Due to being out of town for a couple of church related trips in July, I’ve been unable to post to our blog on a more timely basis. While our church’s youth mission and beach trips were wonderful it IS time to get back to work and that means posting more regularly to this blog among lots of other things. The second quarter statistics for our Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors show a continued busy pace with nearly $210 million in volume. The average price of these sales (which include everything from small lots and commercial transactions in addition to the regular residential sales) was $201,229 with a total of 1,043 sales being reported . This compares to the same period last year during which our board tallied 1121 transactions at an average price of $179,233 and a total volume of just over $200 million.

Importantly, the figures for 2006 versus 2005 when considering just homes (not land, lots, or commercial) are more telling. In the second quarter of 2005 our market had 788 sales with an average price of $185,959 for total volume of $146,535,833. During the same period in 2006 the board reported 692 sales at an average price of $211,714 and total volume of $146,506,157. Although the total number of units is significantly lower this has been offset almost exactly by a fairly dramatic increase in the average price of these sales. My take on these numbers is that newer, larger, and grander homes continue to sell well while older vacation rental properties without all of the bells and whistles seem to be suffering a bit.

Our office was busy as well with over $43 million in combined closed listing and selling volume during the same period of 04/01/2006 to 06/30/2006. RE/MAX All Pro, Rentals continues to set the pace in the county year to date and you can view that full report here: http://www.gatlinburg-homes.com/pdf/Sales_Ranking.pdf.

For professional real estate service anywhere in the county for any type of real estate need please don’t hesitate to contact Jeff Schoenfield and The Schoenfield Team at 865-436-0444 or by visiting our primary site at http://www.Gatlinburg-Homes.com.