Atlanta Real Estate | Atlanta Housing News for Real Estate

Selling a home in Atlanta and want to know what your home iin Atlanta s worth?  Then you'll need a Competitive market Analysis or a FREE CMA for Atlanta home sellers!  A Free CMA will provide you with the selling prices of homes similar to yours that have sold in your own neighborhood in Atlanta.  It will give you an idea of what your can sell your home in Atlanta for. A CMA is not an appraisal, but it will give you a good idea of where to price your home in Atlanta to sell it.

Thinking of selling a home in Atlanta?  Want to know what your home in Atlanta is worth?  Have you ever asked yourself "What are homes selling for in my Atlanta neighborhood?" Need some answers? Well you've come to the right place!

If you are thinking of selling your home in Atlanta or its' suburbs, planning a move, purchase or relocation...if you're buying or selling your home in the N. Metro area of Atlanta, Alpharetta, Roswell, Dunwoody, Duluth, Norcross, Peachtree Corners, East Cobb, Forsyth, Marietta, Lake Lanier, Cherokee, Cumming, and Fulton counties...then we can help! As full time, fully professional REALTORS®, and listing agents that specialists in relocations, and the best real estate service possible! Ellen and I offer a FREE Competitive Market Analysis (CMA).   Whether you are selling or buying, we can handle all the details. 

Real estate training is some of the worse training in the world when you really think about it.  Whatever the state's minimal licensing requirements for licensure are, they do not prepare a newly licensed agent for the real world solutions. Yes there are 43,560 square foot in an acre and of course you remember the definitions of riparian, alluvial and littoral rights...don't you?  What real knowledge can a newly licensed agent use to assist a home buyer or a home seller?  The answer is none of the above!  A real estate license is a state's permission to engage in the practice of real estate under the supervision of a broker. That's all.  A newly licensed piolet does not take over the helm of a jumbo 747 and start flying hundreds of passengers to and fro across the country.  A new doctor graduate of medical schools does not immediately start performing brain surgeries.  The real world does not work that way.  All these professionals seek addition knowledge and training to become proficient enough to eventually work on their own, unsupervised.

In Real estate, a deal can be $50,000 dollars or 5 Million dollars.  A deal may represent a persons entire lifetime of savings, or a corporations total cash assets.  So what does the broker do to train the new agents about correctly taking listings at the right price only?  How do you know the potential client you are working with is motivated, and loyal? Who tells the new agent never to put a person into the car to show a home without qualifying their ability to purchase?  Does anyone advise a new agent it isn't wise to cut a commission?  Does an agent know how to perform a very accurate Comparative Market Analysis?  Would you list a home that you feel is worth 150K, and the seller want to list the home at 275K?  Well the sad reality, is no one sits down and really goes over all the possible scenarios with a new agent! 

When you really stop and ponder this point it gets very scary!  Most of the advice an agent will receive is from other agents in the office.  Since most of the agents in an office will be out of the real estate business within the first few years, and the average agent only sells a few homes a year, what advice is the new agent actually getting?  The answer is none!  "It is the classic case of the blind leading the blind!"  It is quite scary when you know this is the scenario that takes place in every city, across the country every day of the year.  How unproductive.  This is the primary reason for real estate listings expire.  Overpriced homes that should never have been listed, are listed by someone that never even gave it a thought,  A listing is not a feather in the cap unless it sells.  This is a recipe for disaster for the new agent.  It ensures their own failure in real estate.

Brokers need to take a much more pro-active part in making sure the new agents that are listed in their office have real training that ensures they are successful, and that their clients receive the best possible assistance and service.  Part of this plan would be to hook new agents up with agents that have closed lots of deals.  This could be one of the smartest things a broker can do to ensure new agent success.  Set up a mandatory mentoring program, or shadow training for all new agents.  How would this translate into our everyday life in real estate?  Less listings expiring or withdrawing, less days on market, less termination an releases for clients trying to get out of contracts for not being able to perform, and so much more.  Love to hear your thoughts!

It is no secret to anyone that is a veteran of real estate that we are in a buyer's market, but where are the buyers?  Interest rates are still reasonable, home prices, and new homes are is such a plentiful state that it should be easy to pick the perfect home and negotiate the right terms!  So where are the buyers? 

Are the buyers sitting on the fence looking to time the market and buy a home or real estate at the best possible price?  Do the buyers have the cash needed to purchase a home with some of the new more stringent lending requirements?  Do the buyers have the down payment?  or are we tapped out of buyers?  We must ask ourselves how many buyers are really left out there?  In the past few years the number of home owners in the United States has climbed to new historic levels, and yet over 35% of all homes sold in the last few years were sold as "Not owner occupied!"  That means investment, and second homes took a major chunk of all home sales in the last few years?  What happens when we remove 30% of all real estate sales? 

