With all of the gloom and doom in the press regarding the national real estate market I am more than a little cheered up regarding our own market’s May performance. While the national real estate numbers that have been recently released are generally for the first quarter of the year ending March 31st, our local numbers are naturally published much more quickly. The number of total sales reported for the month of May will without a doubt increase over the next couple of weeks, but the current tally is at only 95. You are probably wondering where the good news is that I teased about in the headline. Okay, here it is…
Of course, today’s national news is about price averages which have continued to fall in all but one of the twenty largest markets around the country (the only exception being Washington, DC). While I have tracked unit numbers and not average sales price for our Gatlinburg area real estate market I’m going to focus on average price this month because it is good news (and I will take good news anywhere that I can find it!). During May, Gatlinburg area real estate agents have so far reported closing only 95 sales but the average home sales price was $181,899, the highest our market has seen since February 2010. Further encouragement comes from the fact that the last few months have (with the notable exception of April and to a lesser degree February) all been higher. Here is a quick graph of our market’s average residential (cabin, chalet, or residence) property’s average selling price going all the way back to January 2007:
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| Gatlinburg Area Residential Property Average Monthly Sales Price |
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| Gatlinburg Area Residential Property Average Monthly Sales Price Smoothed (6 Month Moving Average) |
Although our market’s small overall numbers produce a lot of statistical noise on a month to month basis, there are signs that the average sales price has possibly bottomed. While a few good months don’t mean with any certainty that prices are headed up there is no arguing that the average sales price of homes sold here in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee has for the last few months begun to trend higher! This is definitely worth watching…