Archive for the 'Metro Atlanta Statistics' Category
Housing Starts Down In June?…..Not Really
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Metro Atlanta Statistics, Milton Real Estate, New Construction
Let me see if I can make this really confusing….
Housing starts nationally for June are down 5% which the media purports as bad news..but I say it’s really good. But the real facts are that single family starts aren’t down that much, which sounds good but I say it’s bad. Confused yet? Stick with me.
When the Census Bureau releases housing starts the media will grab that number and pronounce it good or bad, but they never tell you what that number means. A start is really a ground-breaking and includes homes of all types — single family, condos buildings, apartments, and multi-units housing. For June that number was down 5% from May. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really care if apartment and multi-unit starts are down. I know it may effect the overall economy but they don’t mean a whole lot to Mr. and Mrs. Seller down the street.
But the number gets reported in the news as a big drop so that must be a bad thing. Is it really? If there are fewer housing starts then there will be less inventory on the market. Less competition for the re-sale market who wants to make a move. So in my book, a big number might be a good thing. However, when that 5% number is dissected it turns out that the majority of it is in fact multi-unit housing.
The Real Housing Start Number
For June, Single-Family housing starts were only down 0.7 percent from May….essentially flat. That’s a good thing, right? We’ll it certainly says that builders are being very cautious and not carrying too much inventory. The more inventory on the market the more they have to offer incentives and the more the re-sale market has to try and compete with heavy builder incentives. What it really indicates is that new construction has stabilized now that the home buyer tax credits are behind us.
We still have a lot of inventory on the market. Across all price ranges we have about 10 months of inventory in North Fulton and 12 months of inventory in Forsyth County. A buyers market is defined as anything above 6 months of inventory so controlled construction and growth is a good thing in my book. The one constant in this market right now is that rates remain extremely low. While inventory levels aren’t going to change quickly - we don’t really know how long rates will remain at such historically low levels.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Real Estate Sales Data in North Fulton - It’s Like the Weather
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Local Market Conditions, Metro Atlanta Statistics, Milton Real Estate, Roswell Real Estate, Schools
Just wait a while and it will change….The question is "What does it mean?"
I’m just trying to stay as away of the trends in our area as I possible can. I wrote a post last month about the average sales price for homes in North Fulton West going up. I compared the sales for March 2009 to March 2010. Subsequently I reported on an AJC article regarding 4 zip codes in metro Atlanta that have had year-over-year increases in Sales Prices - 30004 was one of those zip codes.
I wasn’t ready to declare "mission accomplished", we have a long road out. But…there was a nice trend shaping up. Little things point to larger things. The tax credit increased sales numbers and, despite our school systems financial woes, our schools and quality of life continue to help demand for housing in North Atlanta. All the dots are forming a nice picture. Then I pull the year-over year numbers for North Fulton in May:
The Good News
We are selling more properties than a year ago. Considerably more in North Fulton East of 400 - thank you tax credit. The tax credit put buyers in the market that not only freed up sellers to move-up locally, but relo traffic into North Atlanta has increased as well. Also, homes are selling faster on average than last year.
The not-so-good news
Needless to say I wasn’t expecting to see a decrease in the average sales price year-over-year. So, I took a look at a chart showing the average sales price for residential detached homes in Metro Atlanta for the past 10 years. 2010 is only current in this chart to April. What I noticed is a dip in the average sales price every April or May. Usually in April but it occurred in May of 01′ and 05′.
Why? To be honest, I have no idea. It’s a strange fluctuation that happens fairly consistently each April or May, but I don’t know why. In three of the past 10 years there was no dip (03′, 06′ and 09′). So does that mean we aren’t on track? Are we still improving? I think the the answer is that the the little things still point to bigger things. The direction is positive but the trip will take a while. It’s too soon to ask "Are we there yet".
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Alpharetta / Milton Sales Prices Increase: Where’s The Celebration?
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Local Market Conditions, Metro Atlanta Statistics, Milton Real Estate
It’s great news, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be resonating with people. The AJC reported this weekend that the average sales price in zip code 30004 increased year-over-year. I reported similar data on a recent post, showing that the average sales price in North Fulton West of 400 increased 2.2% in March ‘10 over March ‘09. I’ve asked a few people about this and the response is the same. They yawn and say, “Wow, that’s great”.
