For Judy Gluck, hope is blooming anew.

Gluck and her husband, Frank, first listed their duplex near Woodmont Boulevard in Green Hills last October, not long after they bought their dream house on a nearby street.

There were no takers. Since then, they’ve been forced to pay the mortgages on both houses while they wait for the brisk sales that characterized the market until the end of last year to resume.

But Gluck believes the changing season — when home shoppers usually return to the market after their holiday hiatus — will bring good fortune.

“We kind of came in at the end of a good run,” Gluck said Thursday as she prepared for a weekend open house. “But hopefully, spring is coming and sales will be picking up.”

Residential property sales in Middle Tennessee fell in January for the fifth time in six months, extending a slide that began late last year, according to data released Monday by the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

The number of properties on the market also rose, returning to the near-record level reached early last fall.

The decline in home sales comes on the heels of what had been a record real estate market for Middle Tennessee. And six months after the slowdown began, it still has not erased the gains that the market enjoyed previously.

Prices rose compared with a year ago, and the 2,289 closings in January was the second-best on record for that month.

That encouraged real estate agents, who said it shows that the market is holding up despite the nationwide slump in residential real estate.

“Other parts of the country are seeing a sharp decline — 10 percent to 18 percent and things like that,” said Richard Courtney, the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors president. “This is still a strong area for home sales.”

Homes lead decline

Taken as a group, sales of all residential properties — detached houses, condominiums, multifamily houses, farms and vacant lots — dropped 3.5 percent last month, compared with the same time a year ago.

The decline was led by a fall in the number of single-family homes sold, compared with a year ago.

Single-family sales in Middle Tennessee were down 6.8 percent from January 2006. Single-family home sales have fallen for six straight months.

Single-family homes were down even more sharply in Williamson County, which collects and reports its own data each month on home sales. There, the number of single-family closings fell nearly 19 percent from a year ago.

Since February 2006, 39,974 properties have been sold in Middle Tennessee, about 800 more than had sold in the prior 12 months. And the median price for a single-family home in Middle Tennessee has increased nearly 7 percent since last January.

In Williamson County, the median price for a single-family home has risen 32 percent to $388,757 since last year.

Downturn’s end debated

Observers are divided over whether the national real estate market has hit bottom. The National Association of Realtors says the level of unsold homes on the market nationwide appears to have peaked in July, but a USA Today survey taken Jan. 18-24 found that nearly 90 percent of economists believe the downturn has not yet ended.

Paulette Gayden, an agent with Shirley Zeitlin & Co. in Green Hills, said she believes the market is on the verge of picking up again.

Last week, she showed another duplex in Green Hills to a prospective buyer, the fifth time she has done so since the property was listed four weeks ago.

She was pleased with her progress.

“I think that level of activity is good, given this is January or February, which is not usually your busiest time of year.”

Source:

http://www.dicksonherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070213/BUSINESS02/702130333/1297/MTCN02