Franklin Monthly Real Estate Recap: October 2024
It's a strange Real Estate environment - Some homes flying off the market immediately, and others needing more help than typical (or expected) to get there. 
Nash South Homes Team is literally pulling out all our stops -- playing all our cards -- to create as much predictability and consistency as possible for our clients. And I'm glad to report, for the most part, it's working.
This is a tactic I have employed for YEARS - mostly in luxury listings, when a home has special features that deserve attention or need to stand out.
I literally make cards with the features on them, and Buyers almost feel like they're on a scavenger hunt in our listings. Touring our listings is a memorable experience!
Greater Nashville typically holds up better than the national average, though not as strong as Williamson County prices.
For this particular home we de-staged today, it sold for full list price the day we listed it, AS-IS, with no inspection repair requests and just a little more than 2-weeks to the Closing date.
This doesn't fall in line with a lot of Buyer expectations right now -- so many Buyers we are working with expect a lot of money off the list price and all the concessions. Many Buyers are simply waiting right now to make their move, hoping or expecting there to be a change in home prices or interest rates in their favor. At this point, that's not an expectation in our local market --enough of a change to really move the needle, anyway.
Depends Where You're Shopping
Nationwide, some Real Estate markets are seeing compression on prices -- but I'm talking just a *few* localized markets. For the most part, nationwide, home prices have been incredibly resilient and prices nationally will finish the year up again, heading into 2025 with upward momentum.
Yet, here in Greater Nashville, this graph is showing a 2% increase in median sales prices, though the number of Closings are down and the number of Days on Market is up year-to-year.
So it's taking longer to sell, and fewer homes are selling, but for the most part, the homes making it to the Closing table are not settling on pricing. This has continued to be the headline for our general area for several years now.
Perhaps this next graph I made of Williamson County will best portray what I mean by "heading into 2025 with upward momentum."
Each dot represents a month of the year, starting with January on the left and ending with December on the right.
You can see the dotted lines for each year start of higher than they ended in December the year before. It's a safe bet that we'll continue this pattern to begin 2025 as well.
In Williamson County, our Inventory levels are higher than this time last year, thought not by much. We still have about a third fewer homes on the market than we had in 2019, and about 18.6% fewer than what we had in 2022.
What Buyers and Sellers Think
It seems many of us as Consumers are agreeing on this one thing: The expectation that home prices will go up, or at least stay the same.
The Home Purchase Sentiment Index, a housing confidence survey by Fannie Mae, increased in early October. It also shows high optimism that consumers have toward a potential decrease in mortgage interest rates (which would make sense -- interest rates and home prices usually go hand-in-hand).
This confidence shown in the HPSI is the highest level in more than two years. And it's both good news for Buyers and Sellers. Obviously, Sellers want to sell for more money. But for Buyers, the good news is in the expectation that the properties they buy today will continue to hold their values (and likely even gain!).
More Listings Hitting the Market
We keep hearing the headlines about more homes hitting (and lingering) on the market -- and this is true locally as well. In the black graph for Greater Nashville, above, our Active Listings count has increased by 29% since the same time last year. AND THIS IS A GOOD THING.
Realtor.com is crediting this to more Sellers seeing the benefit in listing, since mortgage rates are about 1% lower than they were this time last year. In our market, with home prices (and therefore mortgage loans) considerably higher than a lot of other markets across the country, the savings in even a 1% decrease can add up a lot more than in less pricey markets.
Realtor.com Economist Ralph McLaughlin says nationwide, "while inventory this September certainly continues to improve, it is still down 23.2% compared with typical 2017 to 2019 levels."
Builders are working to create more inventory, which will take years to make a dent. That really is the only major factor expected to play a significant role in inventory increasing, and therefore, affordability.
Let me stress that even if we see an improvement in affordability, it would likely be years down the line. Meanwhile, our home price will likely continue to grow and its doubtful any decrease would even come close to the prices we're seeing now.
Bold Prediction
I've probably already said too much -- It's irresponsible to give any hard advice or expectations for our market so many years in advance, though I really don't think any predictions I make are all that bold. They're based on facts and what we are seeing unfold right in front of us.
What we know now is our local prices are continuing to go up with no end in sight. In fact, within a week, we will be past the Presidential Election, and what happens once a President is elected? HOME PRICES GO UP. As far as mortgage interest rates go, that's a little harder to predict. Historically, those have stayed the same or risen after the vast majority of the past eleven Presidential Elections. But they've also been known to go down BEFORE the election, which they have, but not by much.
The real expected savings is in home prices -- and our window for that is closing. That's a card I feel safe playing.
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