Freddie Mac makes it official: Nashville is nation’s strongest housing market

The Middle Tennessee residential real estate sector was strengthening nicely as spring kicked off — so much so that researchers at Freddie Mac say we are now living in the healthiest housing market in the country.

Nashville’s Multi-Indicator Market Index reading in April was 99.9, 1.6 percent higher than in March and up a whopping 12.0 percent year over year. Those gains vaulted Nashville above Honolulu and Salt Lake City to take the top spot.

Nashville has been steadily rising in the charts since the end of 2015, when it ranked eighth. And while the biggest driver of growth in the past year has been a better payment-to-income ratio, April’s gains were powered more by job growth and purchase applications.

Check out Freddie Mac’s news release here and explore the numbers for Nashville and other cities — including fast-improving Chattanooga — here.

Switching over to the apartment market, it's also no surprise Nashville is in fine shape heading into the summer. Research firm Axiometrics says the local occupancy rate finished the second quarter at 96.1 percent, up 40 basis points from the number of the first quarter, and that effective rents climbed 6.3 percent from a year earlier.

That growth rate is tied for eighth in the country among the largest apartment markets and is down only slightly from the 6.6 percent pace from the first quarter. Still, the Axiometrics team says the overall apartment market is showing signs that growth will be more moderate: The national rent growth rate was at its lowest in two years last quarter.