Members of the Williamson County Association of Realtors say they hope to develop a positive role in efforts to develop more-affordable homes in Williamson County.
In January, Kathie Moore, president of the association, took the first step by creating a housing committee to study the current issues in housing here.
Moore said median home prices in Williamson County rose 43.4 percent from 2004 to 2007 and condo prices went up by 30 percent between 2005 and 2007. The median price is the point in which half of the homes are priced below it and half are above it.
Most recently, January’s median home price rose to $395,000; the average price is $451,792.
At those price points, “a vital segment of the work force has been effectively priced out of the local housing market,” Moore said.
She said the median income in Williamson County “hovers around $80,000.”
The Tennessee Housing Development Agency has determined that a home is affordable if the price lies between 2.5 to three times a family’s household annual income.
And yet a search of active listings on a day in January showed that of the 2,397 homes on the market that day, only 214 were less than $200,000.
“It is beneficial that certain professionals live in the communities they serve,” Moore said, mentioning teachers and police officers as examples.
The 2007-08 salary schedule for Williamson County schools lists a starting salary for a first-year teacher with a bachelor’s degree at $32,900 per year. The highest pay grade for an experienced teacher with a doctorate and more than 20 years of experience is $65,415.
According to the city’s Web site, Franklin has an opening for a police officer with the starting salary of $16.20 per hour, which, based on 40 hours a week, would be $33,696 annually.
Those salaries do not easily translate into an ability to buy a home here.
“These professionals will likely be forced to look at surrounding areas for housing” outside Williamson County, unless housing opportunities change, Moore said. “This emerging problem must be addressed soon or it may be too late to reverse the trend.”
Two association members serve on a task force in Franklin that’s devoted to the issue.
“We don’t want to just focus on Franklin, but also in other communities in the county,” she said. “We want to see what we can do with all of the groups working on this issue.
“Our best role might be in education, in finding out what other communities have done that have had this problem,” she said. “We can learn from them.”
David Pair, who works on government issues for the association, said that ultimately, the problem here may call for a strategic plan that requires a certain amount of houses be built within specified price ranges.
Housing prices here affect not only workforce professionals who find it difficult to live in the communities they serve, but they may also hurt family ties when grown children discover that they cannot return to their home towns because there isn’t any housing there they can afford.
It happens not just in Brentwood, but in Franklin, too, Pair said.
For young Williamson County natives who are just starting their careers, “there’s not a lot of options,” he noted.
“This isn’t about creating government housing, but that’s what some people think you are talking about when you talk about affordable housing,” he said. “There is a need for some education.
“These are people who are vital to the community: teachers, firefighters, police officers. They are first responders, and it is beneficial on several levels to have them living where they work.”
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