JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) — After a big jump in new housing starts last year, Johnson City has started 2025 with those numbers still on the upswing.

New housing starts rose more than 70% in 2024 compared to 2023, with a total of 339 single family permits pulled. Then came the normally slow winter months, but no slowdown. The city issued 87 permits from January through March, which was more than double the amount for the first three months of 2024.

Johnson City Mayor John Hunter said that’s good news for a place where the population continues to grow and housing inventory remains well below demand, even with more than 7% growth compared to a year ago.

“The reality is we’re still short about 2,500 houses in Johnson City based on demand,” Hunter said.

That kind of shortage contributes to rising home prices, particularly as buyers compete with each other for limited selection.

“The more houses and apartments and condos we see in our region, the more likely we can see the stabilization of housing prices,” Hunter said.

National homebuilder D.R. Horton, which entered the Northeast Tennessee market several years ago, now accounts for the majority of single-family starts in Johnson City. The company has several large projects currently adding homes inside the city limits, with a couple of others set to “go vertical” with their first new homes sometime this year.

The corporate builder isn’t alone in helping meet demand in and around Johnson City, though. Jordan Hodges and his senior partner Terry Orth have more than a dozen homes under construction now and plan to continue building at a steady clip this year.

“We purchased some property here and went vertical with close to 20 homes,” Hodges said. “We’ve sold everything that’s been completed and we acquired this portion, did the infrastructure and developed the lots.”

He was standing on a brand new empty street in Autumn Ridge, where like the homes built last year, he expects the 30-plus new houses that will transform the acreage north of Winged Deer Park to sell quickly.

Hunter and Hodges both said they’re seeing about a 50-50 mix among new homebuyers, with half moving in from out of the area and half simply relocating from within the Tri-Cities.

“This isn’t all in-migration,” Hunter said. “We’re a welcoming community and we’ve got a lot to share, but a lot of this is also organic growth.”

The building of the last 18 months has helped turn a super-tight seller’s market into something a bit more manageable. The days of nearly any house put on the market selling within a few days and often sparking a bidding war have been replaced by slightly longer times on the market and a supply of slightly over three months.

Neither man expects a real slowdown anytime soon, and both said that makes smart growth with the right balance of regulation and flexibility to keep developers wanting to build here and keep the region as attractive as possible to people moving in.

“Infrastructure needs to be put in place,” said Hunter, who serves on the Planning Commission as well as the City Commission. “One of the things we need to think about is smart growth — does the development make sense where it’s being proposed, or the number of units?”

With that foundation, though, the city is trying to continually improve relations with the people doing the actual building, including with an initiative called “J.C. Build.”

“We’re trying to engage with the builders and contractors to figure out where their sticking points are, when they’re coming to the city and figure out how we can be, not lax on regulation, but more efficient and easier to work with. Hopefully, we can help spur getting these houses online sooner rather than later.”

Hodges said his company has “a very good relationship with the city right now.”

“Just like anything else, they have some things they could do better, we have things we could do better,” Hodges said. “But recognizing your responsibility in that relationship really is the key.”

Hodges is an Elizabethton native who said he understands people’s frustrations as traffic gets more congested and more green spaces transition to housing. But he said the region has plenty of space to absorb more people without losing its character, provided the growth is done right.

“I get out on (Interstate) 26, it’s frustrating,” he said. “(But) I believe there is room for growth. I grew up in Carter County and I am an avid outdoorsman so it is important for me to keep our landscape and keep our nature and everything intact the best we can.”

“I think we can provide a better future for our children and have a beautiful place to live that has grown.”