Housing is so expensive that East Tennesseans like me fear losing the American Dream

I can remember learning about supply and demand in high school economics class. The teacher used an illustration with M&Ms and Jolly Rancher candies to teach us about how a decrease in supply or an increase in demand drives up the value of a good or service. In East Tennessee today my former Farragut High School classmates and I are getting a brand new lesson in the law of supply and demand, and this one is definitely not sugar coated.

Home ownership, once considered the bedrock of the American Dream, has become more of a fantasy for young people in East Tennessee. The COVID-19 pandemic sparked the greatest American domestic migration since the Dust Bowl, and saw thousands of new residents relocate to our peaceful valley.

Far from the displaced farmers of the dust bowl, these migrants brought pallets of cash which they used to win bidding wars, often against young first time homebuyers, for Knoxville area homes. This rapid increase in demand naturally drove up costs.

In 2018, the median listing price for a home in the Knoxville metropolitan area was $250,000. It has since gone up by nearly $200,000. Only 15% of the available housing on the market on a given day is affordable for a person making $75,000 or less. If you make $100,000 a year, you can afford about 30% of the listings. That means that 80% of the houses up for sale are unaffordable to a large majority of area residents. We have a supply and demand problem.

Another view: Addressing Knoxville’s housing crisis will require leaders' political courage

Young people are being denied the opportunity to buy a home

Unfortunately, many activists and government figures in the area have responded to the issue not by fighting to increase supply, but trying to cut it off completely. Some believe that if we simply stop building, they’ll stop coming and we can somehow go back to the uncrowded, affordable Tennessee we knew and loved.

The opposite is true. Contracting supply has priced out locals and furthered our transformation into the Hamptons of the south.

This is a death sentence for the American Dream of young people like me. We didn’t get our seat on the bus before prices went up, and at this rate we will never afford to buy our way in. Some of us have moved away, some have moved home, and many are missing meals to meet rent payments that have increased by nearly 50% on average since the pandemic began.

Much is made of preserving the culture of our community. As an eighth generation East Tennessean, this is extremely important to me. Loudon and Blount counties have adopted restrictive land use policies to limit development of farmland.

This sounds great on paper, but it misses the heart of the problem. The culture isn’t the land, it’s the people! What good will preserving our farms be if none of your children will be around to enjoy them?

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Will Knoxville become just for transients and transplants?

The only way to protect our way of life is to keep East Tennessee affordable for East Tennesseans. To do that, we’ve got to build houses, town homes, and condos and build them fast.

Every month county commissioners vote to approve or disapprove new construction projects, and every month their inboxes are full of messages from people opposing the projects. If you want your children to be able to afford to live, work and raise a family in the greatest region in America, they need to hear from you.

Early next year many area counties will be voting on new policies related to development. It’s crucial that our elected officials hear both sides of this issue, and know that they have support in keeping East Tennessee affordable. You can find their contact info at commission.knoxcountytn.gov, loudoncounty-tn.gov, and blounttn.gov.

There’s an old saying that goes like this: You know you’re from Appalachia if you’re born knowing where you’ll be buried. History, continuity and family are more important in our little corner of the country than any other.

I, like so many other young Tennesseans, want so badly to stay and start a family here. Without significant changes in policy and sentiment around home building, Knoxville will become just another map dot, full of transients and transplants who know nothing and care nothing of her bygone glory.Andrew Davis is a former aide to Congressman Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville, and Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs. He is currently the president of Smoky Mountain Strategies.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: East Tennessee housing: Prices are out of reach for too many natives