Will Rogers and his wife, Lilly, moved to the Chattanooga area from Knoxville after Rogers finished law school last summer. Like many other young couples, they immediately began looking for their first home.
Ideally, their first home would have a yard for their dogs, covered parking and a walkable neighborhood close to downtown. The reality of finding that home in Chattanooga was more difficult than they imagined.
The Rogers, like many other prospective home buyers, quickly realized they were shopping in a seller’s market, a housing market where demand far exceeds supply. They were under contract with two homes that eventually fell through before beating out nine other prospective buyers for a third home in the Southside. They ended up paying $315,000 for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home off Read Avenue.
“This house came on the market and we knew we needed to be as competitive as we could,” says Rogers, who used Mark Hite’s team at Keller Williams Realty to buy his home.
“Our Realtor said we had to go up or we would likely lose it,” the 26-year-old added. “We ended up going $16,000 over list price originally and then the appraisal came down at list price, which led to a negotiation with the sellers until we reached a happy medium.”