Well, yeah, it kinda does, even if for no other reason than avoiding listings like this one. Because your home can’t just be listed, it has to be listed in the right MLS and with the right information that lets the right buyer find it. This house was listed by a “flat fee” agent in Middle Tennessee. And that agent had to search through a lot of “areas” in the Chattanooga MLS to find the wrong one where this home shows up. Anybody can make a typo (don’t get me started on agents that lack simple proofreading skills**) and that’s bad enough, but this mistake was made because the person who entered it doesn’t actually know the difference between the Brainerd area of Chattanooga and Chattooga County in Georgia. I’m sure she’s a wonderful person with the best of intentions, just lacking in local experience.

And the thing is, that person who is looking to buy something in Chattooga County, is going to be disappointed when they realize that this lovely home is nowhere near them. And the person in Brainerd who wants to live in this lovely home might never know it’s for sale. So if you know what you are doing when it comes to selling your own home and just want to pay someone a flat fee to put it in the MLS, call me up and I’ll take care of it for you. I’ll even tell everyone where it actually is.

*I totally made up that number but I suspect that it’s pretty accurate nonetheless. Also, there are lots of things that make a difference outside of advertising and visibility so don’t discount all of the other work that goes into selling a home.

**Please send your spelling and grammatical corrections on this and any of my other posts to Julia@JuliaOdom.com

A few quick facts about Mountain Shadows:

• Elementary School: Westview Elementary
• Middle School: East Hamilton Middle
• High School: East Hamilton High
• Amenities: Tennis courts, community pool
• 2012 Annual HOA fee: $200/yr (includes 3 pool visits)
• 2012 Fee to join pool: additional $275/yr (unlimited visits)
• More information at the Mountain Shadows HOA website
• Most homes built between 1978 and 2002

One of the things I like about Mountain Shadows is that it’s an “established” neighborhood. When translated from real estate-ese, that means that it’s been around seemingly forever with lots of mature trees and not much building going on. All of the houses are tucked back into their own space rather than sitting out in row after row of similar homes. It gives it a homier feeling than a lot of newer developments.

You’ll see a variety of architectural styles which adds to the feeling that it’s a neighborhood that grew up over time. Cape Cod styles are pretty prevalent and there are more Tudors here than in most other places nearby. You’ll also find a lot of neo-traditional homes, particularly in the newer sections of the subdivision. There are even a few contemporary styles that you’ll recognize from their lack of gables.

If you’re thinking about moving to East Brainerd and Mountain Shadows sounds like it might be for you, give me a call or check out some of the Mountain Shadows homes for sale in Chattanooga. Or, if you’re a nosy neighbor you can see a pdf of all the homes sold in Mountain Shadows this year.

Click on any of the photos below to embiggen and get a better view of the variety of styles that Mountain Shadows offers (none of the homes below are necessarily for sale).

But don’t despair, my crime-fighting friends! Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprises has a program for you. For police officers in good standing who have been either renting (in or out of the city limits) or who currently own but plan to move from outside the city to inside, CNE will provide a $10,000-20,000 forgivable 2nd mortgage. There is no interest and no payments. Provided you remain an officer and continue to live in the home for 5 years, that mortgage will go away. You’ll owe zip, zilch, nada on the 2nd mortgage.

The great thing about this program is that you can choose any home within the city. You aren’t limited to places that you don’t want to live or houses you don’t want to buy. Pick out any home for sale in Chattanooga and you can qualify for $10,000. To sweeten the deal, CNE will up it to $20,000 if you want a house in their target area (mostly between Wilcox & Dodson). For those not familiar, that includes Orchard Knob, Churchville, Bushtown & parts of Glenwood.

The funds are limited so you if you’ve been thinking about buying or moving, give me a call soon!

You can see the complete listing and more pictures of 2363 Heavenly View Dr. by clicking the link.

Or if your tastes run to something a little more modest, you can search other Chattanooga homes for sale.

Photos takes from Greater Chattanooga MLS.

Anyway, I put together this handy-dandy little chart that gives you an idea of what has happened in Hamilton County/Chattanooga real estate since TGAoRES ended.

