Atlanta Real Estate | Atlanta Housing News for Real Estate

I was just doing some research on the Atlanta MLS this evening and ws looking at a particular subdivision that really was a sleeper a few years ago.  I had considered buying for myself, but it did not suit me.  For my own taste... the location and the finish work was mediocre.  So I passed on it.  The homes were all priced in the upper 400K's at the time.  One resale begged us to make an offer, but I wasn't interested.  So tonight I looked at the same subdivision and they are now selling in the 690K's!  I was amazed!  I have to stop and think maybe I do not know real estate as well as I thought I did!  As new construction a few of the sales prices were higher, but they had an incredible run of sales in spite of quite a few expired and withdrawn listings when they were priced a little lower.  As I looked at a sampling of about 25 sales well into the 550K's to 699K I noticed that over 18 sales were no money down whatsoever!   On a few others, I would question the assessment, and square footage in the tax records.  They looked way inflated for the product!  In fact the sales prices were bumped up on a few new homes!  That is not unusual in new construction, but most of the homes sold that I looked at had no money down, and a few were only 5-7% down.  

When you think of it, I had some high end listings a few years earlier where in the upper brackets it really is difficult to find many buyers that qualify or have the income or disposable cash to purchase expensive homes.   In fact it was almost impossible.  So in the period of a year or so they sold 26 homes, and over 100 in the last couple of years.  It really makes you stop and think!  Did these buyers really all have the income to purchase a home in the upper 600K's without any money?  Was it coincidence they all used the mostly the same lender (I assume the builder's)?  They are now into their mortgage for a few years if they all used the same product I am curious how many will be able to afford to pay the new adjusted payments.  If not the value in this one subdivision could plunge almost by a third in my opinion!  Foreclosures in a subdivision like this are just a matter of time before they start showing up.  Do  you think the loans were legitimate or was there fraud involved?  Oh and one more item, most sales were made without buyer representation!

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