The market here in Alpharetta / Milton has certainly stabilized. Zip code 30004 made the number 2 position in the top 4 Metro Atlanta zip codes for year-over-year increases. Griffin, in Spalding County (30223) saw a 3.35% increase, followed by Alpharetta / Milton’s (30004) 2.48% rise. Smyrna (30080) came in at 2.25% and Suwanee in Forsyth County (30024) rounded out the top 4 at 1.16%
This data confirms that our market has turned the corner, but we’ve been seeing other signs of this for a few months now. Things are loosening up in other markets, allowing home sellers elsewhere to become buyers here. Some of those buyers took a ‘hit’ on the sale of their homes and are coming here looking to do the same. What they are finding is that in areas like North Atlanta, where good schools and quality of life create demand and price increases, they can’t get what they perceive is a good deal.
There are plenty of places around Metro Atlanta where you can still negotiate hard and get something for pennies on the dollar. But if you are narrowing your search to a specific city, or certain schools, then the general market conditions for the Metro area no longer may apply.
Sellers here have long since adjusted their sales prices and for the most part, homes on the market in this area are priced correctly. Sellers are negotiating but not selling for 85% of asking price. In fact, many are getting close to 95% of current asking prices - but keep in mind these prices are off of the 2006 highs by about 18%. We are still far from a sellers market and buyers do have a lot to choose from, however, the homes that are in great shape and priced right are selling quickly. Buyers who don’t realize this end up missing out.
So with this good news there should be more cheering out there. Maybe the psyche of sellers and buyers are lagging the data. But rest assured, as we continue to get good economic data on our market, housing will continue to get more and more competitive in areas like the top 4 zip codes mentioned. When good foreclosures do show up, there will be multiple offers. So, if you are buying right now, evaluate comps in the past 90 to 120 days - anything older than that is old news.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Alpharetta Real Estate for 2010: What will the future hold?
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Crabapple, Foreclosures, Local Market Conditions, Metro Atlanta Statistics, Milton Real Estate, New Construction
It’s a question buyers and sellers ask almost every day, especially in a market like this, but at the end of the year people look forward to that new beginning. For a brief period of time it’s like the slate gets wiped clean on January 1st. Anything is possible and we look for signs of what may come for Alpharetta real estate. I always say, in order to know where you’re going it helps to know where you’ve been. Looking back over 2009 might not be a pretty picture, depending on your perspective, but it’s telling.
Ouch : Sales declined through most of the year and Sellers really took it on the chin. And builders took it even harder. It’s tough to compete though when almost 40% of all homes being sold in the first 2 quarters were foreclosures or short sales. For those that could take less and get out, they didn’t like it but felt like they made it out. For others, they had to stay put or take a loss. Never before have I seen so many homes available to rent, which was a good alternative for many sellers out there that had to do something.
Cha-Ching : While Sellers were getting beat up, Buyers where cashing in. For those in a position to buy, the real estate deals were plenty and the banks had their shelves stocked with goods. First-time home buyers and renters were in the envious position of not needing to sell and having plenty to choose from. Still, competition was stiff for foreclosures. Banks started the year pricing at the old market value but later realized that aggressive list prices brought multiple offers fast and sales prices that were over list. They were still good deals but the time on market was reduced significantly. The tax credit did it’s job and continues to do so until it expires next year. Inventory levels were reduced quite a bit and now we are seeing an increase in homes sold year-over-year. Comparing November 2009 to November 2008, the number of homes sold in Metro Atlanta are up 52% and for North Fulton, they are up 82% .
Bye Bye: No, all the deals aren’t gone but they are slowly fading away. The expanded tax credit will continue to help but I’m seeing the mindset has changed with both buyers and sellers. At the beginning of the year Sellers were still amazed that a home reduced by $100K could still be on the market and Buyers were amazed it hadn’t been reduced more. Now sales prices have come down further, Sellers except much of the current pricing as market value and Buyers are not willing to spend months looking for that spectacular deal because they are slowly disappearing.
Looking Forward : We will see a higher than normal level of activity for the first 4 months while the tax credits are still in effect. This will help continue to reduce inventory levels and we will continue to see the number of home sold year-over-year go up. Sales prices will flatten out for most, and begin to increase in small pockets of demand and sought-after communities later in the year. The 400 corridor is well positioned with great schools and businesses that are still moving employees into the area.
New construction starts, which showed up in the 4th quarter of 2009 will widen through 2010 due to an abundance of developed lots at bargain prices. Forsyth County will lead the pack here, mainly because builders will be able to buy lots and build in lower price ranges to a greater degree than in North Fulton, but we’ll see that in North Fulton as well. Knight Construction is selling out in the Cumming community of Union Station, which is no surprise as first-time buyers typically gravitate towards new construction when it’s available. I suspect new homes in Crabapple and Milton will have the most opportunities.
