Would-be homebuyers test the waters

By Jennifer Brooks
THE TENNESSEAN

Undaunted by a year of relentless recession, foreclosures and gloom, hundreds of future homeowners headed to the annual Nashville Housing Fair to find out if now is the right time to buy.

"There's a picture on my refrigerator that I've been looking at for the past year. It's a little house, with a little fence and some flowers out front.

"That's what I've been promising myself, not that house but that sort of home," said Shantee Williams, pushing her two youngest children in a stroller as the family navigated between booths manned by Realtors, mortgage lenders, homebuilders and social agencies.

"We've been saving, we've been studying up," Williams said. "I think now might be the time."

That's music to the ears of the local real estate market. Home sales are down about 9 percent compared with this time last year; housing prices are down about 9 percent, as well, said Mike Nichols, president of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

"People are being more realistic in pricing their homes," Nichols said. "Opportunities are clearly open for a lot of first-time homebuyers."

Some 850 would-be homeowners dropped by the second annual Nashville Housing Fair on Sunday — up from the 500 people who attended last year's housing fair.

The federal government is offering first-time homebuyers a tax credit of up to $8,000 if they buy before the end of this year. The tax break and the growing sense that his job is more secure than it was last year brought Matt Devandry of Nashville to the housing fair.

"The tax credit's a big deal," he said.

Devandry was laid off in December, but he found work again in March. Now, he said, he's feeling more secure in his new job, and that, coupled with improving economic news, pushed him to come out Sunday and talk to a few Realtors and lenders.

'Lot of bargains'

"There are a lot of great bargains out there," said Phil Ryan, executive director of the Metropolitan Development and Housing Administration, whose agency helps low-income residents own their own homes.

Right now, the agency is focusing its efforts on neighborhoods in Antioch and North Nashville that have been hit hard by foreclosures. The neighborhood stabilization program buys the foreclosed homes and keeps them from falling into disrepair while they find new owners.