Atlanta Real Estate | Atlanta Housing News for Real Estate

Finally some good news for Atlanta home owners*.  Atlanta home sales actually took a major jump forward for the month of November. According to FMLS statistics just released this week - inNovember 2009 there were 3,630 closings for single family detached Atlanta homes - fee simple.  This is an increase of 32.9% for Atlanta home sales over November 2008!  As you can clearly see from the graph for November home sales took off.  The average prices moved a lot lower, but his was due to so many firstime home buyers in the market.  This massive increase in home sales was fueled by a pent up demand for many of the first time home buyers that thought the 8K credit was expiring, and historic lowws of 30 year fixed rate mortgages.  Owning a home is now cheaper than renting.  We have to look forward now to see if the same trends of increasing home sales holds up.

The bad news for buyers is that rates are rising, and there is a lot less homes for sale than we've had in the last few years.

Atlanta real estate statistics

*These average home sales are an average of our FMLS service area and not limited to just the city of Atlanta.

Interested in Atlanta real estate statistics*?  A better picture of the economy is if we look at historical data and develop a trend chart.  The "Apples to apples" approach makes a lot of sense when trying to get a real grasp on what the economy is really doing.  All too often the media sensationalizes one months sales by making unfair comparisons.  That is not a smart thing to do especially if one month is November and the other month is July!  All seasonal factors are pretty much thrown out the window in that type of unscientific approach,

I've created a simple 5 year average sales price chart for Atlanta home sales for November from November 2005 to November 2009.  What I found is that we had a 23.12% drop in the average sales price for detached fee simple Atlanta homes from the peak in this chart of November 2007 at $262,811 to November 2009's average sales price of $187,941.  -  Atlanta real estate statistics

*These average prices are an average of our FMLS service area and not limited to just the city of Atlanta.

Each year in life, the obligatory holiday's greeting cards usually are always the same.  Trite cards, with mundane holiday greetings sometimes do not perk you up around the holidays like they are supposed to.  Sometimes there are photos of friends, relatives and their families that you've not seen in a long time.  Some days it is almost a chore to see the cards you received, and the ones that are returned.  Others greeting cards are from business associates or persons vying to do business with you and other cards you can't even place where they know you from.  I can only think that it feels like early stage dementia.  This year we received much of the same...and we also received some cards from friends and relatives on Garden City Long Island with a picture of our youngest son working in the missions in Jamaica.  What a great present and treat it was to get this Christmas!  The reason it was a treat was that it was totally a surprise to friends and relatives that read the article, and to us his parents.  It was unexpected. 

After our youngest son James graduated college at Catholic University of America in DC decided to work for the church for a few years as a campus minister at Hofstra University.  I think it was a good choice for many reasons, and this is just the latest!  Mom and Dad are very proud of him!

The Atlanta FMLS most recent sales statistics were just released today from our primary First Multiple Listing Service FMLS for closed November home sales both detached and attached homes.  There were some good signs of improvement for our troubled real estate market.  There were 4,377 closings for all single family in November in the Atlanta Metro market, and this was comprised of 3,630 closings in November 2009 for single family detached. (an increase of 32.9% over November 2008) and 747 closings in November for single family attached (an 85.8% increase over November 2008!)

The average sale prices for all single family remained weak in November.  However, this lower price point helped stimulate the increase in demand along with historic lows in fixed mortgage rates and the would be 8K tax credits ending.

The November average closed price was $189,306 which is the lowest reported monthly average since April 2009's $182,369. The average closed price for single family attached in November 2009 was $147,347. This is down 8.5% from November 2008 and the 24th consecutive year-to-year monthly average price decline.

North of the city of Atlanta In North Fulton county on the west-side of the 400 is the area of Roswell, Alpharetta and newly formed city of Milton.  There are currently 92 homes for sale in Alpharetta that are priced over $1 Million Dollars. 

Currently in this area:

• 0 Kick Out Contract
• 1 Due Dilagence Contract
• 0 Contingency Other
• 6 Pending Sales
• YTD 38 Million dollar homes sold in this area since January 1, 2009.

Many of the homes sold in the higher price ranges are new construction and many are paying closing costs and the are concessions on price.  Seller's contributions are very low, but I am seeing some incredible concessions on price.  Depending on final sales price.If you are looking to buy or sell a luxury home in Alpharetta or a million dollar estate homes for sale in Roswell contact us first!  You'll be glad you did!

• Alpharetta Homes for Sale $1,000,000 - 5,000,000
• Alpharetta Homes for Sale $5,000,000 - 10,000,000
• Alpharetta Homes for Sale $10,000,000 +
• Roswell Homes for Sale $1,000,000 - 5,000,000
• Roswell Homes for Sale $5,000,000 - 10,000,000
• Roswell Homes for Sale $10,000,000 +

Success is easy when you have a plan.  I've said before that "Success is a planned event, and a destination in life!"  For those that don't have a plan life is full of magic and awe.  They call it "Luck!" Agents that do not get it envy others in their office, but never see all the detail that goes into a hard working agents success.  They are like children at a magic show with their mouths open wondering out loud  "Gee, how did he do that!  Wow!  It's magic!"  Well no it isn't magic.  It is a trick that is accomplished when you know the steps to take. 

