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Market Update, Tennessee
Median price $373,833, average apartment rent $1,557, and mortgage rates at 7.40 percent. Here is what the latest Tennessee housing market data means if you own a rental.
The Tennessee housing market has stopped rising. Redfin's statewide median sale price slipped 0.31 percent year over year in September 2026, inventory is up almost seven percent, and homes are taking two days longer to sell. Rent, meanwhile, is flat to slightly higher. For anyone who owns a rental here, that combination matters more than either number on its own: the sale market is loosening while the rental market holds, and with the 30-year fixed at 7.40 percent the cost of buying has moved further out of reach of the people currently paying you rent.
The short version: Tennessee's median sale price eased 0.31 percent year over year to $373,833 in September 2026, active listings rose 6.8 percent to 49,943, and homes took a median 68 days to sell. Average apartment rent is $1,557, up 0.52 percent. At 7.40 percent, principal and interest on the median home runs about $2,071 a month, roughly a third more than that rent.
Every statewide figure below comes from Redfin's Tennessee series for September 2026, so the whole table shares one reference month and one methodology, all home types. Tennessee REALTORS does publish a September 2026 Market Snapshot, but it is posted as a flat image with no text or table behind it, so none of its figures are quoted here rather than risk transcribing them wrongly. Where this page needs an association number, it says so.
| Metric | Latest reading | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Homes sold | 7,893 (Sept 2026) | Down 1.4 percent year over year |
| Homes for sale | 49,943 (Sept 2026) | Up 6.8 percent year over year |
| Newly listed homes | 11,277 (Sept 2026) | Up 7.7 percent year over year |
| Months of supply | 5 months (Sept 2026) | Unchanged year over year |
| Homes sold above list price | 13.8 percent (Sept 2026) | Down 0.49 point year over year |
| Sale to list price ratio | 97.3 percent (Sept 2026) | Down 0.04 point year over year |
| Homes with price drops | 21.9 percent (Sept 2026) | Up 1.0 point year over year |
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate (Freddie Mac) | 7.40 percent (Oct 15, 2026) | Unchanged on the week, up from 6.27 percent a year ago |
Redfin put the median home price in Tennessee at $373,833 in September 2026, down 0.31 percent from September 2025, with 7,893 homes sold and a median 68 days on market. That is a small decline, not a correction, but it is the direction that matters. A year of modest gains has flattened out and then tipped very slightly negative, and it has done so while the supply side kept growing.
The supply numbers are the clearer signal. Redfin counted 49,943 homes for sale in September, up 6.8 percent year over year, and 11,277 newly listed homes, up 7.7 percent. Months of supply held at five. Homes selling above list price fell to 13.8 percent and the share of listings taking a price cut rose to 21.9 percent. Buyers have more to choose from and more room to negotiate than they did a year ago, and sellers are discovering that in the form of longer marketing times.
People search for the average home price in Tennessee far more often than the median, so it is worth being precise about what is actually published. Redfin publishes a median, which is the price at which half of homes sold for more and half for less. Tennessee REALTORS publishes a median too, though its September snapshot is image-only this month. There is no widely published statewide average sale price for Tennessee at all.
That distinction is not pedantic. Where an average is published it typically runs well above the median, because a handful of very expensive sales drag it upward. So if you see an average home price in Tennessee quoted well above $400,000, it is either a median being mislabeled or an average of asking prices rather than sale prices. The defensible answer to the question is $373,833 as of September 2026 per Redfin, and that is a median.
Redfin city data, rolling three months ending September 2026, all three metros on the same window. Knoxville and Murfreesboro are shown in the table below because their Redfin pages were still on an August window. Arrow shows change year over year.
Rent: RentCafe Tennessee, Sept 30, 2026, apartments in buildings of 50 or more units. Owning: principal and interest on the $373,833 Redfin September 2026 median, 20% down, 30 years, at 7.40% and at the 6.27% rate of a year ago. Property taxes, insurance and maintenance not included.
The statewide figure is close to useless on its own. Franklin and Chattanooga are in the same state and barely in the same market. Every row below is a Redfin median for all home types, with its own reference window shown, because Redfin refreshes these city pages on different schedules and two of them were still a month behind when this page was updated.
| City | Median sale price | Change year over year | Days on market | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franklin | $863,089 | Up 12.8 percent | 55 days | Sept 2026 |
| Nashville | $464,779 | Down 1.1 percent | 66 days | Sept 2026 |
| Murfreesboro | $429,716 | Down 1.2 percent | 63 days | Aug 2026 |
| Chattanooga | $374,822 | Up 5.6 percent | 47 days | Sept 2026 |
| Knoxville | $324,785 | Up 1.5 percent | 54 days | Aug 2026 |
The average rent in Tennessee is $1,557 for an apartment, as of September 30, 2026, up 0.52 percent from $1,549 a year earlier. That figure is from RentCafe, which measures apartments in buildings of 50 or more units. We use it this month because Zillow's statewide Tennessee page was still serving a February 8, 2026 reading when this page was updated, and a February number presented as an October number would be worse than no number at all. Zillow's individual city pages are current and are used in the table below.
