Would you call it the summer slump?

The summer slump in NashvilleSome people call it the summer slump, others think that the market has peaked in Nashville, and Wall Street thinks that Real Estate should have an index of it’s own.

The S&P 500, a broad index of 500 large company stocks, will soon be comprised of 11 divisions.  Real Estate is the newest division that will be created with 28 Real Estate Investment Trusts that were previously under Finance.

And its caused a influx of cash ahead of the change in order to rebalance of investment portfolios.  Wall Street is pulling billions out of the market and into real estate.  Interesting. 

In Nashville, late July and August is usually the summer slump.  It is a time when people are focused on last minute vacations and getting back to school.  In a hot market, we might expect it to go flat this time of year and it did.  

Sales were down 0.8% over August 2015, but we were up slightly over last month with 3,741 closings in Metro Nashville.  I expect we will be on a slight downward trend towards 3,000 sales per month by the end of the year.  Year to date, we are 4.4% ahead of 2015.  There were 3,717 sales pending at the end of August, which should have a positive effect on September sales.

Prices are up 7.7% over August 2015 with the median price for residential sales being $253,000.  The average days on market for sales was 51 days.

Inventory is down 9.1% over the same month last year.  Most of the missing inventory is in single family homes and lots. 

I expect the market to remain strong with somewhat less appreciation.  We’ve experienced double digit growth the last two years and it would be unrealistic to expect it to continue forever.  

That’s my 2 cents.

What do you think about the Nashville market?    Let me know in the comments below.

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