area is and Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge is the other.

I’ve done the House Mountain trails several times but I had never been to Seven Islands until today. It was a beautiful, sunny February day with temperatures in the 60s so my wife Charlotte and I headed out to east Knox County to check it out.

It turned out to be very easy to find and get to; it’s only about 3 miles off Interstate 40 at the Midway Road Exit.

When we arrived the parking lot was completely full; not a single space in sight. Fortunately I spotted another couple getting into their vehicle so we go their spot when they pulled out.

With that many cars in the parking area I was sure there was a mob out there walking about. We headed uphill out of the parking lot toward what’s called the Overlook Loop. It’s a pretty good pull out of the parking lot to the top of a ridge the trail follows; I’m guessing we gained about a thousand feet in elevation in a half mile or so of trail.

Once we got to the top there wasn’t another person in sight in any direction; a rate occurrence in today’s world. Ask yourself when the last time was you’ve been completely alone without another person in sight .

Beautiful views from the top; you can see the French Broad River which one end of the park borders and the Great Smoky Mountains in the background.

The trails at Seven Islands are marvelous. Dirt and about 1 car width wide so it’s very easy for people to walk 2 abreast and carry on a conversation.

I think dead trees make interesting silhouttes to add some visual interest to a photo, not that this beautiful view needs any help from me.

In the background past the tree you can see some of the pastoral river bottom land that is also part of this park; 360 acres in all with about 6 miles of trail plus a couple of mile stretch of paved road closed to traffic.

The river bottom land used to grow hay and tobacco but recently about 280 acres have been planted in warm season native grasses to maintain the pastoral setting.

I thought this was an interesting find. Over in the woods and a pretty good ways off the trail I noticed some cedar branches lying at the base of a stand of hardwood trees and obviously out of place.

Upon closer inspection I found this big green box about the size of a large, styrofoam ice chest, cable locked to the tree and with a blue seal on it.

I didn’t mess with it because I believe it’s some sort of wildlife survey or sampling tool.

But, memo to guys hiding stuff in the woods.  Don’t camouflage your stuff with a kind of tree not growing nearby; it really makes it stand out especially in the winter.

This park has about 4 miles of river frontage along the French Broad River. Some canoests and kayakers like to put in here at the boat launch and paddle or drift to downtown Knoxville about 19 miles away.

The French Broad joins the Holston River in east Knoxville to become the Tennessee River which flows through downtown Knoxville.

On the next pretty day when you have the urge to get into the great outdoors and don’t want to make that 40 mile drive to the Smoky Mountains; head on out to Seven Islands and get a dose of Mother Nature at her best, I don’t believe you will be disappointed.

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I’ve always been a big fan of statistics and like graphs and charts to display them in an easy to understand format.

Each of my listings gets a virtual tour from www. VisualTour.com and one of the cool things about Visual Tour is that they syndicate your listings out to other websites so you can give your sellers more exposure than normal.

They also keep a running total of how many views each tour gets on the various websites.

12724 Comblain Road, Knoxville, TN 37934

This is the Visual tour page view summary for one of my listings.

KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is my personal website where each listing is a “Featured Home”. The graph above shows 12724 Comblain has had it’s Visual Tour viewed 212 times from there.

Realtor.com is in the darker blue and it has recorded 19 visits from that link.

kaarmls.com is the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors public website; 34 views from there which includes the link from the listing brief on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

FrontDoor.com is House & Garden TV’s entry into the online real estate world; we scored 18 visits from their website.

The 62 “other” visits came from Google Base, Homes.com, The Real Estate Book, Yahoo Real Estate, Zillow.com, HomeSeekers.com, Trulia, HomePages.com, Prudential Properties VOW, and Vast.com.

Realtor.com, the official website of the National Association of Realtors offers some pretty good stats on your listings displayed there too.

page views from Realtor.com

These are the weekly numbers for one of my listings on Realtor.com. This shows that listing has been viewed over 1600 times in the past 3 and a half months.

I also take the monthly, quarterly, and yearly MLS data and make graphs with it and also information from the Knox County Register of Deeds Office and a statistical service that sends me market data.

Knox County Register of Deeds real estate transfers for a week.

This graph represent the numbers of real estate transfers in the various price ranges for 1 week.

total number of homes sold by Knoxville Area Association of Realtors members over the past 9 years.

This is the average days on market or time to sell for the Knoxville Area

Interesting that even though sales are down somewhat the average days on market has not changed significantly over the past 9 years.

This is the yearly number of building permits issued in Knox County, Tennessee

Number of building permits issued in Knox County since 2004

45% drop in 2008 compared to 2007 which demonstrates new home sales are way down in Knox County.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

January 2009 is now officially over and it seems to have gone by very, very fast.

We will have the January home sales report from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors around mid February but for now we have some date from the Knox County Registrars of Deeds to take a look at.

For the week just ended the Registrar of Deeds office is reporting 81 real estate transfers.

Conspicuously absent were any transfers above the $500,000 sales price although there were a couple reported in the Multiple Listing Service for $700,000 and $835,000. Apparently they haven’t made it to the courthouse to be recorded as yet.

Following is the numbers and breakdowns for the past week:

Here are some examples of what has been selling in Knoxville & Knox County:

This new home in Fountain City (a rarity) sold for $239,900

This nice home in Hardin Valley sold recently for $178,500.

This country cottage in beautiful east Knox County sold recently for $99,900

Roomy south Knoxville home closed this past week for only $54,000

As you can see Knoxville, Farragut, and the Knox County areas of east Tennessee offers homes in all price ranges for a sorts of budgets.

Now is a great time to buy and I’ve had the pleasure of representing several buyers that put in successful offers on area homes in this just past January. We’ll be closing on those purchases in February and making them all happy Knoxville residents and homeowners.

KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com is a great place to start your search. Pick out a few homes and give me a call to go visit them.

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