Realtors Never Like January! Historically, January is rarely a great month for real estate sales. At least in our Smoky Mountain real estate market this is generally the case. Typically, the winter months are the slowest with the summer being the most active time of year. As the table and charts below show, residential unit sales in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge/Sevierville and surrounding areas have dropped rather dramatically recently: Interestingly enough I have a large number of pending sales currently which seems to run counter to the experience that most agents are experiencing this winter. The reason is that a good portion of our business is focused on marketing bank owned real estate - foreclosures. This segment of the market is currently red hot. We listed a residential home for sale for an out of state bank last Friday and entered it into the MLS database on Saturday morning. By Monday we had no less than 8 offers and the property now has a pending contract for 25% over the ori...