We no longer publish a year-over-year price direction for any single Middle Tennessee town, and this article has been rewritten to say so plainly. An earlier version of it named Franklin, Brentwood and Mount Juliet as appreciating, and Goodlettsville, Murfreesboro, Lebanon and Smyrna as cooling. Those readings were each a single month of a single city series, and when we re-measured the same series across six consecutive months the direction changed sign more than once. Whoever picks the month picks the answer, so we withdrew the town-level trend rather than republish it — including the ones that pointed our way.
Why did you withdraw the town-level year-over-year readings?
Because a town is too small a sample for a monthly year-over-year price change to hold its sign. A city's median in any one month rests on a few dozen to a few hundred closings, and the mix of what sold — a run of new-construction closings, one quarter of townhome deliveries, a handful of high-end sales — moves the median by more than the underlying market does. Run the same public city series month after month and the year-over-year figure swings from firmly negative to firmly positive and back within half a year, on the same town and the same source. A number can be real, correctly sourced and correctly dated and still not be a publishable direction. That is the case here.
Two further problems compounded it. Public series get revised, so the same month can read differently depending on the day you download it. And several of the town figures we had been carrying measured something other than what their field said — a county reading in a city row, a median list price where a closed-sale median belonged, or a new-construction-only subset standing in for a whole market. We are working those out of the site one verified figure at a time.
What do you publish instead?
Levels and counts, not town-level direction. A town's median sale price, its days on market and its months of supply are far steadier month to month than the year-over-year change computed from them, and each one can be stamped with its own source, window and as-of date. Below is the median sale price for each Middle-TN town we currently publish, with the towns we deliberately do not publish listed alongside so the gaps are visible rather than quietly missing.
| Town | Median Sale Price | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brentwood | $1,444,136–$1,600,000 | April–May 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Orchard / Nashville Home Guru |
| Nolensville | $924,318 | May 2026 | Redfin / Zillow |
| Franklin | $919,585 (rolling 12 months through May 2026, 2,114 closed sales) | May 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Nashville Home Guru / Nashville Real Estate Now |
| Mount Juliet | $576,655 | May–June 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Houzeo / Orchard / NashvilleSMLS |
| Nashville | $475,000 (three months ending May 2026) | May–June 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Greater Nashville REALTORS |
| Columbia | $449,990 | April–May 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Movoto / Dyad Real Estate / HomeLight |
| Smyrna | $412,253 (sale price; the median listing price ran higher, about $481,000, June 2026) | May 2026 | Zillow / Redfin |
| Murfreesboro | $405,000 | June 2026 | Redfin / Zillow |
| Lebanon | $390,000 | May 2026 | Redfin / Zillow |
| Goodlettsville | $373,000 | March 2026 | Redfin / Zillow |
| Clarksville | $308,000 | March 2026 | Redfin / Zillow / Houzeo |
| Gallatin | Not published — withdrawn September 2026; the figure we carried was a rounded restatement of a source figure | June 2026 | — |
| Hendersonville | Not published — the public sources disagree widely for the same month, and the most-quoted figure is a median list price | June 2026 | — |
| Spring Hill | Not published — the figure we carried traces to a median list series rather than closed sales; under re-verification | June 2026 | — |
| Portland | Not published — the public sources disagree on the median and on the direction | August 2026 | — |
Where is a price direction still defensible?
At the regional and county level, where the sample is large enough that one month's mix cannot flip the sign. The Greater Nashville REALTORS monthly and quarterly reports, built on RealTracs MLS data, cover the whole nine-county region and publish a closing count beside every median, with a stated property segment and a fixed county boundary rather than a vendor's drawn polygon. That is the level at which we are willing to describe a market as moving in a direction, and even there we publish the closing counts alongside so a reader can judge the weight behind the figure.
For a single town, the honest answer to "is it going up or down?" is a set of closed comparable sales for the specific street and price band, pulled on the day you ask. That is a different instrument from a citywide monthly median, and it is the one that actually governs a listing price or an offer.
What this means if you are buying or selling
- •Treat any single-month, single-town price trend you see quoted anywhere — including ours, historically — as a reading rather than a direction. Ask what month, what source, and how many sales are behind it.
- •Use levels and market time to set expectations: a town's median, its days on market and its months of supply are steadier and more useful for pricing than a percentage change.
- •Ask for closed comparable sales for your actual street and price band before you set a list price or write an offer. That is the only read specific enough to price a house.
- •Nobody can tell you where prices are headed next, and an agent who offers to is guessing. We do not publish forecasts.
This page is a snapshot of what we can source and stand behind as of September 2026, not a forecast. Figures shift monthly — pull current numbers before you list or offer.
Questions about your specific market? Call the Will Johnson Team at 615-265-1000 for a no-pressure consultation.
By Will Johnson — U.S. Army veteran and former ICU nurse / CRNA. Knowledge-broker focused on honest, data-driven Middle Tennessee real estate. eXp Realty.
