HOMES

Millennials making mark on housing market

Bill Lewis
Special to Nashville Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK — TENNESSEE
Belmont grad Chase Geiser plays his piano in the 1930s home he bought in Nashville's Cleveland Park neighborhood. The neighborhood is close to downtown and is undergoing redevelopment, which makes it a good investment for millennial buyers like Geiser.

When Chase Geiser bought his first house last summer, a 1930s home near downtown Nashville, he was looking for a good investment in an up-and-coming neighborhood. He also became part of a new wave of millennial generation home buyers who are changing neighborhoods and home design across the region.

Geiser’s Realtor, Ryan Turbeville with the Ashton Real Estate Group of Re/Max Advantage, said 60 percent to 70 percent of his clients are millennials. At the Jones Co., one of the region’s largest home builders, millennials are replacing baby boomers as the largest group of home buyers.

“There definitely is a shift,” said Jen Lucy, director of sales for the Jones Co. “We’ve definitely seen baby boomers drop off.”

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The Jones Co. is designing homes with millennials in mind, offering open floor plans designed for entertaining, outdoor living spaces and high-end features. Those designs are popular in Franklin’s Enderly Point neighborhood and the Summerlyn subdivision in Nolensville.

Drees Homes, another large builder, has named a floor plan in honor of the young buyers it hopes to attract. The Millennial design is available in the Beckwith Cross subdivision in Mt. Juliet, said Brett Tesnow, the company’s market manager in the Nashville region.

For several years, especially during the recession, millennials were not buying homes, but that’s changed, said Lucy.

“They’ve moved on from living with mom and dad” and want to buy before prices rise beyond their reach, she said.

The Jones Co. is designing homes with millennials in mind, offering open floor plans designed for entertaining, outdoor living spaces and high-end features. Those designs are popular in Franklin’s Enderly Point neighborhood and the Summerlyn subdivision in Nolensville.

A good investment

Nashville’s real estate market is so hot that Geiser bought the first house he looked at and offered more than the $198,000 list price. Still, he believes he got a good deal.

He knew other buyers would be interested in the house and wanted to act before they made competing offers.

“We wanted to seal the deal,” said Geiser, a 2014 graduate of Belmont University. “In Nashville, people are getting homes under contract in 24 hours.”

The house, on Joseph Avenue in the Cleveland Park neighborhood, is minutes from his downtown office and is on an MTA bus line. It’s also close to popular restaurants such as Holland House Bar & Refuge on West Eastland Avenue.

Geiser expects his home to increase in value as the neighborhood redevelops, which more than justifies his decision to offer $12,000 above the asking price.

“There’s plenty of room for appreciation,” he said.

Chase Geiser loves his new home office, where he can write and read. Geiser bought his house in the redeveloping Cleveland Park neighborhood in the fall and expects its value to increase.

Looking for the next big thing

For 27-year-old Caleb Huey, the desire to buy a house was an important reason for moving to Nashville from Los Angeles 18 month ago.

“The American Dream is alive in Nashville and it’s dead in Los Angeles,” he said.

Huey was paying $1,600 a month in L.A. when a friend moved to Nashville and bought a house with a $1,050 monthly mortgage payment.

“I thought, what am I doing?” said Huey.

After losing the chance to buy an 1,100-square-foot house in Inglewood for $199,000 — it sold as soon as it hit the market — he’s hoping to invest in an emerging neighborhood close to downtown.

“From a strictly financial standpoint, maybe I should look for the next big boom area,” said Huey.

Turbeville, who is helping Huey find a house, said the search for affordable prices is leading millennial home buyers to neighborhoods that haven’t shared in Nashville’s real estate boom, at least until now.

“The problem is the price is getting out of their range in a lot of neighborhoods. So they are moving to the next big thing. We’re more mobile and willing to try new neighborhoods,” said Turbeville, who is 28.

The growth of ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft is also encouraging millennials to consider new neighborhoods, he said.

When Turbeville is describing a neighborhood, “I don’t tell people 'You are so many miles away.' I say, 'It’s a $5 Uber ride,' ” he said.

“If someone can’t afford to live in Lockeland Springs and walk to Five Points, you can live in Cleveland Park and take a $5 ride,” he said.

Reach Bill Lewis at 615-262-5862 or wlewis77229@comcast.net.