By GETAHN WARD
Published: Thursday, 02/09/06

Nashville area home sales showed no sign of the winter blahs as 12% more residential properties changed hands in January compared to the same month a year earlier, a local Realtors’ trade group said today.

Selling 2,371 homes during the month on the heels of a record 2005 gets the Midstate’s housing market off to a stronger start than last year, officials said. It also bucks to some degree analysts’ forecasts of slower growth in U.S homes sales because of a cooling off of demand as mortgage interest rates edge higher.

“The long-anticipated bubble has certainly not burst and is probably not in existence,” said Richard Courtney, president-elect of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors, citing local trends. “It’s a favorable outlook for the rest of the year.”

Closings on homes in January mostly reflect homes that went under contract in November and December.

“There doesn’t seem to be a seasonality in home sales anymore,” said Christie Wilson, GNAR’s president and managing partner with The Wilson Group Real Estate Services. She pointed to relatively low interest rates and a healthy Nashville area economy among factors behind the strong January.

The Nashville area had a 5.7 months’ supply of homes at the end of January, a level generally considered a balanced market. A 6% increase in inventory to 13,568 residential properties on the market as of Jan. 31 compared to 12,761 a year earlier is another positive, Realtors said.

Higher inventory means potential homebuyers have more choices.

The median price of a single-family home was $162,000 last month, up 5% from $154,000 a year earlier but down 7.4% from $174,900 in December. On average, single-family homes that were sold had spent 65 days on the market, down from 75 days in January 2005.