When was the last time that you saw a gain of 61% NOT being accepted as totally good news? That is however exactly the situation we have when analyzing the preliminary Gatlinburg area residential real estate sales results for November 2009 as reported by our Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors.
The reason why is simple – We are comparing to an EXTREMELY weak period a year ago. In fact, November 2008 was THE low point for residential sales in our Gatlinburg area real estate market going back MANY years with a total of only 67 total units sold. By comparison, the 108 sales reported for November 2009 is way up but nowhere near recent month’s totals. To be sure, November is usually a pretty soft month and we will no doubt have additional sales reported over the next couple of weeks. October 2009 unit sales finished at a very respectable 143 but my guess is that November 2009 will likely finish at only around 120-125. This is an okay number but still makes November 2009 one of the lower sold volume months of this year.