Real Estate Statistics

John Jones presents the June 2010 real estate statistics for Rutherford County and compares those to the stats from last year.

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Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Thanks for tuning in.  We’re going to go over June numbers today that came out last week.  I was interested to see what June looked like.  June we had 8% more closings this June than we did last June.  I still feel like that is part of that carry over from the tax credit.  Remember, those had to be closed by the end of June.  They did extend it a little bit to be closed; I think gave them 90 days, but for the most part, everybody was in at that point.  So they were up 9%.

Now an interesting statistic that I was really more concerned with, what were pendings for the month?  Pendings for June were 17% less than last June.  And I know that’s less, but quite honestly, I was surprised it wasn’t more and I’m happy to see it was not more because the tax credit had run out, we knew there were going to be less pendings, but I honestly thought that number would be higher than 17%.  So let’s kind of recap the last few months.  Okay, you had April, which was kind of a record month as far as closings, 54% up over last April.

A lot of that had to do with the tax credit.  May was 21% over last May.  There again, a lot of that had to do with the deals that were written before the end of April for the tax credit, and June was slightly up as well.  I think we’re going to see some small decreases for the next few months as far as closings compared to last year.  But I don’t think they’re as bad as what maybe I anticipated or at least I hope not.  The pendings for this month give me hope.  Another interesting statistic.  Our closed sales price was almost dead even year to date with this time last year.

Year to date last year we were at $165,587 average close price.  This year, we’re at 165,538, so I mean it’s like $50 off, which is incredible.  That tells me that maybe we’re kind of stabilizing on evaluations here a little bit.  Another thing, year to date, we have closed on 21% more homes this time this year than we had this time last year.  Twenty-one percent, so we’re still on an increase there.  That’s about all I have.  If you guys have anything or need anything real estate-related, please call us at 867-3020.  We would love to help.  And you can see us on our website at JohnC.Jones.com.  Thank you. 

That all depends on what you consider “normal” to be.  If you’re longing for the days of 2001-06 (like most Realtors are!) when sales prices were rising and anyone could sell anything within a few days, then you may be waiting for awhile.  Unfortunately for sellers, they will likely continue to be unhappy for at least a year or two as excess listing inventory is cleared out of the marketplace and the percentage of short sales, foreclosures, and other distressed properties continues to rise.
 
The other side of that coin is that buyers are in a great position to find a fantastic deal on a house.  This may very well be the best buyers’ market we’ve ever seen in Rutherford County .  Of course, one reason why there are so few buyers right now is that financing has become increasingly difficult to secure.
 
The bottom line?  This market will probably remain “normal” for our area for the foreseeable future.  Don’t expect to see much of an increase in the number of home sales or prices until unemployment starts to come back down.  If you’re thinking of listing, be realistic on your price and get your house in great condition or it will sit.  If you’re thinking of buying, make sure you have your financing in place and get out there already to take advantage of great deals on the market.

This week we kick off the second season of Taste of the Town at Great Harvest Bread Company, located on Memorial Blvd in Murfreesboro, TN. Tim Dutton interviews the owner Greg Baughn and tastes some of the more popular varieties of bread and sandwiches Great Harvest has to offer. This week's Taste of the Town Special? Receive a free chocolate chip lunch cookie with your purchase of a sandwhich just for mentioning Taste of the Town!

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Transcript

TIM:  Tim Dutton here with another edition of Taste of the Town.  Today, I’m sitting with Greg Baughn with the Great Harvest Bread Company here in Murfreesboro.  Greg, tell folks a little bit about where you’re located.  Help them to understand where you guys are.

GREG:  Okay.  Yeah.  We’re located at 2445 Memorial Blvd., and that is right across the street from SportsCom or we’re diagonally across the street from State Farm regional office, which houses about 1,600 employees.  We’re out 231 going toward Lebanon, right between MidSouth Bank and Rite Aid pharmacy.

TIM:  Right across from the Sports Com folks.  Now Greg, when I saw the name, I was thinking bread, but you guys man, y’all make sandwiches.  You’ve got just a wide variety from chicken breasts, salads, and different things.  Tell folks a little bit about what other things you do other than just the bread.

GREG:  Sure.  Well, of course, the thing that does drive us is our bread.  We’re a whole grain bakery.  We bring the wheat from Montana and we mill it in our store and then we make fresh bread from it.  From that, we also do various whole grain muffins, scones.  We do a thing called the Savannah Bar, which I can get one of those out here too.  So we do a lot of breakfast, people coming by and picking up a cup of coffee and a scone or muffin.  Or they can pick up a six pack of sweets for their office and take it by the office to feed employees.

TIM:  Great.

