The director of Tennessee’s statewide housing finance agency offered Blount County residents a solution to high prices: build more homes.
Tennessee Housing Development Agency Executive Director Ralph Perrey provided this suggestion during a presentation at the Blount Partnership on Thursday. The core of the problem, Perrey said, stems from an extended pause in building that began with the Great Recession. Development froze then as the economy contracted and stayed slow for years after.
These days, he said, Blount County and many other areas across the state have too few homes to meet current demand. The problem of supply and demand doesn’t affect all would-be homebuyers equally, he said…