I was reading an article online this evening, and had to pause to reflect on the implications, and there will be many to think about!  Existing homes sale continue to fall, and if builder were doing well, they would not have to offer incentives!

Good times will abound again in real estate when we area able to coax the cautious homebuyer's off the fence. Trying to identify the new buyers needs and niche markets will remain a daunting task for many a real estate professional.  There are many questions that have to be asked before we proceed in our quest! What will the remaining home buyers be looking for?  Where will they be looking?  What will they be willing to spend?   What concessions will they demand?  Will new financing requirement change how we qualify potential buyers, and first time home-buyers?  Will the buyers be middle range, luxury homes, second homes, investors, baby boomer's?  Share your thoughts!

Like everyone else in real estate this week I've was busy reading a lot of news stories, watching the stock markets, and listening to commentaries on the real estate and martgage business. The main story was the  Countrywide mortgage meltdown, mortgage company failures, tightening credit, sub-prime spillover into non-conforming loans.,,foreclosures, loan defaults, spillover into the credit markets and much more.  Then I heard the CEO of Countywide talk about how this could lead the US into recession.  I am unimpressed.  Like no DUH! Gee no kidding?  Did yhou go to Harvard?  Don't ell me you are an expert and did not see this coming!  Hey did you hear if you pay with fire you can get burned?  Anyway, as usual the press was all over it...treating him like a demi-god!  If he was that bright, his company, and other mortgage companies would not have dispensed 100% no money down, interest only loans to people with bad credit like they were dispensing PEZ candy! They need not look for the Federal government bail them out with lower rates for their own greed, and foolhardy lending practices that were suicidal.

When the real estate markets corrected in the 1980's and persons walked  away from their homes, they held on til the last.  They walked away hurting.  Those homeowners lost everything.  They saved an earned, and sacrificed to earn 20% down payments and closing costs to purchase the American dream.  Many entered the market with interest rates as high as 18% for 30 year loans.  They walked away from homes with their life savings wrapped into the properties.

Today the buyers were different.  They purchased homes way beyond their means, nothing down, asked the sellers to pay closing costs, and in the case of NEHIMIAH loans the sellers even contributed to the down payment.  When these sellers default and many will...they will not even look back.  They had not one cent invested in the purchase.  The mortgage companies that lent the money knew all too well, that the first go around of interest rate adjustments for these home owners would be unbearable.  They lent anyway.  The mortgage companies knew that many of these foolish home owners would not even qualify for their own refinances, and still they lent anyway. 

We live in some strange times, but one where personal responsibility speaks in double talk.  I do not care if Countrywide or some of the other lender go under.  I prefer they do not.  I would have preferred they were socially responsible, and did the right thing to begin with, and since they did not...get ready to get what they deserve.

We just sold our home in Atlanta from our Atlanta Real Estate Blog on Active Rain.  An Atlanta home buyer found our listing on the Internet within 2 days of writing a Blog on our own home for sale in Alpharetta, and made an appointment to see the home.

I originally designed the Blog as a real estate flyer in www.Postlets.com and then published it on our Atlanta real estate Blog on Active Rain.  Within 2 days we had an appointment from a buyer that made an appointment to see our home.  They viewed our own home, and at the end of the 2 hour tour they said the home was just perfect for their needs, and wrote an offer.   They then identified the Atlanta real estate blog as the source to where they found our home.  We just closed on the sale last Friday.  I thought this was a great opportunity to share this with the public and the Active Rain Community.

When I joined Active Rain earlier this year, I was looking for a new tool that could increase our Internet exposure and closed business.  Active Rain fit the Bill.  A sale should not be based on luck or just a fluke. it should be a repeatable event.  If you can duplicate your success, you can grow your business.  We recently closed a few sales, and several of our Atlanta sales were a direct result of my participation in Active Rain.  The key to the sale is it great to socialize on Active Rain, but it is much better to use it as a tool.  Localism is a great way to deliver listings, homes for sale, neighborhood news and events to the community in which you live and serve.  For me, Active Rain is not about the points, but about the sales, and learning opportunities shared from other like minded real estate professionals. 

A TIP FOR SUCCESS:

CHOOSE YOUR TITLE CAREFULLY, AS WELL AS THE WORDS IN YOUR FIRST FEW SENTENCES...ALSO CHOOSE YOUR TAGS CAREFULLY.  WHEN YOU PUBLISH, HAVE YOUR BLOG FEEDS SUBMITTED TO RSS FEEDS

Thank you Active Rain!  YOU MAKE ME SMILE!

