Whenever I hear the phrase "housing crisis" I'm thankful to live and work in Nashville where the panic is much more subdued. For most neighborhoods, the average home prices are holding steady or continuing to increase. The market has changed, but has proved to be quite resilient so far.

I know some people are tired of Realtors trying to put a positive spin on the market. I sincerely don't want to do this, but instead just take an honest look at what is happening. When we examine the numbers, we see that the past year or two have provided some challenges, yet most areas are still seeing increases in sales prices, and the trends over the past 5 years are still fantastic.

One way that the market has changed is that fewer homes are selling. For example, East Nashville had 163 homes sell last year, to this year's 115. Crieve Hall had 42 last year, to this year's 28. In this way, our market has cooled. Listings are piling up and there are less buyers out there looking at homes.

However, the good news is that even with less homes selling, the overall Nashville market is holding strong. The graph to the left tracks average home sales for some of Nashville's popular neighborhoods. I wanted to look at both the change from last year (2007) and the changes from 5 years ago (2004).

For each neighborhood, I selected a geographic area and took an average of all the home closings from Jan-April of the selected years.

Please note that there are, of course, other factors at play here, such as renovated homes. For example, a great deal of the amazing appreciation in Germantown is due to so many homes being renovated or newly built over these five years. The average sales prices are so much more, because the average quality of home is so much better, as well as increased demand for downtown urban neighborhoods, etc.

When selling a home in this sort of atmosphere, it becomes even more important that your home stands apart from the competition. This translates to pricing the home right and getting it in the best condition possible. Buyers have more homes to choose from, so yours has to stand out- or be priced accordingly.

Remember that property values are very local. If you'd like me to run a report for your specific neighborhood please give me a call. (Peter @ 513-2447)

-Peter, www.NashvilleCityHomes.com