Jackson starts to feel effects of cooling housing market

[Rural King]

The Jackson Sun over the weekend ran an article about the cooling of the residential housing market within the city of Jackson. Housing stocks are up, sell times are up, and foreclosures are up - while house sales and building permits are down.

A local banker states in the article that he estimates the Jackson housing market will rebound in 12-18 months., while a local developer also states that barring a major plant closure or similar negative economic occurance that the current slowdown should prove only to be a short-term glitch in the market. Fairly optimistic assessments.

However, a stunning figure in the article was that 10% of TN homeowners are in foreclosure - 3 months behind on payments- currently. Thats a pretty staggering figure. Of course that can be attributed to a multitude of factors ranging from local economics to personal finance. Jackson itself has seen a 22% rise in its foreclosure rates over last year, a figure that can could temper more optimistic outlooks if the figure continues to rise.

Jackson continues to see good job and economic growth coupled with good population growth figures - so can the small growing city buck the national trend and rebound out of the slowdown before the rest of the country? I think so - but would like to see what other folks think.

[jmduke]

I think this is a short-term blip for Jackson and the surrounding areas. Jackson has seen decent sustained growth for quite some time, and it's not like Jackson's real estate market is super-speculative like San Diego's, Las Vegas', or Miami's. If people buy in Jackson, they live there and don't try to flip real estate (same as in Memphis). A strong regional economy should negate any negative short-term news.

[memphisvol]

I think this is a short-term blip for Jackson and the surrounding areas. Jackson has seen decent sustained growth for quite some time, and it's not like Jackson's real estate market is super-speculative like San Diego's, Las Vegas', or Miami's. If people buy in Jackson, they live there and don't try to flip real estate (same as in Memphis). A strong regional economy should negate any negative short-term news.

[Rural King]

Medina may be hurting the housing starts in the Jackson metro area, even though it is clearly a suburb of Jackson, Gibson County is not counted in the metro area.