Although we have been very busy, it appears that the pace of real estate sales has again slowed. In fact, although these numbers are preliminary and will certainly be rounded up, the initial report shows that Gatlinburg area real estate agents sold only 204 homes during June. There will be more sales added, but there is no way that we can catch up to the torrid pace of sales that we enjoyed during June of 2016. For the third month in a row, we will post a decline from the hard to match pace of sales from a year ago. Here is the bad news in graphic form:
The problem is a lack of supply, not a lack of demand. There are lots of willing and ready buyers out there but the inventory is sorely lacking at this point. Construction is one answer as is more owners deciding now is a good time to sell as prices are still rising. If inventory doesn’t increase, there simply isn’t anything available to show to buyers.
To put this in perspective, Sevier County residential real estate sales have not been below the year ago same month value for three consecutive months since 2011. Hopefully, sales will recover and we are still ahead of the pace of the first half of 2016. If this trend continues however, it won’t take long to lose that edge…