Gatlinburg Real Estate Blog

November was an even better month than we thought! With all of the dust now settled, members of the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors combined for a very impressive 158 residential unit sales during November. To provide a little perspective, you have to go all the way back to October 2007 to find any month in which more homes were sold here in the Gatlinburg area. Here is the chart that I have maintained since way back in 2005: As I've said for a long time, you have to have an increase in volume before prices will improve. While one month does not a trend make, this is VERY encouraging for our Gatlinburg area real estate market!! There won't be a headline in the paper that says, the real estate market is currently bottoming and prices appear set to increase. Likewise, we won't know until after mortgage loan rates start back up that we missed the bottom. If you have been considering making a purchase of Sevier County real estate, it looks like we are approaching t...

November was an even better month than we thought! With all of the dust now settled, members of the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors combined for a very impressive 158 residential unit sales during November. To provide a little perspective, you have to go all the way back to October 2007 to find any month in which more homes were sold here in the Gatlinburg area. Here is the chart that I have maintained since way back in 2005: As I've said for a long time, you have to have an increase in volume before prices will improve. While one month does not a trend make, this is VERY encouraging for our Gatlinburg area real estate market!! There won't be a headline in the paper that says, the real estate market is currently bottoming and prices appear set to increase. Likewise, we won't know until after mortgage loan rates start back up that we missed the bottom. If you have been considering making a purchase of Sevier County real estate, it looks like we are app...

Once upon a time, many years ago, Smoky Mountain vacation rental cabins and chalets could actually generate enough rental income to pay for themselves.  In fact, several of our clients purchased or had built multiple cabins over a period of years because they not only paid for themselves, but they also created a handsome after-tax return.  Then came the real estate bubble and prices headed out of sight and in many cases went far beyond any reasonable valuation level.  At the height of the insanity, 480 square foot Gatlinburg area studio cabins sold for well over $200,000 and of course this simply wasn't sustainable.  There are only 365 nights in a year and as a cabin owner, one can only reasonably expect to rent your property for around 200 nights a year at best (although I have personally seen rentals that generated as many as 278 nights in a single year).  After the rental management fee which is typically 40% of gross rentals, cabin owners still must pay...

Once upon a time, many years ago, Smoky Mountain vacation rental cabins and chalets could actually generate enough rental income to pay for themselves.  In fact, several of our clients purchased or had built multiple cabins over a period of years because they not only paid for themselves, but they also created a handsome after-tax return.  Then came the real estate bubble and prices headed out of sight and in many cases went far beyond any reasonable valuation level.  At the height of the insanity, 480 square foot Gatlinburg area studio cabins sold for well over $200,000 and of course this simply wasn't sustainable.  There are only 365 nights in a year and as a cabin owner, one can only reasonably expect to rent your property for around 200 nights a year at best (although I have personally seen rentals that generated as many as 278 nights in a single year).  After the rental management fee which is typically 40% of gross rentals, cabin owners still must p...

Because the vast majority of all my Gatlinburg area real estate sales during the last 3 years has increasingly become foreclosures, we are now accustomed to the "Bad News is Good News" nature of our segment of the business.  As more homeowners have had difficulty making their payments, the number of foreclosures has risen.  Five years ago (way before foreclosures were fashionable) I began to focus on that segment of our Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville real estate market and by the grace of God I have enjoyed a considerable degree of success.  With 115 transactions personally closed this year and another 19 pending sales scheduled to close by year's end I have already exceed last year's numbers.  In fact, I again in 2010 enjoy the #1 position in unit sales in our entire board of nearly 500 agents.  For perspective, the average agent has only about 3 sales for the entire year so we really are blessed!  We have had the l...

Because the vast majority of all my Gatlinburg area real estate sales during the last 3 years has increasingly become foreclosures, we are now accustomed to the "Bad News is Good News" nature of our segment of the business.  As more homeowners have had difficulty making their payments, the number of foreclosures has risen.  Five years ago (way before foreclosures were fashionable) I began to focus on that segment of our Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville real estate market and by the grace of God I have enjoyed a considerable degree of success.  With 115 transactions personally closed this year and another 19 pending sales scheduled to close by year's end I have already exceed last year's numbers.  In fact, I again in 2010 enjoy the #1 position in unit sales in our entire board of nearly 500 agents.  For perspective, the average agent has only about 3 sales for the entire year so we really are blessed!  We have had the l...