Set that against the ownership math and the picture sharpens. Principal and interest on the $373,833 statewide median, with twenty percent down at 7.40 percent over thirty years, comes to about $2,071 a month. Average apartment rent is $1,557. Owning costs roughly a third more per month than renting before a buyer adds property taxes, insurance or maintenance, and that is after saving $74,767 for the deposit. Tennessee is not a market where renters are being pushed into buying. It is a market where the math keeps them where they are, and the gap got wider this year rather than narrower.
For owners that is mostly good news, with a caveat. Occupancy should hold up, because the alternative is expensive and getting more so. But rent itself is barely moving, up half a percent statewide, so the case for a large increase is not there. Price to the comps, not to the mortgage math.
| Market | Rent | Measure | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franklin | $2,314 | Median, all rentals | Zumper | Oct 20, 2026 |
| Nashville | $2,200 | Average, all rentals | Zillow | Oct 10, 2026 |
| Murfreesboro | $1,880 | Median, all rentals | Zumper | Oct 20, 2026 |
| Knoxville | $1,698 | Median, all rentals | Zumper | Oct 20, 2026 |
| Chattanooga | $1,588 | Average, all rentals | Zillow | Oct 2, 2026 |
| Clarksville | $1,400 | Average, all rentals | Zillow | Oct 8, 2026 |
Zillow rows are average rent across all bedroom counts and property types from Zillow Rental Manager. Zumper rows are used where Zillow was serving a stale cache or returned no data for that city, and Zumper reports a median across rolling thirty-day listings, so do not compare a Zumper row directly against a Zillow row. The statewide $1,557 in the KPI box is RentCafe's apartment-only figure and is a third methodology again. Each row is labeled so you can see which is which.
Tennessee splits into three grand divisions and they are not behaving alike. Intempus runs offices in Knoxville and Nashville, so East and Middle Tennessee are the two we track closest. We do not operate in West Tennessee, so Memphis and the Shelby County market sit outside what this page covers.
The Knoxville housing market is the steady, affordable end of the state and the one that held up best this year. Redfin put the Knoxville median at $324,785 for the three months ending August 2026, up 1.5 percent year over year, with a median 54 days on market, two days longer than a year earlier, and 734 homes sold, down 2.5 percent. Homes sold above list price ran at 18.9 percent, higher than the statewide 13.8 percent, and the sale to list ratio was 97.5 percent.
Anyone tracking the Knoxville TN housing market should read that as the state's firmest conventional market on price. Knoxville posted a gain while the statewide median slipped, and its median sale price is about 19 percent below the national average, which is the reason it keeps drawing buyers out of Nashville. Redfin's own migration data for April to June 2026 shows Nashville as the single largest source of inbound Knoxville house hunters, at a net 457 searchers.
Chattanooga, at the southern edge of East Tennessee, is the fastest moving market in the state right now. Redfin recorded a $374,822 median for the three months ending September 2026, up 5.6 percent year over year, with days on market down two to 47 and 778 homes sold, up 9.3 percent. That is the only Tennessee market in this article where prices rose, sales rose and homes sold faster all at once. Anyone researching the Chattanooga housing market is looking at the tightest of the metros we cover.
The Nashville housing market is where the softness is. Redfin put the Nashville median at $464,779 for the three months ending September 2026, down 1.1 percent year over year, with days on market up one to 66 and 2,666 homes sold, down 2.3 percent. For Nashville housing market statistics, that is the headline: after years of strong growth, Nashville is now posting a small annual decline while Franklin next door posts a large gain. Nashville's share of homes with a price drop reached 38.3 percent, up 1.8 points, which is the clearest sign of sellers starting high and correcting.
The suburbs tell a very different story from the city, and the split is widening. Franklin, in Williamson County, is the premium market at an $863,089 median for the three months ending September 2026, up 12.8 percent year over year with 55 days on market and 437 homes sold, up 3.7 percent. Murfreesboro went the other way, with a $429,716 median for the three months ending August 2026, down 1.2 percent, and days on market up seven to 63. Middle Tennessee is no longer one market moving together, and a single Nashville-area comp set is no longer safe to price against.
