Hard time for home buyers in Knox County

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Looking to buy a house in Knox County? You might have a hard time finding something.

Hancen Sale with the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors is studying market trends. He has some good news, mixed with some bad.

“Overall it’s a very strong market. We just don’t have enough housing. Supply and demand is not in balance at all,” said Sale.

He says the demand is high- more people wanting to move to Knox County. The supply is low- few homes on the market and builders trying to build more.

“You can’t just build a house in a week and put it on the market and sell it. This is a long-term thing,” said Sale.

He’s collecting data and making charts to present to the Knox county commission next week.

“When the economy started to reopen you see there was a huge boom of home sales in the summer months, higher home sales than there’s been in the last three months,” said Sale.

He says now is the best time for the county to consider new policies before more people move to the area.

“We have the distribution center in Blount County and a distribution center in the former East Town Mall and some technology companies who are adding jobs just rapidly. It only brings more people to the market, so it’s likely that the demand will remain elevated,” said Sale.

He adds policies to tear down empty, blighted properties or reduce permitting fees for houses under a certain price point, which could speed up the time between construction and move in.

Copyright 2021 WVLT. All rights reserved.