On top of increasing costs, the lack of available land in East Tennessee is a concern.
Developers buy land and prepare it for housing by putting in the necessary infrastructure, including roads, utilities, sewer lines, electricity and more. Then, they sell the empty land to a building company to construct homes.
Instead of selling individual plots to builders, many developers are pushing to sell whole subdivisions as infrastructure prices rise. Cook said buying that much property isn't "financially feasible" for his business and other locally owned operations. The result is fewer developable lots for local home builders.
"The developable land inventory is down, and it's shrinking fairly rapidly," Brooks told Knox News. "We live in an area of the country that has a lot of topography. We have a lot of water. So the land that is still available to be developed is more challenging pieces of property. I think that that will prove to be more of a challenge for the development community."