I was surfing the real estate news stories this evening when this real estate news article caught my eye.  It was in the Houston Chronicle online, and was entitled "Further decline in the number of real estate agents predicted!"  In the Atlanta real estate market a few years ago, we had about 12,500 agents, we now have 45,000.  The numbers of sales never grew exponentially, and now have returned to almost normal sales levels of about 5000 sales per month.  That is not enough income to sustain most agents in their monthly obligations such as mortgage payments, food, clothing, mortgage and auto payments.  There are 20% less closed sales in single family residential classes of real estate in Atlanta from last July 06 (6538 sales) vs. July 07 (5265).  In Condos and town homes a comparison of sales in July 2006 have dropped almost 16%.  I think with the reality of the lack of new financing options for limited buyers, sales will decline further for the near future before leveling out and recovery begins.  Nationally the numbers of agents has grown exponentially.  In 2001 when I was in Chicago at the National Association of Realtors headquarters the number of Realtors was at about 750,000.  We now have 1.4 Million.  So the question begs to be asked, do you agree with this article?  If so, how many agents are enough?  Who will survive, who will leave?  Who will survive and prosper and be successful?

Looking for Atlanta new homes? There are loads of Atlanta new luxury homes for sale in the Atlanta metro area.  Some Atlanta new homes sell quicker than others, and you cannot help but wonder why some homes will sell, and some don't  It is an easy answer, marketing, and lack of marketing.  In this current real estate market we are in most agents in Atlanta are new to real estate and never even sold a single home.  In the past few years the numbers of Atlanta real estate agents in Atlanta rose steadily at exponential rates from 12000 agents to 45000 agents in 3 years.  So the reality is, most of the real estate agents in Atlanta area never sold a single home.  So when an agent is signed up to sell homes or create a marketing plan for a new homes builder, they have no idea where to begin.  The 75 hours it takes to get a state real estate license in Georgia do not include marketing skills.  A real estate license is not a college degree.  In fact almost no one fails the test.  You can obtain a Georgia real estate license if you hold a GED diploma.  So when a new Atlanta million dollar home sits on the market for an extended period of time, without buyers, without buyer traffic, without a virtual tour, without pictures on the MLS...experience agents can sit back and have a good idea why it is not selling!  

Face it, national and the Atlanta real estate market we are in is softening, and it will not be getting better for a while.  Underwriting guidelines for jumbo loans are changing as we speak.  The impact of changing credit market will equate into it being more expensive to finance homes that are in the non conforming or jumbo group.  In other words it will become a lot more difficult to sell homes that are in the 500K to 750K range. 

So someone that entrusts a million dollar home to someone without asking for a track record...is getting what they deserve.  A 45 hour license does not mean you have any actual sale experience.  Think of it this way...if you hit the million dollar lottery, would you entrust your million dollars to someone that just received their 45 hour license?  How could they assist you? What were the the builders thinking?  Obviously they were not!

There are Active Listing  - 2232 homes for sale in Atlanta over 1 Million Dollars

In July 2007, 7/1 -7/31 ONLY SOLD - 58

Between 6/15 -7/15/2007  only 99 homes sold.

Today in Alpharetta, I noticed the outside temperature in my car was 101 degrees!  That is hot in my books.  Usually I have a lot more buyers, and in this weather it would be almost impossible to keep cool going into vacant homes, in and out of air-conditioning, dealing with kids, hydration, and how to dress to stay cool!   This is real life in the trenches in real estate,  In the Atlanta area, the weather channel reported today, no let up for the foreseeable future!  How do you deal with the heat?  This would be a great place to share with other real estate agents!

All too often in real estate it is too easy to focus on the deal, and overlook all the sellers is go through when their home is under contract and they are starting to move out!  Having just contracted our home for sale, we are getting taste of what the homeowners we work with to make our living go through every day!  It is a stressful and daunting time not to be envied! There are boxes, and packing tapes, storage sheds, contract deadlines, work, rental truck, tape guns, packing paper, paint touch ups, generals disarray and chaos.  It is a time where nothing you need can be found!  Moving is a forced time of personal reflection and introspection,  Not only is a time to prioritize one's needs, goals, but it is mandatory opportunity to create a hierarchy of needs.  You have to decide what items need to be take, what needs to be donated, and deal with all the  memories invoked when each treasured item is weighed for it's worth.  The term "Overwhelming" does not do it justice!

If you are in real estate, and haven't moved recently, you should try it!  If you thought there were 24 hours in a day, forget it!  Time also starts to move at the speed of light as the closing day approaches There is never enough time!  There is also an undescribable urgency that is set off in your mind that keeps asking if you will meet all the contract deadlines, and can you accomplish all your tasks in the prescribed given time?  Did you remember to notify the utility companies that you are moving, and rearrange utility service on the new home that you are moving too?  Have you forgotten something?  Were all the contingencies on both homes met?  For those that are downsizing, empty nester's, the poignency of years gone by, and future collide with a variety of emotions.  So before we lose it with a seller the next time you work a deal, put yourself in their shoes.  I'm starting to think they do a better job at handling the related stress better than the pros in the real estate business!