East Tennessee January 2024 Stats vs Last Year

Here are the numbers (vs LY):

Closings: DOWN 7%

Inventory: UP 24%

Median Sales Price: UP 9%

Pending Sales: UP 3%

Despite a debilitating week of bad weather, 2024 is starting with a bang and is continuing to transition back to pre-COVID levels. Many of the key metrics in January are pointing toward an improving market.

First, inventory continues to climb, loosening up the market and giving buyers more options. While it has risen drastically the last two years, it is still 11% below Jan 2020.

The Median Sales Price has remained resilient, remaining stable for the last 7 months. This means that starting now and over the next several months of Spring and Summer, prices will jump. By the way, if you purchased a home in January 2020, your home’s value has increased a whopping 70%!

While the number of home sales has continued to slide, they are declining less. In January we were down 29% from two years ago but flat with January 2019. The fact that we are closing the same number now that we did pre-COVID, when rates were 4.5%, should give you an idea of how much this market will take off when rates come back down.

Another improving metric is the Median Days on Market (DOM). Homes sold in 23 days this Jan compared to 25 last year. This seems slow since we became accustomed to 7 days like we had in Jan 2022. But compare this to the pre-COVID 32 DOM of Jan 2020 and you get a different picture.

While Pending sales only increased slightly, it most likely was impacted by the week of bad weather. This is also where we are really seeing the impact of mortgage rates. When rates come down enough to start seeing double-digit improvements in Pending sales, we will KNOW the market is about to get hot again.