Real estate sales jump 30% in the past year
Despite the economic slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, real estate sales in Hamilton County jumped by more than 30% during the past year to over $4.1 billion, according to filings with the Hamilton County Register of Deeds.
County Registrar Marc Gravitt said Wednesday new and refinanced mortgages recorded at his office in the past 12 months rose 34% from the previous year to more than $6.8 billion as property sales rose and more homeowners took advantage of historically low interest rates to refinance their homes.
“With the vast majority of the last fiscal year being dominated by COVID, demand for real estate in Hamilton County, both commercial and residential, never slowed,” Gravitt said. “In fact, the opposite occurred. I think the dramatic, continued increase in the numbers in my office, helps to show just how strong the local real estate is.”
Gravitt said the biggest increases came in the sale of apartment complexes and senior centers which have attracted nearly $500 million of purchases from out-of-state investors in the past five years.
“Interest rates are incredibly low and with the stock market gains we’ve seen in recent years, a lot of investors are looking to put money in real estate and we’re seeing much more investment coming into the Chattanooga market,” said David Devaney, president of NAI Charter Commercial Real Estate in Chattanooga. “Chattanooga is gaining much more attention and investment from regional and national investment groups.”
Such outside investment has tended to bid up property values, which rose by an average of more than 29% for residential properties and 21% for commercial properties during the past four years, according to the most recent property appraisals in Hamilton County.
The median price of homes sold by Chattanooga Realtors rose 18.2% last year to $220,100, according to the National Association of Realtors report for 2020. With fewer homes on the market and demand boosted by lower interest rates and more relocating families, the typical home listed by a Chattanooga Realtor sold in May, 2021 in 22 days, or about half the time it took to sell a house a year earlier.
Gravitt said the increased sales activity boosted the number of documents filed at his office in the fiscal year ended June 30 to nearly 81,000, or 21% more than in the previous fiscal year.
The growth in filings increased the fees paid into the state’s tax coffers. The state-mandated Conveyance Tax and Mortgage Tax collected by the Registrar of Deeds in the past fiscal year rose by 23% to more than $23 million, Gravitt said.