Belmont West Real Estate Recap 2024 – The neighborhood recorded 12 home sales over the course of the year with one home being sold twice. The number of sales seems to be independent from the general Knoxville market because our residents tend to buy and enjoy for longer than the local 7 year average. The biggest thing to note as we transition from 2023 to 2024 is the higher ceiling for updated homes. While dated homes are fetching an impressive base of $400,000, remodeling has positioned home values over $200/sq foot. Given the number of large basement ranchers in Belmont West, sales of $800k+ are going to become more common.
General Knoxville market trends mirror Belmont West in that sales prices have continued to climb. The median sales price in the East Tennessee market is now $346,000, which is a 10.8% increase from last year. Differing from the national market, Knoxville is not suffering from an inventory shortage. While they may not be homes that the market is interested in (or interested in paying 7-8% interest on) there are over 4,200 houses available for sale. Typically when buyers are picky, this leads to a buyer’s market. Thanks to record low mortgages in the 2 and 3% percent range, sellers are not flooding the market with houses, even though their homes no longer fit their lifestyle. This has led to stability in the Knoxville market with a slight seller’s advantage (I still categorize Belmont West as a strong seller’s market).
There is still pent up demand for housing in Knoxville, both locally and nationally. If interest rates continue to decrease (currently mid 6’s), be ready for round two of the crazy market that we lived through from from 2020 to 2022. The previously high interest rates prevented out of staters from being able to sell their homes. Once their homes become “affordable” to their markets, the return of cash buyers to Knoxville will commence. At the same time, local sellers will find the lower interest rates more tolerable and will finally put their homes on the market as they pursue their own purchases. Lower rates will also help move the inventory that is sitting on the market currently. The closer we get to 5%, the crazier things will get. If rates slowly decrease, Knoxville will ease back into a strong sellers market.
Questions/thoughts?- Adam Wilson
