If you’re living in the real world, you know that our economy is experiencing tough times.  Its impact on the housing and real estate investment has affected all of us in one way or another.  While we all await the final word on the various homeowner incentive and rescue plans being evaluated by Congress, let’s look at a couple of positives that offer some encouragement.

There are several factors to keep in perspective as we move forward.  First, we all need a place to live.  Most of us are blessed with more home than we really need, but all of us need a place to call home.  Our nation’s population continues to grow, so there will be an ongoing need for more housing in the future.  Fortunately, we live in a section of the country that is attractive to many.  The beauty of our landscapes and moderate climate continue to appeal to many who are migrating south to escape the cold, or moving a little further north (from Florida) to escape the wrath of tropical storms and rising costs of living.  Our centralized location, relative to a majority of the U.S. population, continues to position Nashville and middle Tennessee at the hub of the distribution wheel.

Many of us have seen our retirement savings, in the form of 401k’s, IRAs and pensions, erode by 25% and more over the last year, home prices in the middle Tennessee area have faired much better.  Clarksville has actually seen an increase in the average price of home sales, while Nashville and most surrounding areas have seen decreases of less than 10%.  The observation is that our local home values have not suffered the beating that our “global” investment portfolios have – homeownership is still a good investment.

In the coming weeks, we’ll take a much closer look at the details of financial opportunities available to current and future homeowners – assuming our government follows through and provides meaningful legislation resulting in a plan to assist us.  In the meantime, we would like your input into real estate topics or questions that you would like to read about in this weekly column.  Future articles are being planned to cover topics like home appraisals, designer trends, reverse mortgages, 55+ housing, local community information and just about anything else that relates to today’s homeowners.

Originally posted February 8, 2009