Pendings fell fifteen percent in September

Almost nothing moved in September, and that is the first thing worth saying plainly. Residential closings came in at 2,284 against 2,306 in August. The median was $510,000 against $515,725. Inventory was 10,462 against 10,532. Every one of those is a move of less than one and a half percent, which across nine counties is a rounding difference rather than a direction.

Months of supply did not move either. Greater Nashville REALTORS counted 10,462 residential listings against 2,284 residential closings, which is 4.6 months. August was 10,532 against 2,306, which was also 4.6. Six months is the textbook definition of a balanced market, so we have now held the same distance from balanced for two months running.

One number did move. There were 2,045 homes under contract at the end of September against 2,409 at the end of August, a drop of fifteen percent. That is the only figure in this release large enough to mean anything, and it is worth being clear about what it is. Pendings are contracts written but not yet closed. They do not describe the month just finished. They are most of the month ahead.

Contract activity easing as the calendar turns into autumn is the normal direction every year. The size of this one is what I am watching. If it holds, October closings come in lighter than September did, and the figure people read about in early November will be the first one in a while that looks like a change rather than a flat line.

Days from list to contract went from 55 to 57. Two days. I am not going to tell you that means houses are sitting, because it does not. What the whole picture describes is a market where a buyer has room to look at the other options before deciding, and that has been true since midsummer.

Condominiums ran their own course again, a $331,780 median across 452 closings, below the $339,995 they posted in August even though more of them sold. A condominium and a house in this region are not moving together, and a single regional median hides that completely.

So the thing that should change a decision this month is not the price. It is still the cost of getting the price wrong. With supply at four and a half months and fewer contracts being written, an overpriced house no longer sells a little late. It goes stale while a buyer works through the alternatives, and a stale house closes below where it would have if it had been priced correctly on the first day.

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.