What I notice about these numbers is that (obviously) there was a pretty big jump for 2006, TGAoRES, and then it goes slightly down, steadily down, off a cliff down, wait! we’re back up*, down a wee bit, & then catapults back up the cliff. What that seems to be saying is that we’ve probably seen the bottom, quite likely some time around mid-2011. Just anecdotally, a lot of people that I’ve helped to make offers in the last year have found that there were other buyers bidding at the same time. In other words, good houses – the ones that the average buyer wants – are selling. And selling quickly in a lot of cases. That doesn’t mean that other houses, those that need a good bit of work or that are over-priced, aren’t just sitting there. Because they are. Sometimes for a long time.

The moral of the story? With interest rates hovering around 3.5-4% and with sales going up by quite a bit in the last year, I can’t see where you’re going to find a better time to buy. Thinking of selling? You might be better off to wait a few more months. If interest rates go up significantly – say 6-7%ish?, that will have a big (bad!) impact on the recovery. Barring that, all you buyers out there need to be seriously thinking about where you want your new house to be. Call me and I’ll help you make it happen.

*The reason for the blip up in 2010 is almost definitely the home buyers tax credit that started in November 2009 and ended in June 2010. It’s hard to argue with eight grand in free money.

So 5 minutes ago last month I alluded to the fact that the Chattanooga home sales numbers for August might not be all that rosy. And I wasn’t lying, but I might have been suffering from some seriously raised (highered? What’s the opposite of lowered?) expectations. Because they certainly aren’t bad, per se, just not at the level to which I have grown accustomed. To be specific, the number of real estate sales for Hamilton County for August were up by a paltry 5% and the dollar volume increased by a respectable but not exciting 11%. So, not stunning, jump up and down results, but definitely not bad news.

And just because I’m a big ol’ numbers geek, I looked at what happened in August of 2010 and saw that there was a big jump of 27% in terms of numbers and 25% in terms of dollars from August 2010 to August 2011. So it may be that August 2011 was the start of a big recovery and from here on out we’ll be “going up against” better numbers from the year before. Regardless, we’re still seeing increases and I won’t be complaining about that any time soon.

Edit (9/7/12):

Back a few days ago when I ran these numbers I had a sneaking suspicion that not all of the August sales had been reported yet. You see, August ended on a Friday and then there was this holiday on Monday and what got me started running numbers that day was the fact that I suddenly remembered that I’d closed one on Friday but hadn’t yet reported the sale. So even though we were far enough into September that all of the August sales should have been reported, I suspected that a few had not. But I didn’t think it would be enough to make much of a difference. Turns out I was wrong about it not making a difference. I re-ran the reports tonight and found that the actual sales for the month were 418 for a total of $77.718.822 which makes for a much more exciting increase of 12% in number of sales and 16% for dollar volume. I should probably start procrastinating a little more.

Anyhoo, more good news. In fact, remember back in May (OK, it was only 10 minutes ago) when I said that I’d like to see the percentage increases for number of sales and dollar volume of sales flipped? Well, lo & behold, I got my wish! The number of sales for June went up by 22% and the dollar volume of sales was up by 31%. What’s not to love about those stats? Without further ado, I give you the Chattanooga homes sold for June 2012

Anyhoo, let’s get on to the good stuff. As always, the second number in the # of sales column is the quantity for the same month last year (i.e. April 2011), just to give some perspective.

I would like to point out, with glee, the numbers found in those last two rows, the ones that indicate stratospheric jumps compared to 2011. I would also like to point out that the percentage increases in the two measurements are pretty much the reverse of what they were last month (i.e. the $ volume was up by about twice as much as the # volume – last month it was the opposite). The point of all this pointing is to say that this is unequivocally good news. Nothing bad about it.

To recap 2012 so far:

January – up 2% [interpretation: meh, statistically insignificant]

February – up 36% [interpretation: whoa! cautious optimism but that could just be something weird with some typical March sales being pulled in a little early]

March – up 9% [interpretation: hey! even though February was phenomenal, March didn't go into the crapper! Optimism cautiously confirmed]

April – up 29% [interpretation: holy @&$!  Caution is hereby thrown to the wind where optimism is concerned]

May – sharp intake of breath while waiting to see the numbers…

Perhaps most importantly of all, for the first four months of 2012, we’re at total sales of about $217M compared to $183M for 2011. That’s a jump of more than 18%. Excuse me while I go out to dance my jig.