Foreclosures will be present for the next couple of years (no surprise) but banks will continue to roll them out slowly keeping competition for them fairly high. Also, thanks to the banks, Short Sales will remain an excruciatingly painful and slow process (thank you Bank of America). Interest rates are anybody’s guess but until unemployment comes down to a respectable 7 or 8% then they will have to remain reasonably low.
How do I know it will all turn out this way? I have inside information that "It is decidedly so".
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Where is the Real Estate market headed?
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Crabapple, First time home buyers, Foreclosures, Local Market Conditions, Metro Atlanta Statistics, Milton Real Estate
It’s hard for homeowners and buyers to know where the market is headed because there are so many conflicting reports out there about what is happening. Depending on where and from whom you get your information things can look like they are improving or getting far worse.
Nationally
The NAR reportsthat there is a big rebound in existing home sales nationally, with first-time homebuyers driving much of those numbers. Their report says: “Existing-home sales–including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops–jumped 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million units in September from a level of 5.10 million in August, and are 9.2% higher than the 5.10 million-unit pace in September 2008. Sales activity is at the highest level in over two years, since it hit 5.73 million in July 2007.”
To be sure, first-time homebuyers have been on the hunt with the impending expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit. They have been driving sales numbers in the $250,000 and below price ranges. An extension and potential expansion of that tax credit would help broaden those numbers and that would be a good thing.
Metro Atlanta
However, Steve Palm from Smartnumbers says “Closings for all single family had a large 16.8% year-to-year decline for September”. He goes on to say that he doesn’t think it is an issue with the recent flooding or some lenders being taken over by the FED but it’s more of a liquidity issue-there are no loans available for some buyers.
The good news is that inventory levels are down quite far, with 47,000 single family homes available for all of metro Atlanta. This is on par with inventory level in January of 2006. Another good bit of news is that the percentage of sales that are foreclosures is dropping, as you can see in the following chart:
North Fulton Real Estate
So, what is the story for us here in North Fulton, specifically Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton and Roswell? Well, for the cities listed above, here are the units sold and average sales prices over the past 5 Septembers:
| Sep-05 | Sep-06 | Sep-07 | Sep-08 | Sep-09 | |
| # sold | 352 | 205 | 218 | 179 | 195 |
| avg. SP | $401,161 | $400,030 | $409,002 | $414,729 | $359,328 |
The average sales price for our area is only down around 12% - 13% over the past 5 years which is far less than the metro Atlanta average of 20%. I would describe our local market status as stabilized with signs of improvement. It’s kind of like a “statistical recovery”. The numbers are pointing in the right direction but nobody really feels like it’s improving yet.
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently No Comments »
Atlanta Real Estate Turns Up in July
categories: First time home buyers, Foreclosures, Metro Atlanta Statistics
All the lagging numbers aren’t in yet but for July 2008 there were 4451 single family homes sold in metro Atlanta. Right now, for July 2009 there have been 3738 homes sold with an additional 1444 homes in pending status which were scheduled to close in July - bringing the total closings to potentially 5182. If all of those pending transactions actually closed in July then that would represent a 16% increase over the previous year.
Now, some of those certainly got shifted to August closings so the actual number will come in lower than 16% but July has shown us the first year-over-year increase in the number of sales in over 3 years.
A majority of those transactions can be attributed to a combination of first-time home buyers and foreclosure sales. In fact, foreclosures and short sales made up 31.8% of all metro Atlanta homes sold for the 2nd Qtr. of 2009. While this isn’t a surprise, what might surprise you is that percentage of foreclosure sales is lower than 1st Qtr. 2009 which was almost 37%.
This can partially be attributed to demand but also, many banks have been slowing the foreclosure process to determine what changes may take place with loan modification rules. So, the 64-million dollar question is, “how many more foreclosures will hit the market and when?”. There certainly is an appetite for distressed properties but with currently inventory levels going down, an onslaught of new foreclosures could slow us up again. Inventory levels for single family homes haven’t been this low since the end of 2006.
There is hope that the first-time home buyer tax credit will be extended beyond the December 1st deadline but as of right now that is still the deadline. The bottom line is that while deals continue to present themselves, we’ve definitley bottomed and have started what I think will be a slow but steady recovery for the local real estate market. Tell me what you think…
Posted by Bob Strader | Currently 1 Comment »
