GRAY – January’s housing market saw some rollercoaster price swings while sales continued retreating to pre-pandemic levels. Most price swings resulted from skews driven by luxury home sales as hopes for an early Spring market sales boost arrival didn’t live up to expectations.  

Last month’s regional median sales price of $240,000 was up $19,000 (+8.6%) from last year. Piney Flats had January’s highest monthly price of $570,000. The lowest was $172,500 in Elizabethton.  

Fourteen of the 20 city-community markets monitored by the Northeast Tennessee Association of Realtors (NETAR) had year-over-year price increases. The largest was in Erwin, up 113.1%. The largest decline (55.9%) was in Mountain City. 

There were 375 single-family existing home sales during January. That’s 54 fewer (-12.6%) than this time last year and a retreat to the region’s 2017 level. 

Last month’s median list price was down for the third straight month, and the typical sale was 20% below the $299,900 original list price. When it came to negotiations, the number of sellers who offered a discount was down from more than half to 41%. The average discount of $20,624 was down a little over $1,000 from what it was in December.  

New listings declined from December and pending sales all but absorbed the increase. Active inventory is up 20% because the number of sales declined. At month’s end, the region had 2.4 months of inventory. That’s how long it would take to sell the 1,522 existing homes on the market at the current sales pace.  

During early February there were 433 new construction single-family and condo home on the market.  

The typical home that sold last month was on the market for 61 days. This time last year the median days on market was 59 days. 

A full listing for the January regional, county, and community sales and prices analytics can be found on the NETAR website at www.netar.us