With the real estate market locally and in many places around the country sharply off the highs reached a couple of years ago there is a lot of pessimism out there. Daily reports from the media talk about the crisis in the housing market or the mortgage meltdown that we are supposedly going through. Ignored is the fact that over 94% of all mortgages are being paid on a timely basis and although the higher than average number of foreclosures is impacting the market it isn’t a meltdown at all. Bad news however sells and this is why we constantly hear the negative reports while better news is often ignored because it doesn’t fit the template.

In fact, a local newspaper reported called me recently and wanted to do a story about the state of our local Sevier County real estate market. When I informed him of the state of the overall market but that we were actually having a good year he lost interest and actually found another agency with a much sadder story to tell. My information was never used in his article because it wasn’t negative enough.

With all of this said I did have to laugh when I saw the sign below recently. While real estate in the Pigeon Forge (or for that matter Gatlinburg) area certainly isn’t selling at the pace or prices of a year or two ago it isn’t this bad: