Archive for the 'Luxury Homes' Category
Would you like a $1.2M home for $750,000? | Bargain Hunters Part II - North Fulton
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Buyers, Luxury Homes, Milton Real Estate, New Construction
Milton, Ga. - This is inside information and you are getting it before anyone else. We informed the readers of this blog about 4 amazing deals in January, you can see the post here: $700k homes for half price, and we sold them in four hours….yes, 4 hours. So, this is fair warning, if you are interested then contact us now as this is first come, first served.
Nearly 40% of all sales are foreclosures or short sales and most of those are GOOD deals. But everyone is looking for really GREAT deals and believe it or not, really GREAT deals only come up occasionally. You can choose one of these 3 nearly $1,200,000 homes for $750,000.
They are all new homes and built by a well respected custom home builder who has built hundreds of million dollar homes in various North Atlanta communities. These are all 4-side brick and stone, 3-car garages and pre-planned terrace levels that have high ceilings and open plans. All with very custom features & finishes and all on 1+ acre lots.
I hate clichés but with interest rates this low and the economy beginning to show signs of improvement-this is the proverbial no-brainer. I challenge you to find another home like these at prices even close to this in North Fulton.
But wait, there is more. We know of a nearly $800,000 new construction home you can get for under $600,000 and the owner will finance. For more details on this one-you have to call.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
How to Spend $4 Million South of the Board - Way South of the Border | Pichi Chacay For Sale in Patagonia
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Luxury Homes, Stuff I like to talk about
Like you, I get all sorts of random email. Last week, though, I received one that caught my eye, probably because I’m a mountain boy at heart: 183 acre ranch in Patagonia. That’s $22k per acre of awesomely beautiful terrain.
I applaud the sellers for reaching out internationally and promoting their property world-wide, so I thought I’d post it for you to see, too. Eight kilometers to a Jack Nicklaus golf course; 20 km to the ski hill at Cerro Chapelco; 8 km to the airport; views of Lake Lacar and Lake Lolog as well as the Lanin volcano on the boarder with Chile. For people whose earning a livelihood only requires an internet connection, this place is the ticket.
Here is a full photo gallery of 35 pictures of the property called Pichi Chacay. I strong encourage you to install the piclens plug-in for your browser to get the best effect.
The main house is 2,700 sq feet, with three bedrooms and four bathrooms. There is an additional 540 sf "mountain cabin" with a bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. Finally there is a an approximately 1,000 sf guest house with two bedrooms and a bathroom. For the horses, there are three stables and a paddock.
Did I mention that there is plenty of clean fresh air and fresh water springs on the property? Sounds a lot better than the commute is I-285, huh?
I got to thinking, if I had $4,000,000 to spend on a property, what could I get in Alpharetta, or Atlanta for that matter? Certainly nothing that compares to the natural beauty of Patagonia.
Did you know that there are 110 properties in Atlanta listed for sale at $4M and above? That was more than I expected. Of course, there is the $45M Le Reve Estate in Cumming , that I’ve mentioned before. Most of the other mega high end real estate in Atlanta is in Buckhead and Tuxedo Park (near Buckhead).
In North Fulton, there are ten properties priced over $4M. In Milton, the 30 acre horse estate on Hopewell Road at Bethany Road, you know the one with the HUGE covered riding ring, is for sale for $9.2M. The 38-stable barn is shown to the right: nicer than most houses.
Near Dorris Road and New Providence is a 32 acres horse estate, shown right, on the market for $7.9M, originally $10.5M. It also includes a 3BR / 3BA caretaker’s house and a 2BR guest cottage.
If you’re not into horses, you can go to western Roswell near Jones Road and there are some exclusive properties there.
East of GA-400 you can go to Country Club of the South and have three opportunities to spend more than $4M. Three point seven million will get you the most expensive home in Windard on the Peninsula.