GREG:  Another thing we do is the lunch.  We have a pretty good walk-in business.  We’ve got several sandwiches that we do.  Of course, we’re making the bread from scratch every day.  And we also do catering, so we can put those sandwiches on trays or we can put them in boxes with boxed lunches.

TIM:  From breakfast all the way through dinner, you guys have something for people here.

GREG:  We do.  Now our hot sandwiches we only do from 11 to 3.  So we don’t do the hot sandwiches at night per se and we do close at 6:00.  So we’re not open until 8:00.

TIM:  Okay.  Greg, tell me a little bit about the sandwich we’ve got here and the type of bread we have.

GREG:  Okay.  This is our best-selling cold sandwich.  It’s a chicken salad sandwich.  And this sandwich comes with lettuce, tomato, red onion, and mayo.  And it’s on honey wheat bread.  So this bread actually, our honey wheat, only has purified water, yeast, salt, and honey, and our flour.  And that is our best-selling cold sandwich.  The one thing about our chicken salad I think that makes it so good is we have a sweet and spicy pecan in it and it’s all white meat chicken.  And it’s very high quality.  And I don’t think you’ll find much better than that.

TIM:  No.  And man, the details in that bite of bread alone with the chicken.  I mean, you can tell a world of difference between this bread right here and what is ordinarily put on sandwiches.

GREG:  Oh, yeah.  It’s going to be a lot different than store-bought bread because we’re making it from scratch.  We’re making it just like let’s say your grandmother would take a wheat berry and mash it.  All natural.  We’re making our own flour, and it’s very difficult to make whole grain bread like that, and that’s what Great Harvest has perfected.

TIM:  That is good.  Now Greg, we’re got another sandwich here.  Tell me a little bit about it.

GREG:  Now that is our spicy smoked turkey pepper jack panini.

TIM:  That’s a mouthful.

GREG:  It is.  It is.  And it’s also a mouthful when you take a bite of it.  But it’s a very lean turkey with a pepper jack cheese.  It’s got lettuce and tomato and it also has a chipotle mayo.  And it’s on an Italian herb focaccia bread that has basil, oregano, and olive oil.  And that’s something that we make right here in the store.  And that is probably the best-selling panini sandwich, that and the Tuscan chicken that we have.

TIM:  Guys, y’all need to come in and try this.  This is different, but it is great.  I mean great.  Now Greg, I think you’ve got a sample of all the different bread that you guys cook.  What are some of the different ones?

GREG:  We’ve got a lot of our breads right here.  And I already talked about the honey wheat.  So we actually mill our wheat.  We add purified water, yeast, salt, and honey, and that’s going to be our honey wheat bread.  That is the base of all of our whole grain breads.  This bread is actually a Dakota bread.  So you can’t really probably see it very well, but we add pumpkin seed, sunflower seed, millet, and sesame seed to our honey wheat and we make a Dakota bread.

And this is a whole grain goodness bread.  So we take our honey wheat and we’re going to add millet, sunflower seed, flax seed, some pecans, and whole almonds in that.  So that is full of all healthy stuff.  It’s called whole grain goodness.  This is the pumpernickel rye, which you’ve probably had before.  It’s a pumpernickel, caraway seed bread.  It’s going to be colored a little bit and it’s got a really nice texture.  And people who like that kind of bread, they love it.  And people who don’t like it don’t like it.  But they know what I’m talking about with the pumpernickel rye.

TIM:  Right.

GREG:  This is a strawberry shortcake muffin, and this is a peaches and cream muffin.  And then this right here, that’s our Italian herb focaccia, which this sandwich is on.

TIM:  I can account for that one.  It is great.  Greg, all your bread man, it’s such a cut above anything that you’re going to get anywhere else.

GREG:  It is.  Yeah, I think it’s going to be a cut above definitely the grocery store.  You are going to pay a little bit more for the bread than at the grocery, but our bread keeps seven to ten days on the counter.  You can also double bag and freeze the bread, and it freezes really well.  And it’s hard to really get that bread to mold just because it’s all natural.

TIM:  Right.

GREG:  It’s the good stuff.

TIM:  Exactly.  Now Greg, do you have a special for the people that come in and say that they saw you guys on Taste of the Town?

GREG:  Yeah.  Right now, if you come in our store and say that you saw us on Taste of the Town, we’re going to give you a free lunch cookie with your sandwich purchase.  So you just tell us that you saw us on Taste of the Town and when you order a sandwich, we’ll give you a free chocolate chip lunch cookie.

TIM:  That is great.  So guys, that’s about it for this edition of Taste of the Town.  And remember if you’re thinking about hot, quality bread, think Great Harvest Bread Co., and if you’re thinking top quality real estate service, think Tim Dutton.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our newsletter. If we can ever be of service to you or someone you know please give us a call at 615-867-3020 or email me at John@JohnCJones.com We look forward to the opportunity to serve you. Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Jones