Archive for the 'Miscellaneous' Category
Why Home Owners’ Associations Are A Good Thing
categories: Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. This is why neighborhood controls can be good.
If you didn’t like that one, try this one. Don’t worry, it is no where near Alpharetta, if you were considering buying a home there. You have to go into Atlanta to find gems like this:
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
Going Gated | Alpharetta and Milton Neighborhods Installing Gates
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Golf Communities, Miscellaneous
Often when we ask people, particularly those relocating from Florida, their requirements for a new home in Alpharetta, they say they want to live in a gated community. The reason is not so much exclusivity, but security. They don’t understand that for all intents and purposes we have no crime.
So why in the world then would two of Alpharetta’s largest subdivisions just elect to gate their communities? Read on to find out.
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Currently there aren’t that many gated neighborhoods in North Fulton from which to choose relative to the over 700 existing subdivisions. Because you don’t see that many gated communities when driving around town, indeed, you get the impression that there just aren’t very many of them. However, when I did some research for this post there were more gated communities than I expected. On the east side there are thirty-five or so gated communities including the gated golf course communities of Country Club of the South, St. Ives, St. Marlo, a couple sections of Windward and in Forsyth County, Laurel Springs. Other gated communities without golf are listed on the right where you can click to see homes for sale in each. These neighborhoods include Amersee Lakes, Atherton Park, Centennial, Ellard, Haynes Manor, Quail Hollow, River Falls, Tavistock and Winthrop Park. On the west side of GA-400, you have fewer gated communities. This is because it is more rural, less commercial and frankly, I think that gating for exclusivity or security is the furthest thing from peoples’ mind on the west side. That said, there are some gated communities west of 400. Providence at Atlanta National has always been gated - and guarded. The high-end, luxury homes at Greystone have always been gated. Jennifer Oaks, a mid-range neighborhood off Mid-Broadwell Road has always been gated and one of the few moderately priced gated neighborhoods in the area. As they have been built, the new high-end neighborhoods have been gated: The Manor, Lakeside at Ansley, Crabapple Brook, Chatham Park, etc. But now, two existing west-side neighborhoods are going the way of the gate. Well, I take that back. One is going the way of the gate; the other the way of the guard. Crooked Creek Votes to Add Gate and Improve Swim/TennisSeventy-two percent of voting Crooked Creek homeowners recently decided to gate their community (along with approving a $4 million upgrade to their existing swim and tennis facilities.) Crooked Creek is Milton’s largest neighborhood with 620 homes and six miles of roads within the neighborhood. The reason for gating the neighborhood? Not crime. Not even exclusivity. Traffic. The neighborhood reports that about 2,000 cars a day cut through Crooked Creek to get from HWY 9 to Francis Road. That is about 1/4 to 1/3 of all the traffic on the main neighborhood road, Creek Club Drive. |
Gated Neighborhoods East of GA-400. Click to see homes for sale in that neighborhood.Abberley Towneship
Gated Neighborhoods West of GA-400. Click to see homes for sale in that neighborhood.Atlanta National |
One obstacle in the way of Crooked Creek is that when and if it gates its neighborhood, it will then own and be responsible for the maintenance of the roads. The City of Milton has a "road abandonment"policy that currently states that 100% of people living on a road must agree to take it private and bear that responsibility. Before Crooked Creek can get approval to gate itself, either the city has to modify the policy that all residents be on board or there needs to be some more neighborhood arm twisting sessions.
The cost to a Crooked Creek home owner for a gate and new amenities? An increase of $675 a year in HOA dues, which would basically double what they are currently paying for new dues of $1,425.
But what about the non-Crooked Creek resident. Don’t they have rights to roads, too? After all, these are roads that county taxpayer money has supported for the past 10-12 years. Plus, the neighborhood is asking the City of Milton to make $600,000 in road improvements BEFORE they install the gates. Does that sound fair to someone who doesn’t live there and lives in a neighborhood that likely needs road resurfacing more badly than Crooked Creek?
I totally understand that residents of Crooked Creek want to limit the cut-through traffic. I’d want to if I lived there. But I also understand how hard it is to get from east to west in Milton. Most neighborhoods only have a single entrance and don’t offer any overflow options to crowed two-lane roads. Before we know it, though, residents of Landrum Road, Nix Road, Wood Road, Summit Road will all want to close their roads to non-resident traffic. Heck, Landrum Road residents have already tried it.
White Columns Adding Guarded Gate
White Columns is the second neighborhood on the list to add access control to its neighborhood. I say "access control" because I’m talking about the section of White Columns that is already gated. They are now adding a guard. Why you ask? Well, a lot of people, including many who lived in the non-gated portion of White Columns, knew the gate code and would use it to cut through the neighborhood to get from Freemanville Rd to Birmingham Highway.
The effect of cutting off the cut-thru will be to put more cross traffic on Nix Road, which is a dirt road in very mediocre condition, particularly when the new elementary school is complete in the Fall of 2009. I’m sure the people on Nix Road will have something to say about this.
