In Tennessee, Clarksville Housing Market is Red Hot
In most housing markets across the city, sellers, Realtors and builders are desperate to attract mortgage loan applicants.
The Tennessee county of Clarksville, however, has the opposite problem: keeping enough home inventory built to meet demand.
It’s been that way since 9/11, according developer Jimmy Settle of Crye-Leike real estate and president-elect of the Clarksville Association of Realtors. He says there’s no let-up in sight.
“Since 9/11, we haven’t been able to get our inventory built back up. There are a variety of reasons for that.”
After the terrorist attacks more than five years ago changed the U.S. economy, mortgage rates sank; today, there are still 30-year fixed mortgages available to homebuyers for as low as 6 percent interest.
This has driven up demand and closings, and to some extent, the average price of a home in the Clarksville area. According to The Leaf-Chronicle, three years ago, the average sale price here was $111,941. Today, it stands at $137,042.
While the nation saw the average price of a new home tumble recently, Clarksville’s market held strong, partly due to the return of Fort Campbell soldiers from Iraq. Wanting to settle down, they’ve been anxious to look into Tennessee mortgage loans at good rates.
Local real estate forecats: Here, real estate market watchers - including Settle, Dick Littleton with Prudential Professionals, and Todd Harvey with Byers and Harvey - say all is reasonably well if you look at the numbers.
They note that Clarksville’s market is not in a position to over-inflate prices, because VA and FHA loans tend to be uniquely dominant here, and they come with tighter restrictions on pricing.
Redeployments of Fort Campbell soldiers, along with the gradual build-up of troops on pos,t is helping to drive lower inventory, Settle said, along with a factor that he said people tend to forget about.
“There are currently 1,600 (high school) seniors in the local school system. Fifty percent of those students will probably never leave here. And they’ll be homebuyers soon. We are seeing people around 21- to- 22-years-old buying homes,” he said.
“It’s true that we have a younger-than-average population in Montgomery County, but we are seeing people move here across all ages and income brackets because of our relatively low cost of living, compared even to [the Nashville housing market].”
As the population age diversifies, so too will the types of homes built. Average home prices will continue to climb, Settle said, as a more-affluent buyer profile grows here.
Clarksville may not become the next Brentwood anytime soon, but many of the new homes going up are no longer just starter houses for young, first-time buyers. Nashville commuters are, in fact, a big reason why Sango is one of the fastest-growing areas of Clarksville.
A bright future: Realtors also point to the St. Bethlehem area around the site of the planned, new hospital as a region of the community that will see houses and businesses pop up rapidly over the next 10 to 12 years.
“You still aren’t seeing quite as much new home construction across the (Cumberland) river, in places like Woodlawn, but we will start to see property values escalate out there soon also,” Settle said.
Though it doesn’t have its own factory or warehouse, real estate is the leading industry in Montgomery County, market watchers insist, especially when calculating the local revenue impact in terms of payroll, taxes and other almost-infinite, residual economic effects.
There are currently 754 real estate agents in the Clarksville market, a dramatic increase over 220 from a year ago. Why? Because such jobs are paying off as consumers great deals in the county.