Photo courtesy of myguysmoving / Flickr
Story by Ghaliah Almuyidi / Contributing Writer
Home prices across the state of Tennessee continued to rise in the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest quarterly housing report from the MTSU Business and Economic Research Center.
Tennessee home prices increased 8 percent year-over-year, BERC Director Murat Arik noted in a press release. The increase in home prices remains above the national average, which has fluctuated around 6.5 percent over the past two years in the midst of a home affordability crisis in America. Many potential homeowners are being priced out of the market, and the trend is set to continue. Other homeowners, particularly those who are over the age of 55 are looking towards using their home equity for retirement, as well as downsizing from their family homes. The raising of home prices, in some cases, does not affect those who are looking at the option of equity release. If you would like to learn more you can read this guide to equity release.
Areas of year-over-year increase include Nashville at 9.7 percent, Clarksville at 9.7 percent and Cleveland at 8.1 percent, and home sales increased in all three regions of the state, according to the report.
The current average price for a three bedroom house in Murfreesboro is about $330,000. That is an approximate 13.9 percent increase over the average price in 2016. Refer to the chart below for more details.
Arik also noted the state’s low unemployment rates and job stability as contributing factors in the increasing housing prices. If you’re thinking of potentially selling your house while the housing prices are increasing, you can save money by selling your home yourself too, this way, you should be able to pocket even more money for your home than you were originally expecting.
According to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nashville unemployment ranked the lowest among Tennessee metro areas at 3 percent in July and is about 2 percent lower than the national average.
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Wayne Rollins, a professor of business and marketing at MTSU’s Jones College of Business, commented on the housing prices as a person who owns property himself and studies the current housing market news.
“When you drive around Murfreesboro, you will see that we have invested heavily in housing, and Nashville can’t keep up with the housing,” Rollins said.
(Source: https://www.househunt.com/home-prices/TN/Murfreesboro/)
In light of that, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the Nashville region grows by an average of 100 people a day.
“The prices will eventually (stabilize) and may even drop,” Rollins said. “I have lived long enough to see the housing markets go up, and I have seen them go down. Right now, it is a seller’s market, but the bubble will burst.”
To view the full report, visit here.
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