There will be no code access from the Birmingham Hwy back entrance to White Columns; the only way to get in that gate will be with a clicker. Non-residents will have to get pass the guard on Freemanville Hwy. I guess I’ll have to get my wife to make some more of those killer coffee-laced brownies to use as my guard bribes. Hey, a realtor needs access.
The cost of the guard at White Columns? About $1,000 a year in increased HOA dues and something like a $900 one-time assessment.
Questions for You
Which brings me to my questions for you:
1) Would you pay more to live in a gated community? Would you pay more for a guarded community? Does it depend on which side of GA-400 you live?
2) Have the Crooked Creek residents figured out what they will do will people learn the gate code…and they will learn the gate code with some many residents in the neighborhood. Will a guard be the next step at Crooked Creek? Indeed, is a guard the only way to effectively keep out cut through traffic?
3) Has anyone thought about the impact on real estate sales? As a realtor, I love gated communities for selfish reasons: they limit public access. No longer will the general public be able to drive through Crooked Creek on a Sunday afternoon and window shop. That is not good for "for sale by owners." To get in you will have to make an appointment with a realtor. In White Columns, the gated section, I even heard that they were considering getting rid of for sale signs altogether. Who needs them if the general public won’t we riding through?
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
Blogging for Alpharetta Real Estate Has Lighter Side
categories: Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
I’ve been blogging about Alpharetta Real Estate now since September, 2006, and mostly it is a pretty sober affair here: North Fulton housing trends, the latest information on schools, new home construction in Alpharetta, etc.
I appreciate all the kind phone calls and emails I’ve received since I started this blog and the new clients and friends I’ve made; I’m a blogger for life given my experience so far.
Along the way, I’ve tried to find the lighter side of real estate when possible: I recall the post on front doors as noses. In fact, I recently came across some new information on garage doors innovations and how they can dress up a home. If a front door is the nose of a house, then what is the garage door? I digress.
Anyway, yesterday I attended the first RETechSouth conference in Atlanta, a conference for realtors focusing on blogging, social networking and video for real estate. It was right up my alley: all these things are the future of real estate, and I you read this blog you already know that.
At the conference, they played this video. Now you kinda have to BE a blogger to appreciate it, but many of you have asked me about my blogging, how much time I spend on it and how thorough it is, so you will definitely appreciate this. I’ve watched it probably five times and laugh out loud each time. Laugh with me and have a funny day.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 2 Comments »
Thanksgiving Brings Much Needed Rain to Alpharetta Property Owners
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Miscellaneous
It has been so long since it really rained in Alpharetta that many of us have forgotten what thunder sounds like. However, in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning we were very thankfully reminded. A whole INCH of rain was gifted upon the North Fulton area, according to the bucket sitting on my back deck. With Lake Lanier, our primary source of drinking water, reaching a new record low this week, even an inch is something to be thankful for.
The drought is, of course, big news around here. More news than action it sometimes seems. I wonder just how much - or how little - our water consumption has actually changed since we recognized that we were in a severe drought. 
My guess is very little. After all, gasoline has increased 2-3 fold in price and we all pretty much drive as much as we always have. The price of water hasn’t increased at all. Why would anyone use less of it other than to do their civic duty, which we all know is a tough sell?
In late October, as it looked like it would never rain again, Governor Purdue issued a state mandate for each county to reduce its water consumption by 10% from its average use between December 2006 and March 2007.
This edict means that Fulton County Water and Sewer, which serves all four municipalities in North Fulton, must reduce its daily water consumption by 2.25 Million Gallons per Day. That amount of reduction is equivalent to 810 gallons per month per household. Do you think you could do that? Do you even know how much water your household uses a month?
How Much Water Do You Use and How Much Does it Cost in Alpharetta?
I was curious about these questions myself, so I dug into the family filing cabinet and thumbed through the past five years of water bills. I’m often asked by clients looking to purchase a house in Alpharetta how much the utilities cost. Generally, utilities are a lot less expensive here than in other parts of the county. For water, I tell them that it is about $50-$60 per month. That is for water only.
I only pay the water portion of the bill because I live in an unsewered part of the county. If I lived in a sewered portion of the county, which is essentially all of Roswell, Alpharetta and Johns Creek, my bill would be approximately $75 a month more. [Note: I do have to pay to have my septic tank emptied once every five years or so for about $300.]
It is not an exact science comparing your month to month and year to year Fulton County water bill because the meter is not read on exactly the same date each month. Some water bills are for almost three months of service other for less than two. None the less, you can look at the yearly consumption for a family of five and the related cost, which is in the table to the right.
Some of those years, I watered the yard in the fall to get the fescue seed started. That can cost a few hundred dollars in water. In more recently years, I haven’t irrigated much at all; I think my sprinkler system has only been on a dozen times in the past couple years. I just don’t fight Mother Nature any more. It seems like such a waste because she always wins in the end.
| 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | |
| Usage | 192,400 | 180,600 | 161,300 | 193,600 | 192,000 |
| Cost | $517 | $482 | $545 | $709 | $679 |
Fulton County water costs $2.50 per 1,000 gallons of water and $4.50 per 1,000 gallons of sewer. That is phenomenal to me considering that a 12 ounce bottle of water costs you a $1 in the store.
