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It’s a new year – and it feels like new life has been breathed into our Real Estate market!

For the first time in a long time, we’ve only got 11 more homes For Sale in Franklin than we have Under Contract as of today. (323 Active Listings vs. 312 Under Contract)

22 of those homes went Under Contract last weekend. For 10 of those 22 homes, it was their first day on market.

Seeing all the yellow dots in the MLS is a beautiful sight!

What is Going On?

Mortgage interest rates continue a consistently downward slide. hitting a low this week that we haven’t seen since early Fall. Most products are dipping to the high-5% range. 30-year fixed is hovering just above 6%, as seen in the below graph by Mortgage News Daily, as of COB Thursday.

Likely due to this, mortgage demand jumped by 28% in one week. Though our national mortgage application rate is still lower year-to-year, this is a dramatic increase from what we’ve seen in the past several months. It also helps that prices in our housing market have softened enough to help with affordability.

My fall prediction that December would be a good time to buy real estate came true. Take a look at our price dip as of the close of last month, here in Williamson County. We are back to October pricing – but still up by $149,000 since December 2021.

December Closings reflect homes that likely went Under Contract in November (for the most part). And I’m willing to bet January’s median sales prices hover around the same mark, or even lower, due to the holidays and seasonal slowdown we typically experience with market movement in December.
And speaking of typical market patterns, we are consistently mimicking inventory trends from 2019, now that our inventory levels are rebounding. The past few months have REALLY felt like a return to normalcy, and this chart shows us as much.
The only thing NOT normal still, as you look at this chart, is how low our inventory remains. 2019 was considered an incredibly low inventory year – and even with our increase in Days on Market, we still have fewer homes available now than then.

A Few NuancesI’m purposefully not getting too specific in this post about Grassland, because we had SO few homes hit the market and sell last month that it’s, quite frankly, alarming. And because so few homes sold, our data is skewed. More on this in a minute. But first, I dare you to look at this chart and not say holy cow:
This chart reflects the number of homes sold each December for the past 20 years (not prices).
As you can see, we sold fewer homes here in Grassland than any of the years surrounding the Great Depression. There are two reasons believed to be to blame:

Locally, we’ve noticed more of a slowdown in the upper-tier luxury market. Some of these would-be Sellers have backed off from selling their $2m+ homes, or postponed their plans for now. They’re likely concerned about selling at the low point of the market, and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars that they would have made 6 months ago, and may be able to make in 2023. Their carrying costs are less expensive, so they’re riding out the storm.

A lot of Would-be Sellers have such low interest rates on their mortgages, either from purchasing or refinancing in 2021/2022, that they don’t want to sell and give that up right now. 

So median sales prices for Grassland right now are low – with so few homes selling and a large majority of them are less-than-$1m properties.
2023 is Looking UpWe’re already off to a strong start this year with an increase in showing traffic and mortgage applications as our leading indicators. In just the past week, I’ve picked up three new Buyer clients, got a listing Under Contract, and my Sellers waiting in the wings are “this close” to hitting the open market.
I think as more Buyers come out again, the Sellers will follow, which will bring more Buyers (it’s a circular cause and effect – just like how the market dried up last year).
But I *don’t* believe we’ll have a runaway train with prices again. Those days are long gone, thankfully. 2023 will be a year of leveled mortgage rates, home prices and expectations — among both Buyers and Sellers.
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Need a plan tailored to your needs? Reach out! I’m a Franklin resident and a Multi-Platinum Award-Winning Williamson County REALTOR ranking in the top 1.5% of agents in Williamson County. I am a Million-Dollar GUILD Member of the Luxury Home Marketing Institute, my market insights are regularly featured in broadcast media, and my success planted me on the front page of a December 2021 Nashville-area Magazine. But most importantly, I specialize in helping my friends and neighbors buy and sell homes.