With the income up, unemployment down and mortgage rates still hovering near historic lows, Chattanooga’s housing market continues to improve.
In 2014, Chattanooga Realtors sold 7,323 residential units — up 0.7 percent from the previous year and the highest yearly total since before the Great Recession in 2006.
By the numbers
* 7,323: MLS total sales in 2014, from Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors* $147,900: Median sales price of homes sold in 2014* 129: Average number of days homes were listed before being sold in 2014* 11,987: Number of new properties listed for sale in 2014* 4,467: Average inventory of homes listed in 2014* 92.4: Percent of original property asking price received at sale in 2014Source: Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors
The Federal Reserve Board is expected to raise short-term interest rates during 2015, but most economists don’t expect the change will choke off the housing recovery. Home starts continue to rise as foreclosures fall, more home buyers enter the market and home values increase.
Travis Close, president of the Greater Chattanooga Association of Realtors, said 2014 “was another year of recovery” and he expects further gains in 2015.
“With a broad pattern of rising prices and stable to improving inventory, the market has shifted from being drastically undersupplied to approaching equilibrium,” he said in a report on Chattanooga’s real estate market for 2014. “Price gains are still positive but less robust than (in 2013).”
The Chattanooga Association of Realtors reported that 11,987 new homes were listed for sale in 2014, a slight half-a-percent decline from 2013. For all of 2014, the average inventory was 4,467, an 11 percent decline from the year prior.
The good news in 2014 was that median home sales price was up nearly 6 percent over 2013, with a median $147,900 price tag. Even with the higher prices, however, Chattanooga remains an attractive market for home buyers with local home prices nearly a third less than the U.S. median price of $208,700 last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Homes in Chattanooga also sold quicker in 2014 than 2013, with the average listing period being 129 days, a 4 percent improvement over 2013.
Last year, sellers in the Chattanooga area typically got 92 percent of their initial asking price.
With more people moving into the Chattanooga area and wanting to dodge the nation’s seventh-fasting-growing rents (according to NerdWallet), the number of home buyers should increase in 2015.