Now that a bit more of the dust has settled, it is possible to get a more accurate count of the residential sales tally as reported by our Great Smoky Mountains Association of Realtors MLS database.  Here is the table we have maintained for the past 5 years: Although more will certainly be added (there were a couple of additional sales reported for September when I reviewed the totals for this post this morning), we will likely not come close to the relatively good 152 sales in October of 2009.  Looks like we might be starting another streak of red numbers as I believe we will also have a hard time matching the sales recorded in November & December of 2009. On a brighter note, our RE/MAX All Pro office had a good month with nearly 8% of all of the transaction sides that were recorded in October by the entire board.  Sadly, foreclosures accounted for the majority of all of the transactions that we recorded during October.

Now that a bit more of the dust has settled, it is possible to get a more accurate count of the residential sales tally as reported by our Great Smoky Mountains Association of Realtors MLS database.  Here is the table we have maintained for the past 5 years: Although more will certainly be added (there were a couple of additional sales reported for September when I reviewed the totals for this post this morning), we will likely not come close to the relatively good 152 sales in October of 2009.  Looks like we might be starting another streak of red numbers as I believe we will also have a hard time matching the sales recorded in November & December of 2009. On a brighter note, our RE/MAX All Pro office had a good month with nearly 8% of all of the transaction sides that were recorded in October by the entire board.  Sadly, foreclosures accounted for the majority of all of the transactions that we recorded during October.

With 88 closed sales already in 2010 and 20 more pending and a little more than one quarter of the year yet to go I have certainly been very blessed this year.  So many of our friends in the real estate business have not been nearly as fortunate and their situations sadly are reflected quite accurately by this cartoon: The essential keys to success in the real estate marketing business have always been: Having well priced listings that represent true value as compared with comparable properties. Effective, colorful descriptions of these listings accompanied by attractive photos. Distribution of the information above to the most potential buyers possible.  One of the real keys to our recent success has been our focus on foreclosure listings.  By the grace of God we saw the foreclosure mess coming early on and started tuning our business in that direction.  Because we are the lead local listing broker for Fannie Mae and Citi...

With 88 closed sales already in 2010 and 20 more pending and a little more than one quarter of the year yet to go I have certainly been very blessed this year.  So many of our friends in the real estate business have not been nearly as fortunate and their situations sadly are reflected quite accurately by this cartoon: The essential keys to success in the real estate marketing business have always been: Having well priced listings that represent true value as compared with comparable properties. Effective, colorful descriptions of these listings accompanied by attractive photos. Distribution of the information above to the most potential buyers possible.  One of the real keys to our recent success has been our focus on foreclosure listings.  By the grace of God we saw the foreclosure mess coming early on and started tuning our business in that direction.  Because we are the lead local listing broker for Fannie Mae and...

While speaking with a potential seller yesterday about their personal situation and his Gatlinburg real estate, he uttered words I've heard more than once recently:  "Until the whole world changed...".  He was talking about how his financial planner's advice to purchase a larger primary residence and also to buy vacation rental properties (which he did) didn't pan out.  This certainly seemed like a good idea back in 2006 when the Smoky Mountain real estate (and in deed most of the country's) markets were still white hot.  Unfortunately now he is at risk of losing it all and his retirement savings are gone like a vapor.  I liken the change in our local economy over the past several years to the children's game of Musical Chairs.  Unlike the child's game in which a single chair is removed each round, the real world had several "chairs" removed all at once. This left lots of participants unable to find a seat thus eliminating them from...

While speaking with a potential seller yesterday about their personal situation and his Gatlinburg real estate, he uttered words I've heard more than once recently:  "Until the whole world changed...".  He was talking about how his financial planner's advice to purchase a larger primary residence and also to buy vacation rental properties (which he did) didn't pan out.  This certainly seemed like a good idea back in 2006 when the Smoky Mountain real estate (and in deed most of the country's) markets were still white hot.  Unfortunately now he is at risk of losing it all and his retirement savings are gone like a vapor.  I liken the change in our local economy over the past several years to the children's game of Musical Chairs.  Unlike the child's game in which a single chair is removed each round, the real world had several "chairs" removed all at once. This left lots of participants unable to find a seat thus eliminating them from...

Some friends of friends recently made the decision to strategically default on the mortgages that they owed on two homes.  House prices in the area have dropped significantly from the bubble era peak levels that were reached 3 years ago.  Unfortunately, that is when these folks bought a couple these properties (they didn't use us!).  One was a primary residence and the other an investment property but they were both wildly overpriced when the couple purchased them.  Now that they are sharply underwater on both homes with mortgages well above the current post-bubble values, they have decided to simply walk away.  The couple has actually just purchased another home that is a well priced foreclosure to fix up and move into with the plan being to let the bank take back the other two properties while they walk away from the bad investment decision and the losses. What this couple doesn't quite realize is that banks have the right to pursue deficiency judgments a...

