Buoyed by a 9.9 percent gain in home sales during the first quarter, Chattanooga home prices appear to have bottomed out from their recession lows.
Despite a nationwide decline in home prices this winter, the median price of existing, single-family homes sold in Chattanooga during the first quarter was up $1,500 from a year ago, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors. The typical home sold this winter in Chattanooga for $119,200, or 1.6 percent more than in the same period a year ago.
“I think we’re in the trough of this downturn and the worst is behind us in Chattanooga,” said Randy Durham, a Realtor at Keller Williams Realty and a former president of the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors. “We have a very good stream of buyer activity now, and I think we’ll continue to see that through the summer.”
In the first three months of 2012, local Realtors sold 1,324 homes, or nearly 10 percent more houses than were sold in the first quarter of 2011. The average home sold this winter in Chattanooga in 143 days, one day shorter than in the year-ago period, according to the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors.
The market is benefiting by the decline in unemployment and mortgage rates.