When it comes to buying a newly-built home, demand far outpaces supply. A survey from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) found that in 2018, 31 percent of home buyers wanted to purchase a brand-new home. Another report by NAHB found that 41 percent of millennial home buyers would prefer to own a brand-new home.

Despite many buyers’ preference for new homes, only about 11 percent of home sales each year are for new construction. The rest are for existing homes, many of which were built decades ago. In fact, U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 12.3 percent of homes in the U.S. were built before 1940, while only 4.6 percent were built in the past 5 years.

New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, have the oldest homes in the United States with 35% built pre-1940. Meanwhile, Tennessee is relatively young on the list with only 5.6% of all homes built before 1940.

Specific to Rutherford County:

In Rutherford County, approximately 2,800 homes were built in 1939 or before. An even smaller amount of homes were constructed between 1940 and 1949 with a number that comes in at around 1,600. It wasn't until 1950 that Rutherford County saw the first boom in residential construction with close to 4,500 homes being built over a 9-year period ending in 1959. The next major explosion in home construction hit Rutherford County between year 2000 and 2009 with over 33,500 new homes being built.

Throughout Tennessee:

Researchers at Filterbuy found that in Tennessee, 5.6% of all homes were built at least 80 years ago. Here is a summary of the data for Tennessee:

• Share of homes built before 1940: 5.6%
• Number of homes built before 1940: 170,527
• Share of homes built in 2010 or later: 9.4%
• Number of homes built in 2010 or later: 284,326
• Median home price: $196,125

For reference, here are the statistics for the entire United States:

• Share of homes built before 1940: 12.3%
• Number of homes built before 1940: 17,219,141
• Share of homes built in 2010 or later: 7.2%
• Number of homes built in 2010 or later: 10,008,104
• Median home price: $256,663

For more information, a detailed methodology, and complete results, you can find the original report on Filterbuy’s website: https://filterbuy.com/resources/cities-with-oldest-homes/