How Low Can We Go??
While January is typically a slow real estate sales month in our Gatlinburg area this is ridiculous:
While there will certainly be some stragglers reported in late and we will likely eclipse November 2008’s atrocious results we won’t pass them by much. Sadly, this gives December’s number a bit of a “flash in the pan” quality rather than the beginning of a sustainable recovery that all of us in the East Tennessee real estate industry have been hoping for.
Interestingly, I personally have again been blessed with a very good month. My 6 closed residential transactions during the month of January 2009, while not a great number, does represent more homes sold than any of the other roughly 500 agents in our board of realtors had. This nearly 10% market share (measured by residential units sold) roughly matches our performance during each of the last 3 months. With 6 more transactions already pending for February, you’d think we’d be pretty happy here in Gatlinburg.
Unfortunately, the reason for my team’s success is that we are primarily working with foreclosures currently and this is very difficult work. Sad tales, lower prices, more paperwork, and very challenging corporate sellers make our real estate marketing job harder than ever. Kind of depressing when almost 10% of our entire Smoky Mountain real estate market isn’t enough to make me smile…