GNAR Reports First Sales Increase in Three Years

There’s finally good news in the Midstate housing market. Nashville area home sales are up for the first time in three years.

Just over 21-hundred home sales closed in October. That’s 22 percent more than the same month last year.

Greater Nashville Association of Realtors President Mike Nichols attributes the one-month hike to a federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers. He says he’s surprised at the number of people who seem to have been waiting for an incentive to buy their first home, given how easy it was a year or two ago to get a sub-prime mortgage.

“You would think that the first time buyer market had been depleted already, but apparently not.”

Now the question is how long an extension on that program will be able to sustain that level of sales.

Year to date sales for the midstate are still down 18-percent from last year, and the median sales price is 10-thousand dollars less than in October 2008. In Williamson County, the difference is even steeper, with houses selling for about 60-thousand dollars less than last year.

Nichols is pleased that tax credit’s deadline has been extended to April, although he says there’s no way of knowing how many more potential first-time buyers are in a position to take advantage of it.

 

“We don’t know how long its gonna last, but it’s good to know that they’re still out there, and they’re purchasing homes and taking advantage of the tax credit.”

 

In addition to the extension, the program has also been expanded. People who own their home but haven’t moved in five years can qualify for a tax refund if they buy a new home by the April deadline.