GNAR Reports Prices Up, Sales Down

The Greater Nashville Association of Realtors reports that although home sales are down, the median price of homes is still climbing.

Home sales were down 28-percent from January last year, but the median price for a single-family home is up about 7-thousand dollars to 179-thousand. G-N-A-R past President Richard Courtney says Nashville’s market hit a high point in 2006.

“When we compare ourselves to that our sales unit numbers will continue to go down. But the fact is that the market is still strong, as a matter of fact, for homes priced over 300-thousand dollars, sales are actually up.”

Courtney says the record home sales in 2006 were largely due to the rise in the number of sub-prime loans. As many of those mortgages start to reset this year, Courtney says the inventory of more affordably priced housing will go up, easing what he calls a tightening at that end of the housing market.

While the median house price rose over the last year, the median home price did drop in the short-term about 8-thousand dollars from December to January. Inventory has also increased: There were nearly 22-thousand homes on the market in January, up from about 17-thousand a year ago.