Booming Rome realtors are keeping
Real estate agents in Rome and Floyd
County have been busy for the past couple of
years and leaders at several agencies are all
bullish on the industry for the foreseeable future.
The key ingredient to brisk sales activity
remains the availability of financing.
“The short term forecast, I think, is very strong
as long as interest rates stay where they are,”
said Jimmy Byars,
CEO and broker at
Hardy Realty.
As long as the
economy continues
to grow at the
same pace it has
for the last several
years, and rates
remain consistent,
the housing market
will continue to
prosper, said Bill
Temple at Toles,
Temple & Wright.
“We do need
additional inventory in order to balance what
has become, in a lot of price ranges, a big
time sellers market,” Temple said. “There’s just
a big shortage, which is creating values that
have increased at a rapid pace by Rome’s
standards.”
“We have tons of buyers,” said Jackie
Smallwood of Reese and Smallwood. “The
inventory is low. If we had more inventory
throughout the city and county they would sell -
the market is great.”
“A general shortage of housing in mid-market
price points, generally considered to be in the
$150,000 to $250,00 range, still exists,” she said.
“When one comes on the market, it generally
doesn’t stay on the market long.”
Anything under $400,000 will sell pretty
quickly as long as it’s in great condition and is
priced right, the brokers agreed.
6 OUTLOOK | APRIL 2020
busy in a thriving market
“You get up over $400,000 and it slows,” Byars
said. “You get up to $500,000 and $600,000,
it slows down even more. So we have more
inventory for the higher end.”
In general, single-family housing construction
in Rome and Floyd County has rebounded
steadily since bottoming out in 2011-2012.
In 2011, a total of 31
permits were issued
for new single-family
homes, six inside the
city and 25 in the
unincorporated area
of the county. The
following year that
went up to 34, just
three inside the city
and 31 in the county.
The numbers have
been climbing every
year since 2012.
In 2019, the
number of new
permits issued for
single-family homes inside the city limits jumped
to 70. Outside the city limits that number
jumped to 194. While those numbers are reason
for optimism, they are still nowhere near the
peak in 2005 when 129 permits were issued
inside the city and a whopping 307 were issued
for unincorporated Floyd County.
So just who is in the housing market in
Rome, since the city, by many accounts, is not
experiencing significant population growth?
Rome seems to be getting a pretty decent
number of people seeking to get out of Atlanta.
“We also have people who are finding us
from other parts of the county,” Temple said.
“We’ve seen a number of California residents
move in. We have investors coming in from
New York. I think Rome is slowly becoming
discovered due to different analytics on the
internet.”
By Doug Walker