Atlanta Real Estate | Atlanta Housing News for Real Estate

I just received a great back to school calender from Miguel Hawkins a loan officer with Vertical Mortgage.  I think this is an incredible tool since we start school in early August.  Since each county has different start dates this is a great Georgia education reference tool to bookmark for the school calendar year.

• Bartow
• Cherokee
• Clayton
• Cobb
• Coweta
• Dekalb
• Douglas
• Faytette
• Forsyth
• Fulton
• Gwinnett
• Hall
• Henry
• Paulding
• Rockdale
• Walton

I've been doing some reading as usual on the mortgage and housing bailout bill that was just signed today, and I came across a very interesting story.  Oh, I am sure that there are loads of folks in real estate doing cartwheels today over the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac bail out, and housing bill...but they are short on the real details. Their only concern is that doesn't matter... commission checks will be flowing in again soon.  Did you know that we just bailed out the Bank of China?  Amongst others...the biggest supporters of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts has been the Chinese government. It seems in one of the blogs I was reading they supposedly warned us that since they own about half a trillion dollars in Fannie and Freddie securities and they expect to be repaid in full.

The federal bailout reluctantly signed today has basically conferred upon Fannie and Freddie securities equal status to Treasury securities... as we move forward housing GSEs now effectively have unlimited use of every taxpayer's dollars.  Did you know this?  Did you call your elected representatives and put their feet to the fire?  I did through this entire process.  So is it a bailout or sell out?

READ THIS ARTICLE:

• "Bank of China Bailout"

Once the President signs the new housing bailout bill, these are some of the new provisions that will take effect when the bill is implemented on October 1, 2008:

The new housing bailout has many provisions to give some relief to home owners trying to avoid foreclosure. Qualified homeowners may get cheaper, fixed-rate loans and hold off foreclosure - if their lenders agree to take significant losses on their mortgages. It will allow some borrowers to in effect trade in their old mortgages for fixed rate on no more than 90% of the property value (Thanks Federal Government)! The lenders that cannot assist homeowners and take repossess the property will most likely try to unload those obligations onto the Federal Government. However, it still leaves more than 1 million homes that are expected to be repossessed by banks this year.

Before you are able to benefit from this new bill that when signed by the President...and will not be in effect until October 1, 2008. You must first qualify for assistance. Do you qualify for the mortgage bailout?

• You must live in the home that is in foreclosure.
• Your mortgage had to be taken out before January 1, 2008
• Your mortgage payments must exceed your Gross Annual Income GAI by 31%

For first time buyers* that qualify for a $7500 tax credit provided they do not earn more than $75K (150K jointly with spouse) The credit then will be paid back interest free for 15 years. For those that file income tax and only take the standard deductions there will be an additional $500 tax deduction ($1000 joint).

Increased conforming loan limits: Next year, the limit fo conforming loans will be raised to $417,000 or 115% of the local median price, up to $625,500.

Elimination of Down Payment Assistance (Nehemiah) program.  So, any buyer doing a FHA loan must have the 3% minimum down payment or have a relative gift them the money.

*Borrowers who use this program will be penalized if they refinance or sell the home in the next five years.

Home prices continue to decline at a steep rate.  This morning July 29, 2008 the Case Schiller Index was just issued this morning and the index for May has dropped again another 15.87% compared to last year.  The narrower Index of just 10 cities fell to a 16.9% which is the biggest decline in price in the Case Schiller's 20 year history.  Prices of the 20 out of 20 cities in the index declined.  The case Schiller index is an index of single family home prices based on 20 markets in the USA, and covers 9 census divisions.  The problem areas, the ones that saw the most run up in prices continue to be the hardest impacted.  This decline also keeps buyers on the sidelines, because it is basically a predictor of price.  A buyer assumes why buy if home prices are going to continue a decline.  The steepest declines reported were in Las Vegas and Miami where a prices dropped over a 28% in a month.  10 cities in the index saw a double digit drop in home prices.

Since Atlanta real estate is my business - and the business is the buying and selling of homes in Atlanta for our buyers and seller clients I thought this would be a valuable tool to share.  If you are in the Greater Atlanta area it is great to be able to find out things for local governments, and have all that information at your fingertips.  I have put together this information for the counties and cities that surround the North Metro area of Atlanta.  These are official Georgia County and City websites.

