Supply reached four and a half months in August

One figure moved in August and it is not the median. Months of supply went from four to four and a half, and that is the number that decides how a house has to be priced this fall.

Here is the arithmetic behind it. Greater Nashville REALTORS counted 10,532 residential listings across the nine counties against 2,306 residential closings for the month. Divide one by the other and you get 4.6 months of supply. In July the same two cells read 10,584 and 2,627, which was 4.0. The shelf did not grow. What slowed was the rate at which it empties.

The median residential sale came in at $515,725 against $520,000 in July, a move of less than one percent. Days from list to contract went from 54 to 55. Read those two together and nothing about what your house is worth has changed.

What has changed is the cost of getting the price wrong. At four months of supply an overpriced house sold anyway, a few weeks later than it should have. At four and a half it goes stale while the buyer works through the other options, and a stale house closes below where it would have if it had been priced correctly on the first day. That penalty is larger this month than it was last month, and it is the only part of this release that should change a decision.

Two more cells from the same chart, because a single regional median hides them. Condominiums ran their own market at a $339,995 median across 438 closings, above the $334,900 they posted in July even as their closings fell. And there were 2,409 homes under contract at the end of August against 2,454 at the end of July. Demand did not disappear. It eased.

The nine county figure describes a region, not your street. Franklin, East Nashville and Murfreesboro are three markets inside this one number, and inside Franklin the historic core and the new construction on the edges are two more. Send me your address and I will pull the comparable sales on your block. That is a five minute job and it is the only figure that tells you what your house is actually worth.