We love East Nashville — our office is in the East End area, just beside Lockeland Springs; many of our favorite restaurants are here; many of our favorite people live here. So it’s in no way surprising to us that, especially in recent years, many, many Nashville homebuyers are looking to find the perfect place to call home in East Nashville.

The city talks a lot about how much East Nashville has changed, how much home prices have risen, how competitive the housing market in 37206 has gotten. All of that is true enough. But if you’re determined to make East Nashville your home, it can be done without (too many) tears, and on varying budgets — it just helps to have some knowledgeable help. (Something we feel we do a pretty good job of providing.)

To arm East Nashville househunters with some good basic info about what buying a home in East Nashville looks like now, what the trends have looked like and what they’re predicted to look like later, here are a few factoids culled from sales data in recent years.

Since big blasts of numbers can get a little eye-rolly, we’ve tried to break it down into plain-speak.

Stuff to know about the East Nashville housing market

Yes, home values have zoomed up

Fun fact: As the new millennium rolled in, the median sales price in 37206 was about $82,000. It’s closer to $340,000 now. Finished crying yet? OK, so, there are two ways to look at this. As a long trend, home prices in East Nashville have skyrocketed; shorter trends show things evening out a bit — from January to December of 2017, the median sales price of a home in East Nashville only bumped up about $10,000. So, even if you can’t buy a historic charmer for the price of two nice Volvos anymore, the chart seems to be stabilizing.

It’s not quite as frenzied as people might say

Yes, the housing market in Nashville has been fast-paced for several years, and in some cases, an East Nashville home goes under contract faster than a pedal tavern party reaches its first “Wooo!” But more often, those are priced on the lower end of the scale — if you’re searching at around the average budget, between $350,000 to $400,000 and above, don’t feel so intimidated. You’ll have time to think.

In terms of sales volume, during the middle of last summer, a normal home-sales month in 37206 was at about 160. Rewind 15 years, and you were looking at a 140-or-so sales month (which was pretty typical). We’ve had our legitimately frenzied spells (the fall of 2015 was bananas), but buying a home in East Nashville is not quite the nonstop gold rush it’s sometimes portrayed as.

Forecasts are still good

Take any real estate predictions with a grain of salt — we can’t know what’s going to happen over the next year in home sales any more than we can know whether that Charmed reboot is going to be fun or hot garbage. But what the prognosticators like Zillow are saying about East Nashville real estate is still positive, if reasonable.

Home values in 37206 went up more than 7 percent over the past year, which is a little on the high side, and it’s forecasting closer to 3 percent over the next year, which is closer to “normal” and about in line with the U.S. average. (Historically, the average rise has been 3 to 5 percent or so.)

Last year, things rolled out on the U.S. home-prices front pretty much exactly as predicted: “Prices will continue to rise — but more slowly.” Nashville/East Nashville too.

The takeaway here is different depending on what side of the experience you sit on, but fair to say: If you already own a home in East Nashville, signs are pointing to it continuing to appreciate; if you’re looking to buy a home in East Nashville, prices aren’t rising at such a Roadrunner pace that you need to feel terrified.

Our historically rough inventory situation might be improving

One of the biggest struggles Nashville homebuyers (and homebuyers in a lot of the country) have been dealing with over these busy homebuying years: lack of inventory. East Nashville buyers certainly felt that pinch.

Overall property inventory was down a little year-over-year as 2017 ended, but residential property and condo inventory was actually up a little bit. And there could be more relief on the horizon — Nashville Public Radio reported that, according to a new study, “Nashville will be one the first cities to see the number of homes for sale increase in the coming year.” It’ll likely benefit buyers with a budget of $350,000 and up more quickly, but starter homes are expected to rebound too.

If you look around East Nashville, specifically, new construction is still humming, which lends some credence to the hope.

Have some other questions about the East Nashville housing market, or want to get a better sense of what you might be able to afford in 37206, 37207 or 37216? We’d be thrilled to help — reach ACRE here.

For an easy way to get your East Nashville househunting process started, you can also fill out this quick form.