Archive for the 'Cherokee County' Category
Active Adult Communites Still Have Demand
categories: Active Adult Communities, Alpharetta Real Estate, Cherokee County, Johns Creek Real Estate
We have been hearing it for years, the large boomer population is nearing retirement. Although this economy is effecting what, when and where they retire to, the need is apparently still there. Throughout the North Atlanta area there are several Active Adult Communities that are selling homes briskly and their builders are getting positive reviews.
Jim Chapman Communities recently received a Gold and Silver award at the National Association of Home Builders Best of 50+ Housing Awards. Their development in East Cobb County, Brookhaven of East Cobb is an award winning Gated Active Adult community with a Clubhouse, heated pool and outdoor fireplace as part of their amenities. In order to win, the community and its entries were recognized by an elite panel of 13 judges that included builders, developers, architects, marketing experts and other respected industry professionals. Additionally, Brookhaven at Johns Creek was awarded the Best Detached Home over 2,000 square feet.
Windsong Properties, who recently just celebrated their 5-year mark in Atlanta, sold out thier Somerset Communityin Woodstock earlier this year, proving that well built and affordable homes in the Active Adult category have a strong market here in Atlanta.
A few other Active Adult communities in the area are, Beragio At Crabapple, North Farm, Seasons at Creekside, Greystone Village, Watercrest Commons, Orchards of East Cherokee and Cottages of Woodstock.
Contact us for a complete list of all available Active Adult homes in your area.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
It’s Time to Make Our Real Estate Resolutions | Quality Brokerage, Statistical Reporting and Direct Foreclosure Search
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Announcements, Cherokee County, Miscellaneous, Self Promotion, Stuff I like to talk about
ALPHARETTA - This is the time of the year when we are resolving to make the coming year better than the past year.
No industry is more in need of improvement than the real estate industry (including the auto industry), both in terms of overall market conditions and in the way the industry functions (or dysfunctions depending on your perspective).
The big, national brokerage franchise is one of the elements of the real estate industry that I believe needs revamping and may be headed the way of WaMu, Bear Stearns and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. That is why earlier this year, I resolved to ditch the franchise model for the boutique model. The good news is now at the end of the year I have one less resolution to make and less change to make in the new year.
The currency of large brokerages is agents: Agents bring in the listings and buyers and earn the commissions that keep the lights on. What’s happening is that brokerages are losing their currency as agents drop out of the industry because they are not making any sales. And those agents who are still making a living are looking for more bang for the commission split dollar - or a lower commission split altogether. I’ve written before on this blog about the lack of real value a large brokerage provides to an agent who can already generate business.
Brokerage currency is dwindling. In 2008, the Cherokee Association of Realtors, of which I am a member, lost almost 35% of its members. I’ve heard it rumored that the Atlanta Board of Realtors has lost a similar amount as I’m sure other local boards have, too.
So why, then, do I sound almost happy about this?
First of all, I believe in the survival of the fittest (which is also why I try to stay fit!). The market conditions have forced some much needed fat trimming in the agent ranks. However, the real source of my happiness - and it is relief more than happiness - is that I’m not on a sinking brokerage ship any more. My new local broker, Maxsell Real Estate , is riding high in the water, which I attribute largely to embracing technology to run our business more efficiently, to having aggressive, fair compensation plans for agents, but mostly to understanding how to add value to an individual agent’s business.
In 2008, when the numbers for almost all Atlanta real estate brokerages where heading south, Maxsell’s numbers actually improved. We had 184% growth in the number of transactions over 2007 and there was 120% growth in the dollar volume of transactions.
We added, yes added, agents during 2008 (I’m an example of that) and ended the year with 40% more agents when most brokerages where losing agents. Our gross commission income was up 15% over last year. These statistics left Maxsell as the #8 brokerage in our sub-market, ahead of companies you may have heard of like Re-Max and Jenny Pruitt, and we are a small company!
While it is a relief to me to be affiliated with Maxsell, it should also give you comfort and confidence that Warmath Real Estate is part of a team that is figuring out how to survive and thrive in a real estate industry that is rapidly changing.
One of our strengths and one way we have continued to succeed in this market is our web presence including this blog. While my first resolution of putting our business on a sound brokerage foundation is complete, there are many resolutions I have about continuing to build and improve this website.
Real Estate Intelligence Portal
I actually wished to have most of this complete by the end of this year, but things always seem to take longer than expected. None the less, advances you will see in the coming month or so are a Real Estate Intelligence portal for Atlanta Real Estate reporting and statistics. What this means for consumers is that you will be able to come to this site and see updated, current reports and graphs of local market statistics, but more excitingly, be able to generate your own report and slice and dice the data based on ways that are meaningful to you.
Direct Foreclosure Search for Alpharetta and Atlanta
The second major improvement I’m resolved to for 2009 is the unveiling of our foreclosure search feature. It is currently not possible for a consumer to search online for foreclosures, shortsales and corporate owned properties as listed in the MLS. Agents can do it, but consumers can’t. The closest thing to it is something like RealtyTrac, a subscription service which is not pulling data from the MLS but rather cross-referencing various public sources of data including tax records. I plan to fix all that and allow you to directly search for foreclosures from the MLS. That’s what you want, right?
So, stay tuned as we step into 2009. We don’t fear the future, we create the future right here on this website!