• Barrow County

• Cherokee County

• Cobb County

• Dawson County

• DeKalb County

• Fannin County

• Forsyth County

• Fulton County

• Greene County

• Gwinnett County

• Henry County

• Newton County

• Rockdale County

• Walton County

Georgia City Governments - Georgia Cities

• City of Acworth

• City of Alpharetta

• City of Atlanta

• City of Berkeley Lake

• City of Braselton

• City of Buford

• City of Canton

• City of Cumming

• City of Dacula

• City of Decatur

• City Of Duluth

• City of Gainesville

• City of Grayson

• City of John’s Creek

• City of Kennesaw

• City of Lawrenceville

• City of Lilburn

• City of Mableton

• City of Marietta

• City of Milton

• City of Mountain Park

• City of Norcross

• City of Roswell

• City of Sandy Springs

• City of Smyrna

• City of Snellville

• City of Stone Mountain

• City of Sugar Hill

• City of Suwanee

• City of Tucker

• City of Waleska

• City of Winder

• City of Woodstock

  

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Windermere Market Update for Windermere Homes for Sale in Cumming Georgia - Windermere Market Report Home Sales.  As of today Monday, July 28, 2008 there are currently 86 homes for sale in Windermere in Cumming Georgia.  The high price of a home for sale in Windermere is $1,174,900 million resale home with 5 bedrooms 5 baths home complete with a 3 car garage.  The low price for homes for sale in Windermere is $238,900.  That home is a resale home and features a finished basement, and 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a 2 car garage.  

Since January 1, 2008 there have been 34 homes in Windermere sold and the highest sales price was for $899,900...it sold in 12 days on market, and the seller paid $10094in buyers costs.  The least expensive home in Windermere sold for $288,000 and it originally listed at $294,000.  It was on the market a total of 262 days on market.  The seller paid $5055 in buyers closing costs.

As of today Monday, July 28, 2008 there are currently 133 homes for sale in Windward in Alpharetta Georgia.  The high price of a home for sale in Windward is $3,399,000 million resale home with 6 bedrooms 7 baths and 1 half baths home complete with a 4 car garage, with a finished terrace level and swimming pool and spa.  The low price for homes for sale in Windward Golf and Country Club is $249,900.  That home is also a resale home and features a finished basement, and 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a 2 car garage and it is a short sale.  Since January 1, 2008 there have been 47 homes in Windward sold and the highest sales price was for $6,300,000 that was originally listed for $ 6,990,000...it sold in 188 total days on market.  The least expensive home in Windward sold for $296000 and it originally listed at $329,000.  It was on the market a total of 22 days on market.  The seller paid $3000 in buyers closing costs.

Just when you the field of search engines had narrowed to Google, Yahoo, and MSN...their is a new addition today!  It is called Cuil, and it is a new start-up venture from former engineers of Google that feel they can do a better job!  The Cuil search engine launches today, and features a drill down search in a 2-3 column format!  I read about the story this evening on Google's technology news in an online Wall Street Journal Story!  For all of those that earn a livingas I have in Atlanta real estate via the Internet, this is always interesting news especailliay when the engineering talent is recognized!  The article is very ineteresting, and I wonder what it will be like when Cuil is in a full shakedown run.  The site was up and running sporadically this evening, and it is different for sure.  I am sure more features wil be added as it goes along!  Right now you can enjoy an ad free search!

Cuil a New Search Engine

Interested in Atlanta foreclosures?  You better pay attention to this.  Since I am licensed in a few markets and can access the MLS it is interesting when you look at a home that is currently in foreclosure, and go through the tax records.  This is a pattern I noticed in general about searching for foreclosed homes that I thought worth sharing.  I recently started to noticed a pattern of Atlanta homes currently in foreclosure that were just purchased as a foreclosure.  It really jumps out at you because the sales are so recent.  One trend is that I assume a person buys a home at what the feel is a great price just after the market shifts.   It sells a year later and drops again in value.  Before you go there...these homes are not mortgage fraud.  These are foreclosed Atlanta homes where the purchaser bit off more than they could chew, and thought they were an investor but did not have any market knowledge whatsoever.  They purchased the home thinking they were going to flip them in a short term and make a hefty profit.  I turned down many listing earlier this year that I knew would be a total waste of my time, and I was right.  A year later these investors are still on the market with no sale.

In the Atlanta area there are homes that I know that were sold several times in foreclosure since the last down market in the early 90's....they too go in an out of foreclosure.  Some have major structual defects, and that is why they went into foreclosure to begin with.  They were unsalable!  When buying Atlanta foreclosures make sure you work with an Atlanta real estate agent that has a lot of demonstrable experience in buying and selling homes in Atlanta.  If your do not, you will make a costly mistake.  A lot of times, a buy is not a good buy!

The Senate is meeting in a rare weekend session to rubber stamp the housing bailout that most in this country are against.  The cost of passing the bill will saddle us and generations to come, while it bails out the companies that should have failed by reckless lending practices, and knowingly giving loans to those they new cannot afford to repay.  It is no wonder thatCongress has totally lost touch with the will of the people.  NAFTA has taken all of the manufacturing and high paying union jobs our of this nation, and reduced our economy to a service sector non industrial base that pays less than half the wage.  It seems as if our housing bubble for the last few years was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme that borrowed from Peter to Pay Paul!  That only works for so long before it collapses. 

The realities of this bill is not understood by many...including those in real estate is that it will artificially keep the price of housing high beyond the reach of many home buyers, and will raise interest rates.  It we let the chips fall where they could have instead of bailing out everyone that knowingly speculated with someone else's money.  Now they want to avoid the consequences..and who better to do it before election time but Congress?

Senate to Pass Housing Bill. PASSED!

*** For All those that think this was a great idea, did you know there was a bailout for Chrysler built into this?