The spring market is here, and houses are flowing onto the market as vigorously as last month’s rains flooded basements and crawl spaces. The real estate bubble is yet to burst, and sellers know it. Prices remain on the rise.
Prices do not fall in Nashville unless there is a recession or some other national or international crisis. They do not fluctuate like the stock market and they are on a constant rise due, in part, to how well the city has fared.
During a discussion last week, one real estate developer said the fact that there is no income tax and other taxes are lower than in some other larger cities makes it easy for the state and the city to recruit businesses to relocate here.
Our low tax burden makes luring businesses to Nashville as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, he says, adding there are only five total states with such light tax burdens.
Regardless, there are some people who would simply rather live in New York than Nashville, maybe as many as six million of them.
There are sellers who feel the same way about their homes. The market is so hot they don’t want to to worry with the minutiae when it comes to selling their homes. They decline appointments when it is not convenient for them to allow their homes to be shown.
In many cases, there is one buyer for the property, even in Nashville. If that person is turned away it could take weeks, even months before another comes along to purchase the home.
Sellers should make their homes accessible and impeccable. The lock on the front door should open with ease. So many times, the seller says, “You just have to jiggle it a little and hold your mouth a certain way, ha ha ha.”
It is no laughing matter to the potential buyer who is standing in the rain as the Realtor drops all the sales sheets and other buyer information into the mud beside the door. If the front door does not function properly, what else is broken?
Everyone loves their pets, and all pets that are not bathed as often as children – or adults, for that matter – will carry a nice odor, much like unbathed humans carry. Buyers do not like houses with halitosis.
Believe it or not, some buyers do not share the culinary tastes of some sellers. Bacon grease, curry sauce, ginger, fried chicken or fish, grilled steaks, moussaka or fresh crab legs with their shells in the trash do not entice buyers to come in and prepare the same delightful meal whose decaying corpse is in the trash can.
Sale of the Week
Chandler Whitley is one of the region’s most successful real estate brokers, and her partnership with Kortney Wilson has elevated their team at Village to new heights. One of the keys to their monstrous sales numbers is bringing a creative design talent to the table when listing homes, especially new construction.
Even though she and Wilson have amassed historic numbers in sales, Whitley is slow to blow their horn and, in fact, never has. When she wrote to share the data on their most recent sales, it was out of character. Based on her personality, there was no doubt that the information would be worthy of mention. It was.
One of her revelations is that color has returned to the market. Chandler and Kortney have three houses on Stockell in the Cleveland Park area, two are loaded with color, and one is the traditional white throughout that has dominated the décor of new construction for the past six years.
Stark has replaced dark when it comes to cabinets, flooring and appliances. Kortney Wilson notes that the two Stockell houses that include “insane pops of color” pushed the “envelope a bit on design, yet both of those sold with multiple offers.” The “all-white-on-white” house has yet to sell, she says.
She says buyers are “over pale houses” and are ready for something new. Based on the data provided by Whitley, these buyers are ready to pay for some pop, too, as these houses sold for the highest prices in the area, coming in at $565,000 and $560,000, respectively. Both were historic highs for the area.
In the current market, the descriptions written on the remarks section of listings are more important than they were in the past. This is a result of the invasion and dominance of companies like Zillow, Trulia and Redfin that take the information from the local multiple listing services and other sources and present them to the world. More than 90 percent of homebuyers say that they first saw their houses online.
In their public remarks, the Village team wrote: “Gorgeous renovation with a warm, super vibey feel.” Later, they added they had exquisite Kichler lighting and “soft close cabs.”
They wrote for their audience, and the audience responded with multiple offers. If none of the potential buyers had ever heard of Kichler lighting, they knew it had to be good.
The houses are located at 816 and 832 Stockell Street, and both have three bedrooms, two full bathrooms and one half bathroom with about 2,500 square feet.
They might establish a new record once they get a painter into the other house.
Richard Courtney is a licensed real estate broker with Fridrich and Clark Realty and can be reached at [email protected].