Real Estate & The Impact On Our State’s Economy

Everywhere you look, the economy is showing signs of making a strong comeback. In spite of supply chain issues, progress is definitely being made.

Dr. Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research at the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), always has a way of making abstract statistics more concrete. This past week he gave a hopeful outlook for the nation’s economy:

"The job market continues to make progress in October with 531,000 net new jobs. Since coming out of lockdown 18 million jobs have been created, but total jobs are still 4 million below the level seen before the arrival of COVID-19. The unemployment rate is low, at 4.6%. However, 3 million fewer Americans are searching for jobs and they are not being captured in unemployment statistics.”

This positive hiring news, along with the news that 5-11 year olds are now eligible to receive the COVID vaccine, are welcome signs that our economy, and our way of life, is hopefully returning to normal. With more people returning to the workplace, our national economy is looking to be on the rebound.

Most people realize that real estate has an impact on local, state, and national economics, but putting a dollar-value on real estate can be elusive. Thankfully, NAR has developed a report that does just that. Their Economic Impact of a Home Sale report, outlines the total economic impact of real estate related industries on each state’seconomy, as well as the expenditures that result from a single home sale, including aspects like home construction costs, real estate brokerage, mortgage lending and title insurance. In short, this report helps find out how much the real estate industry is affecting the gross state product for each state.

And the amounts are incredible. For example, in Tennessee, the typical economic impact of each home sale averages $75,000 (for our Georgia friends, it’s an even larger amount- $85,000). This means that for each home sold, thousands of dollars are being put back into our economy. In fact, in Tennessee, the real estate industryaccounted for $59.6 billion or 16.4% of the gross state product in2020. Talk about having an impact.

Not only does homeownership benefit our communities by helping people “plant roots” in our area, but it’s also a crucial component of our economy. This is why Realtors fight so hard to advocate for policies that benefit homebuyers, and why we work to make the dream of homeownership a reality for all in our state and country. Realtors work tirelessly for our clients and communities. That’s Who We R.