Homes Sales up 5% in Nashville

It’s not as hot as the chicken, but Nashville’s housing market is flashing signs of a bounce-back year, after a sluggish 2023.

Home sales in the Music City increased by 5 percent year-over-year in January, the Nashville Business Journal reported, citing a study by the Greater Nashville Realtors.

It’s a positive sign for a housing market that saw its total home sales decline 16 percent in 2023. January also marked the first year-over-year increase since March 2022, when there was a 0.5 percent spike in sales.

“Key performance indicators are positive coming out of January,” Greater Nashville Realtors president Kevin Wilson told the outlet. “Another bright spot coming out of the year is an increase in both single-family and condo median home sale prices compared to last year.”

There were 1,886 closings in the Nashville metropolitan area last month, compared to 1,802 in January 2023. Of those, 1,514 were single-family homes, a 7 percent year-over-year increase. Condo transactions, however, fell from 276 to 250. Pending sales also dropped from 2,567 in January 2023 to 1,898 at the end of last month.

Inventory at the end of January stood at 8,875 — 5,955 single-family homes and 1,224 condos — marking a 4 percent jump from last year. But that’s still lower than pre-pandemic levels, when inventory typically hovered above 10,000. Single-family homes on the market decreased by 2 percent compared to last year, the outlet reported.

Elevated mortgage rates kept a lot of would-be buyers and sellers on the sidelines in 2023. But with rates starting to come back down, buying activity is ramping up.

Nashville’s median price for a single-family home in January rose to $460,000 from $450,000 a year ago. Condos sold for a median price of $349,360, compared to $325,000 last year. On average, single-family homes spent 57 days on the market.—Quinn Donoghue