All this is to say, the dollar still goes a long way in Patagonia. For half the price of a horse estate in Milton, you can get six times the acreage and hundred times the view. I’m not so sure about the local school system or the major league baseball team ;->
I’ve read that if you write down your dreams, they are more likely to come to pass. Thanks for indulging me.
If you want to just dream about Alpharetta/Roswell million-dollar real estate, this link will take you to the current list of 423 homes priced over $1,000,000 in North Fulton .
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 3 Comments »
The Foreclosure That Is and Wasn’t and The Foreclosure That Wasn’t and Is
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Foreclosures, Luxury Homes, Milton Real Estate
MILTON - There is a house in Highland Manor pictured on the left; you may have seen it. It’s the first house on the right as you pull in.
It has been on and off the market for the last two years. It was the last lot sold in the neighborhood a number of years after all the other lots were built. A builder who builds over in The Manor bought it and built a spec home which he wasn’t able to sell. That was a couple of years ago. The house was listed then at $820,000.
It is a great house as far as houses go. The builder does a very nice job: huge kitchen and keeping room, top of the line cabinets, amazing ceilings, spiral entrance stair case, beautiful floors and trim, four-sides brick and stone, cedar accents, large unfinished terrace level basement with lots of windows.
The problem has always been that it suffers from FHOTR syndrome. That is, First House On The Right, which means that the side yard abuts to Birmingham Road. While the location of the house in terms of the traffic is not ideal, the lot is level, which can’t be said for many lots in Highland Manor and there is a row of Leland cypress planted along the road to provide privacy. When inside the home, you don’t hear any street noise at all.
This house is listed in the MLS as a foreclosure. The thing is: It isn’t.
Yes, the builder, who has been living in the house himself to cut expenses, is very motivated to sell. The price has been reduced to $599,000 and I dare you to find as nice of a house for $600,000 within Milton. But it is NOT a foreclosure.
I asked the listing agent why it was listed as a foreclosure and he told me to "try to generate some interest for the seller." No doubt it is working because every buyer seems interested in foreclosure properties. But is this fair play. I joked with some fellow realtors a few months ago that we all ought to list our properties are foreclosures even though they weren’t … this guy has actually done it.
Regardless of the ethics of this marketing maneuver, never fear. The house will be a foreclosure in short order no doubt. Why would someone who is interested in buying the house deal now? The distress has been advertised. Why not wait until it actually forecloses and then try to get an even better deal?
Do you think this marketing technique is cleaver or is bound to be counter productive? If you like the house, though, and you can deal with the lot, we should take a look because someone is going to get a steal of a deal eventually.
The House that Wasn’t Listed as a Foreclosure But Is
Then there is the case of the actual foreclosure that wasn’t properly marketed in my opinion.
The picture on the left is not the house, but the barn. This is a 5-acre horse farm / french country estate for LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS ($949,000 actually) on Wood Road.
Wood Road is a dirt road running between Freemanville Road and Birmingham Highway. There are numerous family horse farms dotting the country side along Wood Road and a community of its own.
If I could chose any place to live in Milton, it would be either Wood Road or North Valley. I don’t even own horses and I love Wood Road and often cut through just so that I can enjoy the scenery.
So, I repeat, 5 acres, 6 bedrooms / 4 baths, French county estate, working horse farm, all-season riding ring. The barn is nicer than many houses. Check out the picture below to see how comfortable that horse looks.
This house was not marketed as a foreclosure in MLS. The only way I found it was accidentally in the tax records.
Now the listing agent had put some remarks in the comments section noting that it was a pre-foreclosure and to "bring all offers," but the buying public can’t search on that field and agents generally don’t know how to.
The best thing to do in a pre-foreclosure situation, and this is becoming common practice with agents, is to go ahead and list it as a foreclosure. The criteria for a pre-foreclosure would be that a short sale has been agreed to by the lender and/or the property has been advertised for foreclosure and a courthouse sale date set. This house met that criteria; the house in Highland Manor does not as far as I know…yet.
This horse estate where humans also get to live is not currently on the market now that it has foreclosed. I’m sure it is in the process of being relisted by the bank and will be coming back on the market shortly. For some horse-loving humans and human-loving horses, this is going to be a fantastic future home at a fraction of what you could buy this sort of property for two years ago.
I can hear a horse now living in some drafty barn prodding her owner to call me go take a look. Come on, your horse is worth it.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
A View From the Top | Perspectives on the Alpharetta Luxury Home Market
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Johns Creek Real Estate, Local Market Conditions, Luxury Homes, Milton Real Estate, Roswell Real Estate
ALPHARETTA- A reader of this blog recently contacted me about the prospects of selling his home. It turns out that he lives in a custom-built home in one of Milton’s new neighborhoods. He has invested over $1,000,000 in the lot, construction, landscaping and pool.
When talking with him we were gauging the probability of selling the home in this market - and that probability is directly related to how many buyers there are in that price range.
A quick run of the numbers revealed that since January 1st of this year, only twenty-three homes over $1M have sold in the Milton High School district, which is the closest approximation of the City of Milton’s boundaries.
Compare that to 2007 when fifty-five million dollar homes sold. The market for a million dollar house is half of what it was a year ago.
Looking at the list of what has sold this year, there were some noticeable absentees: for instance, not one home in White Columns has sold for over $1M so far this yearl and currently there are ten homes listed for sale in White Columns for over $1M. Hampton Manor, Cooper Sandy and Canterbury on the Lake are all no shows for million dollar sales in 2008 so far.
The Manor Golf and Country Club leads the pack for million dollar sales this year; so far, they have seven. Last year they had sixteen according to the MLS. Crabapple Brook had three $1M+ sales and North Valley and Six Hills each chipped in a couple. In 2007, though, Six Hills had four, now they are down to two. Again, everything is basically half of what it was a year ago.
For grins, I ran the numbers for the other areas of North Fulton. Below is a chart showing a summary of million dollar sale activity broken down by high school attendance zone. The major finding: Every school zone is down roughly half in terms of number of transactions. However, the average sales price has remained relatively stable.
[Note: See my other posts regarding current Alpharetta real estate market conditions .]
This is similar to my analysis of the Alpharetta real estate market as a whole: volume is down by 40% or so but average sales price is relatively stable.
The exception is Alpharetta High School, which is comprised largely of Windward real estate.
In Windward, there have been three large transactions that have skewed the numbers, a $6.3M sale in January and two $3.6M deals this Fall. Still, those sales count; just like in golf when you get lucky and bounce it off a tree into the hole…it still counts. I just wanted you to understand the underlying basis for the increase in Windward.
The average sales price is also up in Centennial, but there have been only three sales this year over a million dollars so we don’t really have that many data points.
2007-2008 Million Dollar Sales Activity in Alpharetta and North Fulton
| High School Area | 2007 Sales | 2007 Avg Sales Price | 2007 Sales Price / List Price | 2008 Sales | 2008 Avg Sales Price | 2007 Sales Price / List Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alpharetta | 7 | $1,241,429 | 85.8% | 12 | $1,997,833 | 89.9% |
| Centennial | 8 | $1,278,741 | 93.7% | 3 | $1,992,333 | 93.5% |
| Chattahoochee | 20 | $1,529,438 | 91.5% | 9 | $1,529,722 | 89.4% |
| Milton | 55 | $1,421,144 | 97.8% | 23 | $1,488,788 | 97.0% |
| Northview | 12 | $1,411,520 | 88.2% | 9 | $1,601,326 | 91.2% |
| Roswell | 25 | $1,425,943 | 93.3% | 12 | $1,360,978 | 93.0% |
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 1 Comment »
Cornucopia of Alpharetta Fall Real Estate News
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Announcements, Foreclosures, Local Market Conditions, Lots, Luxury Homes, Photography
ALPHARETTA - Nothing symbolizes November any better than the cornucopia and the turkey. And since I am "theme challenged" today, I thought that I’d just throw all the random thoughts that are bouncing around in my head into one big cornucopia of a post. So forgive the scatter-brainedness of this post, here’s my cornucopia of thoughts:
Wild Turkey Spotted in Windward Parking Lot
Since it is November, let’s start with the turkey. Believe it or not, I actually saw a real, live wild turkey walking across the parking lot near Windward Parkway and Northpoint Parkway the other day. Don’t believe me? I have proof!
