Prices surge as Knoxville housing market demand grows and housing supply dwindles

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - A new report from the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors showed home prices and rent were becoming too expensive for many Knoxville residents to afford.

Knoxville used to be considered an affordable place to live but that is quickly changing, according to a spokesperson with the association, Hancen Sale.

”Knoxville is on the map. People are moving here at a rate we haven’t seen before and so there is a ton of demand for housing that the limited supply has started to drive up prices in a way that we really have not seen,” said Sale.

The report stated someone who makes $75,000 or less can only afford a third of the listings that are on the market.

“Coming back from the great recession almost a decade ago we stopped building houses at the rate that we were. So we underbuilt houses for the better part of the decade, and that’s left us with this huge housing deficit of housing units,” said Sale. ”About ten years ago it was about 180 something thousand dollars for the median-priced home, at this point in the early months of 2022 in the county we’re seeing the median price hover around 300,000.”

Sale said the Knoxville Area Association of Realtors forecasted a continued price growth in the range of the low to mid-teens, meaning another year of double-digit growth for homes, and another year of high teens growth in rent.

People should spend no more than 30% of their income on housing, according to Sale.

He spoke about a solution called a green tape program that created a database of vacant and abandoned properties, helping to get those on the market.

“The report proposed a number of solutions from a green tape program which expedites the review process for desirable housing development to creating a database of vacant and abandoned properties to help bring those back online into productive uses,” he said.

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