Nashvilles' housing market bouncing back!

Analysts expect Nashville's housing market to bounce back by fall 2008 and they are not predicting much rise in home prices before then.
Edsel Charles, founder of Nashville-based MarketGraphics Research Group Inc., a new-home market research company, says the market has almost reached bottom, and will bottom out near the end of January.
He says he expects a slight recovery in the spring but that the market will remain flat throughout the summer.
"It doesn't return to a reasonably decent market until fall of 2008 or spring of 2009," Charles says.
Consumers will find the lowest prices today for new homes, he says.
Charles says he expects the market to "firm up" by August and buyers to be paying full price by March of 2009.
"Material costs are down," Charles says. "So today is the lowest you are going to find for home prices. Everybody dropped prices like nuts."
Charles has talked to builders who had excess inventory and slashed prices to get rid of homes, but he says such discounts are only likely to be around for the next two or three months.
"I met with a builder who sold over 100 houses in the last two months," Charles says. "He just cut and run, dumped inventory. He's down to 15 homes that are not sold. He's saying, 'Now we're at the bottom.'"
Bernard Helm, president of Market Opportunity Research Enterprises in Rocky Mount, N.C., agrees that builders are reducing inventory in Nashville, which he says is smart.
The Nashville Business Journal - Dec. 31, 2008