I grabbed my camera before she pranced away. Here she is as she goes in front of my car; she was headed east towards the dining room tables of Windward!
The Price of Education
Fulton County Schools reportedly paid $318,000 per acre for the 64-acre site for a new high school site on Cogburn Road. This land was purchased from Chatham home builders who had purchased it a year or so ago for a residential development. At that time, Chatham paid a reported $204,000 per acre and since that time had done site planning and grading and installed streets and gutters, all of which will likely be torn out when a new school is built. Apparently the school board is still exploring ways to gain direct access to Highway 9 from the new site.
New Amenities Underway at Crooked Creek
Crooked Creek obtained financing for its amenity renovation. I’m told that progress is commencing on the $4M project that will include two new pools, eleven tennis courts, a playground and clubhouse. No further word on whether Crooked Creek will be able to gate the neighborhood. Would love to hear from some Crooked Creek residents on this one. Please comment to this post if you would.
Two Home Starts in Lake Haven
Two custom homes are currently in the process of being built in Lake Haven. One should be finished by the end of the year. These are the first two and are being built by Southern Home Properties , the same company who built Lochstone Manor , on Doris Road.
There are 58 one and two-acre lots remaining. Reportedly the commencement of construction has brought about a lot of renewed activity in Lake Haven, although no further purchases yet. All in good time… Lake Haven has the potential to be a very special place to live.
White Columns Foreclosure Sells
OK, not THAT foreclosure , that I’ve been talking about incessantly. The other one. 715 Scarlet Oak Trail, is the big brick house in the cul-de-sac with a finished basement that included two full baths and a second kitchen. It was listed at $515,000, reduced to $489,000 and sold for $469,000 in 133 days. That is a ton of heated square footage for the dollar and the house required only minimal repairs.
Foreclosure Sales Statistics
The National Association of Realtors has reported in August that nationally 35-40% of all homes sales are foreclosure properties. I read elsewhere that 42% of all September sales were foreclosures. NPR reported this week that we can expect 5-7 million more foreclosures ! Certainly I can’t dispute the widespread interest in foreclosures; I’m getting a ton of inquires myself regarding foreclosures in Alpharetta.
That got me to thinking: What percentage of our sales in North Fulton since January 1, 2008 have been foreclosures? A quick scrub of the data shows that 11% of sales were technically foreclosures - owned by the lender. It also means that they were properly identified in FMLS as foreclosure properties. This does not include short sales or "pre-foreclosures" as they are called.
So, if 11% of sales are foreclosures (and I would argue that this is the most competitive part of the market), what percentage of active listings are identified as foreclosures? The envelop please: 4% in North Fulton (Alpharetta, Roswell, Milton and Johns Creek). This says that a foreclosure is about three times more likely to sell than a non-foreclosure.
Good Bye Reading Tree
I’m sorry that downtown Alpharetta was not able to support the Reading Tree bookstore , which recently closed. It lasted about a year and a half. It is tough being a retail business in downtown Alpharetta; the area seems better suited for small service-based businesses that don’t require retail traffic.
The good news if you are a bibliophile, though, is that the library referendum passed so we will someday get a better library in Alpharetta, one that befits a city of our quality. Just make sure you continue to oppose the political trophy called the central downtown Atlanta library and keep the funds flowing out to the suburbs where the readers are.
One Last Salute to Fall Colors in Milton
I had posted a nice Fall photograph the other day and thought I’d publish just one more if you’ll indulge me. I’m a sucker for the Chamber of Commerce picture in the Fall. The light and color is just too good to not get out of the car and take the picture.