With any project to be undertaken there is a master plan.  Don't like the term 'Business plan?'  Think of it as a vision or a blueprint that will ensure the completion of the project.  Last week I was in Fairfax VA at the Fair Lakes Wal-Mart just before Christmas and just before the snow storm.  I happened to come across a full life size display of "Indiana Jones" made entirley of Legos! I just had to take a picture of it.  Describing it in words alone would not do it justice.  When you looked at it, the detail was astounding.  From inception, to completion this task would seem impossible to all, and yet when you look closely at the store display, someone conceived the idea, and someone completed it. How?  One block at a time. 

A cross country journey seems insurmountable to most, but it begins with taking that first step and not counting the amount of steps you still have to complete.  It is also not smart to look backawards either...you will become discouraged at your lack of progress. All that matters is that you keep placing one foot in front of the other until your reach your destination. 

Despite still historic lows in mortgage rate buyer demand is still actually pretty lean.  There were a lot of surprised faces when new home sales suddenly shows an 11% drop in the last week.  Unemployment never really abated as planned in the US when the "Cash for Clunkers" had more Americans buy foreign cars than American cars to the tune of 80%! (Even though foreign countries banned the purchase of cars not made in their own countries!)  How absolutely foolish we were as a nation!  Diminished auto inventory did not bring hoards of Americans back to work to the assembly lines as it was supposed to.  Maybe in Japan or Korea workers were called back to work, but not here.  50% of those sold were Japanese.  Sales plummeted as soon as the stimulus ended.  No surprise here for a nation that just does not get the sense of urgency!  This bailout was done in time of a national disaster, and most Americans turned their back on their nation and neighbors! I personally feel there are no excuses for this.  I do not care what your MPG is on your Toyota!  It does not help raise the standard of living here, and get more Americans off the unemployment rolls.  Profits go overseas to a wholly owned foreign corporation.

The 8K credit was also too limited to work.  Do you see the trickle up theory working?  I don't!  over 60% of national sales right now are distressed sales at the lower end of the price range.  The average sales price trend nationally is still headed lower. 

Also, loan modifications have many American reaffirming bad debts.  Loan workouts and modifications contrary to belief are not designed to help the consumers, but rather the banks from failure.  Home owners could modify their mortgage payments and get a lower monthly payment, but basically they are just reaffirming their bad debt.  If a buyer appeared to buy their home, the home would not appraise.  They are basically locked into their home and out of the move up market until the market comes back.   This really does not help our industry.  These are move up buyers that are locked into a time warp.

On another item, the mortgage rates are still at record lows but cannot stay there for long.  They were meant to shore up the housing prices to help the banks with their bankrupt assets sheets.  It did not do a great job.  It did not stop falling home prices but slowed them.  What remains to be seen is what will occur when prices start to rise in the second quarter. Will home prices start their plunge again? Will investors belly up to buy more homes at still cheaper prices?  We cannot dismiss the conversation on mortgage rates.  The change is pretty imminent. Mortgages have to rise for investment in our Government Bonds to finance the nation debt.  The million dollar question is how high, and how quick?  In 1981 I signed a contract for a new home to be built in December of 1980.  Mortgage rates at that time were at 9.25%.  By June they were at 15.5%. By the third quarter they were at 18%.  Almost a 9% rise in 9 months.  That was something I will never forget.  A 70K mortgage PITI was $1570 a month!  There is a correlation for mortgage rates that has never been wrong. 

High Rates = Low Prices & Low Rates = High Prices

The above topics still does not take into account rising unemployment, increasing bank failures, rising taxes, still rising foreclosures, and bad commercial debt.  There are a lot of unanswered questions as the government talks of TARP repayment, and pulling back on some key economic supports. The FDIC insurance fund is now in the red...and borrowing against the future.

So the question is simple...Are we really recovering, or is this smoke and mirrors?

I know everyone likes animated graphics even if they are just a greeting for the holiday.  I found this one this evening and placed it in my setting for signature.  I thought it would be fun to put on for the last week of 2009.  I also like the price.  It is free.  All I have to do is copy the code and insert it!  It is that simple!  The site has about 4 pages of animated graphics.  I hope you find one or 2 that you would like to use if only for a few days!  Then it is back to business as usual again!  Let me know what you think!

Just Click on the NEW YEARS GREETING BELOW TO GET YOURS!

Heading into 2009 from the end of a dismal 2008... no one knew how the coming year ahead (2009) would turn out for Atlanta real estate.  For the last 2 years, I decided to work on my websites and revamp them.  My initial thoughts were that print advertising, and media would dry up as buyers cooled their heels.  Higher gas prices at the end of 2008, and a collapse on Wall Street was the final straw for many would be home buyers to stop driving around looking for homes when a gallon of gas was over $4.00 a gallon.  My gut feeling paid off.  There are more home buyers looking on the Internet for homes than anywhere else including social media.  Blogging in 2009 did not have the return in had in previous years.  We are still getting tremendous web traffic on our main Atlanta real estate site www.AtlantaBestHomes.Com. I am amazed at the numbers.  We are driving over 2900 unique visitors some days.  The average day on our site we are driving over 22 unique visitors.  We are blessed.  It was in the second half of 2009 that business picked up.

While many of the deals were not directly in our market area, we were able to concentrate on referring the leads to the best and most agents experienced agents.  We did not work the referrals as a team referral, or a company referral.  We simple looked for the best agents.  It paid off.  We were able to take some great deals for ourselves adn refer out the short sales, investors and foreclosures.  By not working distressed sales for pennies on the dollar while everyone else scrambled to work for nothing, we were able to almost double last years income.

It really pays not to become overwhelmed at the market, but to keep planning, building on success,  reducing costs, and moving forward.