We look forward to serving you in the coming year and being here when you need us. Happy New Year! Let the opportunities flow!
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 1 Comment »
Has Echelon Found Its Prince? | Southeastern Capital Partners Poised to Ride to the Rescue
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Cherokee County, Foreclosures, Golf Communities, Luxury Homes, New Construction
The rumor mill has been working and this time it has spit out that Echelon could have a suitor. No, not "The Donald" as I had teased here in the Spring. The Donald must have spent his money bailing out Jim McMahon.
This time, it is rumored that Southeast Capital Partners has Echelon under contract and is in a 60-day due diligence period that is about to expire. Southeast Capital would be buying out The Melrose Company , which by all accounts has triple bogeyed Echelon. The question remains if Southeast Capital does complete the purchase if they can turn it around, as their expertise is mostly in apartment and multi-family development in Atlanta. Echelon would be their first luxury home, golf course community development that I’m aware of.
I’ve often maintained that Echelon has the potential to be some of the most top-notch luxury living in the Alpharetta area mainly for two reasons: one is the lot size. You can go to The Manor Golf and Country Club , which is Echelon’s nearest competition, and purchase just as beautiful of a home. However, for better or worse, The Manor has a private sewer system which allows them to have smaller lots and higher density development. The Manor is not worse, just different; but that is one reason I think Echelon is unique.
The other thing that Echelon has going for it is the golf course. The Rees Jones designed course is a fantastic test of golf, better than just about everything around here except Hawk’s Ridge. If I could play it every day, I would.
There is a third advantage that the market may provide Echelon, kind of like a back handed compliment. Because of the real estate market’s decline and lenders’ unwillingness to make speculative home building loans, future home building in Echelon will very likely be custom construction. [If you are interested in custom building in Alpharetta, CLICK HERE .]
Custom construction will create an inventory of homes in Echelon that will offer more amenities, better finishes and more ultimate value than a neighborhood that was built out with "builders homes." Don’t get me wrong, the spec homes that builders produce are no where near "bad," it’s just that they sometimes lack imagination and extra touches that you’d put in a strictly custom home. More custom equals more better!
What Echelon hasn’t had is quality development. Unlike The Manor, which built a temporary club house with indoor pool, the clubhouse at Echelon is not built. Last year they slapped in a couple of tennis courts and there is still no pool.
Having amenities in place, per se, are not going to all of a sudden turn around Echelon’s fortunes, but they will be a sign to people looking to build and live there that there is forward momentum and a positive future. Right now prospective buyers are just plain scared because they don’t know what the future holds. I can look at old listings in Echelon and see where agents were promoting that the swim tennis would be OPEN, not just under construction, by Spring 2007. Ha!
The marketing and sales aspects have fallen short, too, as The Manor has outsold Echelon by a long margin and the marketing plan to affiliate Echelon with The Georgia Tech Club, seems to have backfired.
So here sits Echelon: great golf course (which thank goodness they have continued to maintain at high standards) and tons of potential locked in the downward spiral of a bad housing market and developer mis-steps. Money is tight exactly when money is needed, the same problem that Vickery faces not too far down the road in S. Forsyth County, in which, by the way, Cousins Property is rumored to be interested.
Just as Cousins could be Vickery’s knight with deep pockets, Southeast Capital could be Echelon’s knight.
In the mean time, there are some deep discounts to be had at Echelon. For one, Storey Residential has an awesome house on the first fairway for $2.3 million. This house is discounted $400,000 from its original list price of $2.7 million in June, 2007. The home has great attention to detail and a killer finished basement…you’d never have to go upstairs is you lived there.
There are nine other homes for sale in Echelon, including the super-jumbo red brick house on the first tee for $4.15 million. What’s the over under on when it will sell? It has been 14+ months so far; they started at $4.6 million.
The rest of the current offerings include three foreclosures and one corporate-owned property.
The opportunities are there and the sale of Echelon to Southeast Capital, if it goes through, will hopefully signal a change of direction for this development if for no other reason that golf’s sake. A great golf course is a terrible thing to waste.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 6 Comments »
Pictures of Estate Home in East Cherokee | The Shoals at Arbor Creek
categories: Buyers, Cherokee County, Photography
This is a gallery of pictures I recently took of a million-dollar home in The Shoals at Arbor Creek, Cherokee County, GA.
This home was custom-built by Chatham, is on over an acre and features many upgrades.
I wanted to show you these pictures, not only to interest you in the home, which is for sale, by the way, but not on the "open market," but also to give you the experience of viewing the pictures with piclens.
If you don’t already have it, get the piclens viewer from www.piclens.com; that way you’ll get the full experience of viewing these photos on a 3D "wall of photos." Then make sure to click on the View Awesome 3D Slideshow link below the pictures below. [Note: If you don't get the piclens viewer, you can still view the photos, you just won't get the full effect.]
I believe that piclens is the future of viewing photos on the web and how every home should be displayed and marketed. Let me know your thoughts about it by leaving a comment: Were you able to get it to work? Was it easier and better than traditional methods.
PS: I want to give a tip of the hat to Shack Dougall for writing the piclens plus plug-in for WordPress and for helping modify it to perform for my purposes. I couldn’t give you this functionality without Shack’s help. Thanks, Shack.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