The last one was in a residential area of Crabapple. This one is a little further north in Milton off Benthany Bend road. The area is decidely more rural. I hope this captures the flavor a little bit. I sometimes post my pictures to Google Earth Panaramio, too, so as to not bore you too much here.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 4 Comments »
Hidden Milton Cemetery & Hidden Milton Foreclosure | Happy Halloween
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Foreclosures, Luxury Homes, Stuff I like to talk about
MILTON - If you’re a long time reader, you know that I love Halloween and honor it with an annual post about a hidden cemetery .
Last year , I probably went overboard and told you about four such cemeteries, making my job a bit harder this year. However, I’m confident that I have a doozie for you this year - and still have saved material for next year.
You’d never see this graveyard from the street, as it sits back in the woods, the only indication being a curb cut to allow driveway access. Of course, I don’t know why you’d need driveway access because it doesn’t look like anyone has been buried there for over 100 years. The curb cut is probably just because some government regulation requires access to cemeteries. Perhaps it is even still designated as active.
Let me give you the name of the cemetery, maybe that will help: Walker Pioneer Cemetery. Nope, not even anything in Google or Wikipedia for this topic. Wow, we must be talking really obscure here. And the word "pioneer" makes it sound so old, which it is. There really may be actual pioneers buried there.
Let me give you the latitude and longitude. Certainly that will do it: 34° 07′ 18.12" N latitude and 84° 20′ 34.10" W longitude. To make it easier on you, here is the Google Earth kmz file: .
Looking on Google Earth, there is too much tree cover, I know. I wish they’d take these images in the winter so that you can see the actual ground instead of the tops of the trees.
Here is your final hint: The only likelihood you have of being familiar with this cemetery is if you live in Triple Crown, particularly in one of the first four houses on the right. That is a dead give away…pun intended!
You see, the Walker Pioneer Cemetery abuts the back of those homes and has been a sanctuary to about 25 souls (and countless birds and other wildlife) for so long that the headstones are barely decipherable. In fact, all but two of the headstones are simple rocks. (Someone has gone in an identified most of the graves with white stakes.) If it weren’t for the headstones of James Walker and his wife, you might not even notice that it was a grave site, except for the subtle washboarding of the ground. Cool! Spooky cool!
If living near these restful souls in this peaceful setting sounds attractive to you, you’re in luck. There are two homes. The second house on the right, 14009 Triple Crown Drive, is on the market for $775,000, having been reduced from its initial list price of $875,000.
Also, the fifth house on the right, 14021 Triple Crown Drive is for sale for $719,000. This is a foreclosure, even though the MLS lists it as "corporate owned." Four sides brick, 5 BR, B BA, 3-car garage and most importantly, an acre+ lot with an easy walk through the woods to visit Pvt Walker and friends on nights like tonight.
You other nearby opportunity would be a little bit of a walk down Triple Crown Court. This house is also a foreclosure and the cheapest in Triple Crown currently. This house was originally listed at $909,000 pre foreclosure in July of 2007. It has been an official foreclosure now for about 10 months and was just reduced this month to $699,900k. It also has 5 BR, 5 BA, full basement and is across the street from the lake.
So, back to the cemetery: The tax records identify the parcel as one acre with an owner simply stated as "Cemetery." Beware, tonight the 25 ghostly owners of Walker Pioneer are likely to reappear and make there presence felt!
Happy Halloween. May the real estate market not spook you.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
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 5 Comments »
Milton House Did Not Foreclose | Their Delay is Your Opportunity
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Buyers, Foreclosures, Luxury Homes, Milton Real Estate
MILTON - I just learned that this house did NOT foreclose this month. The bank gave them one more month to sell it short. 
I still believe that this house has one of the best upsides of any opportunity in the area. Read what I wrote about it the other day.
I hear that they are getting a good number of showings but do NOT have an offer yet. It is listed at $475,000. You know what they say: The best policy is to be the least expensive house in a nice neighborhood. This is your chance.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
