Athens-based real estate broker Deborah Lamb plants a "for sale" sign in front of a single-family home on Oakdale Circle. Lamb said business is booming but inventory is low.

Despite dropping temperatures, the housing market in the Athens-Limestone County area remains hot, according to local realtors who say business is better than ever.

Home sales in the area are up 10 percent over last year, according to ValleyMLS, which also noted the Athens-Limestone market as one of the strongest in the state.

Deborah Lamb, a real estate broker with RE/MAX of the Valley, said of the 15 years she has been a broker in Athens, 2018 has been her most productive year yet.

She believes more people are buying homes in this area because the economy is stronger, interest rates are still relatively low and buyers are attracted to the quieter pace Limestone County offers.

“You have empty nesters wanting to downsize and younger millennials having children and wanting a bigger house,” Lamb said. “And then we have people moving here from places like Huntsville because they are looking for a more laid-back atmosphere.”

While Lamb said most of her clients are from North Alabama, Verna Stephens, a realtor at Athens-based Dream Key Real Estate, said she has noticed more and more of her clientele are from out of state.

Recently, she sold a home to a couple from Texas. She is currently representing buyers from Maryland, Illinois and Florida, who Stephens said are attracted to the area’s reasonable home prices and some of the lowest property taxes in the country.

“My buyer from Illinois told me that he was paying $6,000 a year for his property taxes up there,” she said. “He couldn’t believe how low they were here.”

Real estate database Zillow reported Alabama is one of the top 10 most reasonable states to purchase a home, but ValleyMLS said the median home sales price in the Athens area exceeds the rest of the state.

In the last year, home prices in the area have jumped 25 precent, while the rest of Alabama only increased 4.4 percent between 2017 and 2018. The median sales price of a home in the Athens area is $232,199, while the state median is $162,482, according to ValleyMLS.

With the recent surge in home sales, inventory has plummeted, Lamb said. Homes listed for sale in the area in October totaled 465 units, a 23.3-percent decrease from October 2017’s 606 units.

For the first time in her career, Lamb said, she is seeing multiple offers on homes and an increasing number of her listings selling for above the asking price. She said the average number of days a home spends on the market has plummeted from about 120 days in 2017 to between 50 and 60 days in 2018.

Lamb said she would normally have close to 50 active listings this time of the year, but now she only has a dozen. Stephens said she is selling more houses than ever, but she too is concerned about dropping inventory levels.

“We need more new builds in this area,” Stephens said. “That is the only solution I can see, especially with the new Toyota plant coming.”

Slated to open for operations in January 2021, the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing USA plant will employ 4,000 people and produce approximately 300,000 vehicles per year.

“We haven’t seen anyone from the plant looking for a house yet,” Lamb said. “But we know it’s coming and it will definitely increase our business. “