— Return to Erika’s Website — 

So here we are, friends, toward the end of January with the continuing conversation about our competitive Real Estate marketplace. And here in Grassland, there is SO much demand to live here and not much inventory. For example, I have three families I’m working with right now, searching for homes. We’ve seen EVERYTHING for sale and there aren’t many choices! (One family is honed in on Temple Hills, another one Fieldstone Farms and another one is the general Grassland Middle School zone. So, ahem, holler at me if you’re thinking of selling).

Two of these Buyers will be Sellers… if they could only find a “next place” to live.

Picking Up Where We Left Off

I guess you could call this Part 2 from my last blog post. I shared some insight into The Why regarding Williamson County’s increasing popularity among buyers — and why we’re not seeing as much activity among sellers (though for perspective’s sake, it’s still a robust marketplace). It basically boils down to new industry being recruited by Williamson County’s Chamber of Commerce (which I go into detail in that last post), combined with personal choices and proximity to family members.

Those of us already living here and just wanting to move around are perhaps in a more competitive marketplace than ever.. and we feel it. But it’s not all bad news!

You’re Likely Making Money

Whether you’re a Buyer or a Seller, you could stand to benefit by all of this demand.

We are seeing dramatic price increases because of it and our average price per square foot year-over-year continues to climb.

In Williamson County, our average price per square foot was $189 in 2019, growing by $41 per square foot in 5 years! The average Williamson County home sale price for 2019 came in at $628,523 — an increase of $149,000 since 2015!

This picture to the right is an example of one of these Williamson County homes that sold for close to $628,000 in 2019. This is a Westhaven home in Franklin, with 4 bedrooms, 3 full baths and 3,349 square feet. It closed in August at an even $628,000.

Getting down to specifics, Grassland’s numbers are even more impressive.

Though our rate of increase isn’t as high in the same time period, we’re still showing dramatic gains with our average home sale price at $758,416 in 2019. Our price per square foot is averaging $202 in 2019. Also, our average days on market hovers around 32, which is nothing to sneeze at!

A Hunterwood home is an example of one of these homes zoned for Grassland Middle School. It boasts 5 Beds, 4 Full Baths, 1 Half Bath and 4,000 square feet. It closed in November 2019 at an even $760,000 after being on the market for 52 days.

So if you look at this data, it’s basically showing that if you bought a home similar to this in the Grassland Middle School zone in 2015, you could stand to be making more than $100,000 on your investment. Not a bad rate of return!

And as a Buyer looking in this area, this could be good news too, if you’re into looking to the past to paint a picture for the future. Sure, you’re paying more for a home this year than you would have last year. But you also stand a chance to gain much more in the following years.

What Others are Seeing

It’s always interesting to see how our backyard stacks up in the bigger picture. Looking at sales across the country, homeowners have seen record home price gains in more than 100 metro areas across the country.

Attom Data Solutions, which is a property data provider, reported Thursday that the average homeowner saw a home price gain of $65,500 when they sold their home in 2019. It doesn’t say how long they owned their homes before selling, but Attom does report this as a 34% average return on investment compared to the homeowners’ original purchase prices.

Something Else Interesting

An article by Inman, which is a Real Estate trade magazine, reports all-cash purchases dropped to their lowest level since 2007… to 25.3 percent. They draw the connection to more buyers taking advantage of low interest rates and FHA loans (11.9 percent of buyers).

It’s the recurring theme that’s been thrown around A LOT these past couple of years and continues to be repeated as interest rates continue to drop — “Money is cheap right now.”

So keep all of this in mind if you’re considering buying OR selling. It all goes together in this puzzle called Real Estate.

— Return to Erika’s Website —

I’m a Grassland area resident… I’m a Williamson County, TN Realtor®… and I always offer a complimentary, no commitment, no pressure meeting to see what your home could sell for. I love helping my neighbors buy and sell homes!