TRI-CITIES, Tenn./Va. (WJHL) – After a competitive housing market this summer, area realtors said demand is starting to wane.
If you look around, it’s still not too hard to spot a “for sale” sign in the Tri-Cities and surrounding areas. Northeast Tennessee Association of Realtors (NETAR) Treasurer Kim Keith said her organization has been carefully tracking home sales growth rates in the area.
“Back in July I think we had a 20% growth rate year over year on homes that sold in Johnson City,” Keith said. “If you had a $200,000 house you bought it a year ago, it’s worth $240 [thousand] a year later. That’s a 20% growth. Right now, we’re at 14 to 15% growth, so it’s still up.”
Realtors said that small cities in Northeast Tennessee are especially seeing higher home sales growth rates.
Blountville and Elizabethton lead growth rates this year with 54.5% and 34% rates. Keith said she found it surprising Rogersville is also seeing significant demand.
“It’s a good 30 minutes from Kingsport, and it has a lot of growth,” Keith said. “I think that’s just buyers coming in from Florida, California, New York and saying, ‘Hey, I want some land. I want to be truly in the middle of nowhere.’ Rogersville was a little bit of a surprise on that one.”
Keith said this could be due to buyers finding lower prices in more remote areas or just looking to live in a quieter place.
Johnson City’s home sales growth rate currently sits at 11.6% while Kingsport’s is at 8.8%.
“There’s not a lot of lots in Kingsport or Johnson City left to develop,” Keith said. “So, where are the developers, where are the builders going? They’re going to where there’s land.”
Keith said as a native to the area, she’s not surprised that people are itching to move to the region.
“We are on the map because we live in God’s country in a beautiful area,” Keith said.