On Nashville housing market forecast questions, Intempus does not publish price predictions and we would treat anyone who does with caution. What the published data supports is narrower and more useful: Nashville's median has turned slightly negative, statewide inventory is up 6.8 percent, and more than a third of Nashville listings are taking a price cut. Those are the conditions in which pricing discipline matters more than optimism.
Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.40 percent on October 15, 2026, unchanged from the previous week and well above the 6.27 percent of a year earlier. The rate was 7.28 percent on October 1 and 7.03 percent on September 24, so the move over the past month has been upward, not downward.
Tennessee is a state where that has a direct and measurable effect on tenure. At 7.40 percent, principal and interest on the statewide median home is about $2,071 a month against average apartment rent of $1,557. At the 6.27 percent rate of a year ago the same loan would cost about $1,845. The rate move alone added roughly $225 a month to the cost of buying the same house, which is more than the entire year's rent increase in dollar terms. A household that could comfortably afford your rent would need roughly a third more monthly cash flow, plus a $74,767 deposit, to buy the median Tennessee home instead.
The corollary is that the moment rates fall meaningfully, some of that blocked demand converts to buying, and it will convert first where the absolute price is lowest. Knoxville, at a $324,785 median, is the market in our footprint where a rate cut moves the most households across the line. Owners there should watch rates more closely than owners in Franklin or central Nashville.
Get a free, no obligation rental analysis from our Nashville or Knoxville team, priced against current comps in your neighborhood.
Get Your Free Rental Analysis →There is no widely published statewide average sale price for Tennessee, so every reliable statewide figure is a median. Redfin put the Tennessee median sale price at $373,833 in September 2026, down 0.31 percent year over year across all home types. Tennessee REALTORS also reports a median rather than an average, and its September 2026 snapshot was published as an image file only, so this page quotes Redfin. If you see an average quoted far above $400,000, it is usually a median mislabeled or an average of asking prices rather than sale prices.
The median home price in Tennessee was $373,833 in September 2026 according to Redfin, down 0.31 percent from September 2025, on 7,893 homes sold. Inside the state the range is enormous: Redfin's three-month medians ending September 2026 put Franklin at $863,089 and Chattanooga at $374,822, while Knoxville was $324,785 for the three months ending August 2026. The statewide median is a starting point, not a pricing tool.
Prices have flattened and the supply side is growing. Redfin recorded a 0.31 percent annual decline in the statewide median in September 2026, alongside 49,943 homes for sale, up 6.8 percent year over year, 11,277 newly listed homes, up 7.7 percent, and homes taking two days longer to sell at a median 68 days. The share of listings with a price drop rose to 21.9 percent. Average apartment rent, by contrast, is up 0.52 percent to $1,557 per RentCafe.
Redfin put the Nashville median sale price at $464,779 for the three months ending September 2026, down 1.1 percent year over year, with a median 66 days on market, one day longer, and 2,666 homes sold, down 2.3 percent. The sale to list ratio was 97.4 percent and 38.3 percent of listings took a price drop, up 1.8 points. Nashville has gone slightly negative while Franklin next door is up 12.8 percent. Intempus does not publish price forecasts.
RentCafe put the average apartment rent in Tennessee at $1,557 as of September 30, 2026, up 0.52 percent from $1,549 a year earlier, measuring apartments in buildings of 50 or more units. Zillow's statewide Tennessee page was still serving a February 2026 reading when this page was updated, so it is not quoted here. Among the markets Intempus covers, rent runs from about $1,400 in Clarksville, per Zillow, to $2,314 in Franklin, per Zumper.
Intempus does not publish price forecasts and we would treat anyone who does with caution. What the published September 2026 data supports is narrower: the statewide median has turned slightly negative at minus 0.31 percent, active listings are up 6.8 percent, new listings are up 7.7 percent, months of supply is steady at five, and the 30-year fixed rate was 7.40 percent on October 15, 2026, more than a point above a year earlier. Those are loosening conditions for sellers and supportive conditions for rental occupancy, and that is as far as the data goes.
Sources: Redfin Tennessee housing market data, September 2026; Redfin Nashville, Franklin and Chattanooga market pages, three months ending September 2026; Redfin Knoxville and Murfreesboro market pages, three months ending August 2026; RentCafe Tennessee rental market trends, September 30, 2026, apartments in buildings of 50 or more units; Zillow Rental Manager Nashville, Chattanooga and Clarksville, October 2026; Zumper Knoxville, Franklin and Murfreesboro rent research, October 20, 2026; Tennessee REALTORS market statistics, whose September 2026 snapshot is published as an image only and is therefore not quoted numerically here; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, October 15, 2026. Figures are the most recent published readings at the time of writing and are provided for general information, not investment advice.
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