At least in relative terms, our market is improving nicely and in a very consistent manner. Although there are 441 single family residences for sale in the south end of Sevier County (composed of the Gatlinburg, Chalet Village, Pittman Center, and Cobbly Nob areas), we have had 235 sales during the past 12 months within these same markets, which calculates to a little under a 2 year supply or absorption rate. While this is still almost FOUR TIMES what is generally considered to be a normal market supply of 6 months, it is down nicely from the 3 plus years supply that we saw last year.
This improvement is not limited to the Gatlinburg and surrounding areas either! In fact, when considering the market supply of single family homes for all of Sevier County, the supply is only 1.60 years. Still much too long but NOWHERE near as depressing as the numbers we have seen during the past several years. Why this improvement in the market? The answer is easy – Sales volumes are increasing (June 2012 marks the 6th consecutive month of strong double digit increases over last year and all previous years as far back as 2008) and hopefully prices will continue to improve too. Here is a table of the current inventory of single family homes by major local market area and the number of sales Gatlinburg area real estate agents have recorded during the past 12 months:
