Home buyers are gaining the upper hand in Nashville as demand continues to trend down this year.

Home appreciation has slowed nearly every month since last fall, following year-over-year double-digit growth from 2016 to mid-2018.

In March, price growth mellowed to roughly the same rate as the national average of 6.6 percent.

Average home values grew by 6.8 percent in March, compared to the year prior when prices jumped 11.2 percent over March 2017.

The decrease, a result of reduced demand, is also taking place in other fast-growing markets.

"Nashville is one of the many places where prices were growing at an unsustainably high rate," said Zillow economist Jeff Tucker. "So a slowdown reverting to a vanilla, boring marketplace I think is good for people."

The number of unsold homes in the Nashville Metro area sitting on the market in March – 11,510 – was the largest since January 2015.

Seattle, San Jose seeing larger drops

Nashville area home price appreciation has slowed steadily since the fall, with 8.9 percent increases over the year before in both October and November 2018, followed by 8.5 percent in December and 7.9 percent in January.

Across the United States, some of the most heated housing markets like Seattle and San Jose are now experiencing the biggest value declines.

This economic reckoning comes after home costs jumped much faster than average wages for years.

“By far, the most severe slowdown is in expensive West Coast markets," Tucker said. "I do think that the previous rates of growth in Nashville were really unsustainable. That was sort of pulling things out of the reach of affordability for a lot of people."

Similarly, some of the most popular Nashville neighborhoods are now seeing the biggest decrease in demand as buyers look to more affordable areas.

Buyers turn to Goodlettsville, Dickson

Nashville's population growth is also pumping the brakes.

The metropolitan area grew by an average of 83 people a day from July 2017 to July 2018, according to recently released Census data. That is down from 94 people a day during the prior 12 months.

New home buyers are increasingly looking away from the urban core to outlying areas.

Goodlettsville experienced the biggest increase in demand for homes in March in the 10-county Nashville metropolitan area, over the prior year, according to an analysis by Zillow and Trulia.

Other high-demand neighborhoods were Dickson, the north end of East Nashville bordering Madison, Franklin, Murfreesboro, Ashland City and Belle Meade.

Neighborhoods with the biggest drop in demand from March 2018 to March 2019 included downtown Nashville, the southern end of East Nashville, Hillsboro Village, Music Row, Spring Hill, Sylvan Park, Forest Hills, Bellevue, Hermitage, Nolensville, and Antioch.

As interest rates are being kept low and plenty of homes remain on the market, Nashville's housing market will likely continue to be favorable to buyers this year, Tucker said.

"Many buyers appear to be hitting a ceiling in what they can afford in some of the areas that were hot a year ago, shifting their focus to less expensive neighborhoods with more affordable homes," Tucker said. "The prolonged buildup of housing inventory will take some time for buyers to work their way through. I would expect things to remain fairly stable this year."

Sandy Mazza can be reached via email at smazza@tennessean.com, by calling 615-726-5962, or on Twitter @SandyMazza.