Some friends of friends recently made the decision to strategically default on the mortgages that they owed on two homes.  House prices in the area have dropped significantly from the bubble era peak levels that were reached 3 years ago.  Unfortunately, that is when these folks bought a couple these properties (they didn't use us!).  One was a primary residence and the other an investment property but they were both wildly overpriced when the couple purchased them.  Now that they are sharply underwater on both homes with mortgages well above the current post-bubble values, they have decided to simply walk away.  The couple has actually just purchased another home that is a well priced foreclosure to fix up and move into with the plan being to let the bank take back the other two properties while they walk away from the bad investment decision and the losses. What this couple doesn't quite realize is that banks have the right to pursue deficiency judgments...

Just time for a very quick post but June's residential sales in our Gatlinburg area real estate market are already better than the number recorded a year ago.  Although more sales will certainly be posted by the members of the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors, the snapshot total recorded so far is 120 units.  Although not a fabulous number, it is at least more than the paltry 116 total Smoky Mountain homes sold during June 2009.  Unfortunately, real estate foreclosures appear to be up as well with a similar number of initial foreclosure filings occurring during June 2010.  Stay tuned for more information to be posted soon (but not tonight) on this page.

Just time for a very quick post but June's residential sales in our Gatlinburg area real estate market are already better than the number recorded a year ago.  Although more sales will certainly be posted by the members of the Great Smoky Mountain Association of Realtors, the snapshot total recorded so far is 120 units.  Although not a fabulous number, it is at least more than the paltry 116 total Smoky Mountain homes sold during June 2009.  Unfortunately, real estate foreclosures appear to be up as well with a similar number of initial foreclosure filings occurring during June 2010.  Stay tuned for more information to be posted soon (but not tonight) on this page.

In my last post I discussed what a challenging day I had and how hard our office staff has been working lately.  Unfortunately, I failed to give proper credit to Cindy Hopson, our team's lead Buyer Specialist who is also our daughter.  Although between the two of us Karen and I have 5 children (we could field a basketball team if only they were a little more athletic!) Cindy is the only one that currently works in the family real estate business.  Cindy is responsible for making sure that all of the inquiries we receive by phone or email are properly responded to.  Not only that, she manages calls that are intended for me on nights and weekends so I can have at least a resemblance of a life.  In all of this, Cindy does a wonderful job and has already helped several buyers this year to complete a purchase of Gatlinburg area real estate and working only with buyers, is one of the leading agents in the area.  For that matter, Cindy is also an expert on Pi...

In my last post I discussed what a challenging day I had and how hard our office staff has been working lately.  Unfortunately, I failed to give proper credit to Cindy Hopson, our team's lead Buyer Specialist who is also our daughter.  Although between the two of us Karen and I have 5 children (we could field a basketball team if only they were a little more athletic!) Cindy is the only one that currently works in the family real estate business.  Cindy is responsible for making sure that all of the inquiries we receive by phone or email are properly responded to.  Not only that, she manages calls that are intended for me on nights and weekends so I can have at least a resemblance of a life.  In all of this, Cindy does a wonderful job and has already helped several buyers this year to complete a purchase of Gatlinburg area real estate and working only with buyers, is one of the leading agents in the area.  For that matter, Cindy is also an expert on ...

In analyzing our performance during the first portion of 2010 there is much reason to celebrate until you look beneath the surface.  On first glance, my 49 closed or pending sales since January 1st, 2010 puts me on a pace to successfully complete around 120 Gatlinburg area real estate unit sales in 2010.  This puts a large smile on my face because that level of success would be my highest total ever.  With the majority of these sales being foreclosures however, the picture gets a little less clear when you look closer.  Because foreclosure transactions require much more paperwork, effort, and time to complete, we have had to significantly increase the size of our staff.  We now have 3 full time staff people, 2 part time employees, and 3 full time sales people on the team so labor costs are up.  With 36 closed transactions and 13 more pending, you might think that our Smoky Mountain real estate inventory would be diminished but that isn't the ...

In analyzing our performance during the first portion of 2010 there is much reason to celebrate until you look beneath the surface.  On first glance, my 49 closed or pending sales since January 1st, 2010 puts me on a pace to successfully complete around 120 Gatlinburg area real estate unit sales in 2010.  This puts a large smile on my face because that level of success would be my highest total ever.  With the majority of these sales being foreclosures however, the picture gets a little less clear when you look closer.  Because foreclosure transactions require much more paperwork, effort, and time to complete, we have had to significantly increase the size of our staff.  We now have 3 full time staff people, 2 part time employees, and 3 full time sales people on the team so labor costs are up.  With 36 closed transactions and 13 more pending, you might think that our Smoky Mountain real estate inventory would be diminished but that isn't the ...