My family uses about 15,000 gallons of water a month, which is 500 per day, which is 100 gallons per day per person. This costs us $1.25 per day. Amazing. If you cut your shower time down by five minutes you might save a nickel.
Fulton County has implemented a three part plan to come into compliance with the Governor’s mandated 10% reduction: (1) More Consumer Education; (2) Apartment Retrofitting to low flow fixtures; (3) Potential Price Increases. The County has not said how much of an increase they might impose, but the City of Marietta in Cobb County, where water is already at least twice as expensive as in Fulton County, is considering a 9% increase. A 9% increase in my water bill would mean 11 cents per day. Is that going to change behavior? I don’t think so.
But what I think is that to actually get people to conserve, you DO have to increase the price of water. However, not just a measly 9%. How about 300%? Would that get your attention? Atlanta is only going to continue to grow and demand more water. Today’s problems are minor compared to what we could face in 5-15 years. Why not start true conservation now?
Impact of Drought on Alpharetta Real Estate
With the ban on outside watering, some buyers have become more interested in properties with wells already on them - or in drilling a new well. That’s great from the perspective of increasing the value of your property by reducing its dependence on the county water supply. A number of years ago I investigated drilling a well with my neighbor on our property line and sharing it for irrigation. I was tired of paying hundreds of dollars in the Fall to water my fescue seed and envisioned a plush green lawn throughout the heat of the summer. The well would have been over 1000 feet deep, though, and we never pursued it. I let my fescue die back in the summer…one less thing to mow while the bermuda is growing! My question to you, though, is even if you had a well, is it environmentally ethical to use it during drought times without imposing some restrictions on yourself?
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Lake Lanier Water Level |
Other homeowners I know have access to one of many lakes or ponds in this area and pump from the late to water the lawn. Many subdivisions in the area like Triple Crown, for instance, water from their lake. They are one of the few subdivisions to have green grass and Fall annuals planted.
There are currently 43 properties in all price ranges for sale in North Fulton (Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell, Johns Creek) that have well water, that is, no public water. All but five of those properties are west of GA-400 in Milton and almost all are not in a subdivision, but are estate properties that likely inherited the well from when the property was more agricultural.
Other than that, I haven’t seen much of an impact on real estate from the drought, not that it is really possible to isolate that factor from so many that affect the market. People still decide to live in California even though there are fires and earthquakes; people live on the coast even though the ocean levels are going to rise; people live in Minnesota even though it snows, right? I suspect that people will heavily discount the drought when considering real estate in Georgia. When the Governor said there was only three months of drinking water left, everyone didn’t put there house on the market.
I have had a few clients inquire about it and ask what is going to happen regarding our water. Frankly, I don’t know what is going to happen. I, like I think everyone else, believe that it is eventually going to rain. It has to rain, right? With normal rainfall, it will take Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s main drinking supply, three years to refill to normal.
Now that I know how much water my family actually uses, I’m off to figure out how we are going to reduce consumption by the 810 gallons per household. That is only 5% of our current usage, a little more than one day’s worth of water.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 5 Comments »
Doors Are to Houses as Noses Are to Faces - Exploration of Alpharetta Door Architecture
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about, Stuff I like to talk about and know nothing about
This post is not really specific to Alpharetta or North Fulton real estate, but I’ve recently become minorly obsessed with doors. The door on a house is equivalent to the nose on a face. It makes a statement; and the nose and face should somewhat go together. 
Sometimes it is the homeowners who are responsible for a “bad nose.” This would be like poor application of face makeup. Yes, the door color on a house is your chance for self expression, but we have all see that lady in the mall who has eyebrows basically painted on her face. There comes a point when self expression is just plain misguided. Take this house for example, in the Hunters Oaks subdivision in Alpharetta.
Do you like this door? Would you put it on your house? Would you consider painting it if you owned this house and were going to sell? Would you want to live across the street from this house?
My wife actually likes this door. She thinks it looks Scandinavian. My wife likes IKEA, too. I don’t like either.
My problem with the door is not so much the color, but that the color doesn’t fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. This door might be great in a seaside neighborhood (or a suburb of Stockholm) where other homes had brightly painted doors, but in Alpharetta, GA, it doesn’t work. Neighborhoods definitely derive value from a consistent appearance of the houses. That is why homeowner’s associations have architectural control committees. The Brierfield subdivision on Mid-Broadwell Road has restrictions that require homeowners to paint the exterior of their homes from a defined color pallet. Apparently that is not the case in Hunters Oaks.
Sometimes - and more often - it is the architect who is responsible for a bad nose job on a house. Take this $800,000 house in Highland Manor in Milton. I love the floorplan of this house, but the architect was asleep at the drawing board when he penciled the front door and entrance.
This door/nose is way too puny for the house/face. The windows (called “lights” in door parlance) above and around the door are nice, but they don’t remedy the fact that the door is just too small. Putting the windows around the door is like piercing your nose: It might decorate it, but it doesn’t make it bigger or easier to blow!
An $800,000 house needs a statement door, not a single nostril after thought. You want to make a big entrance into a house like this, because behind that door is a nice open, tiled foyer.
We’ll finish with a rising trend I’ve seen in front doors: iron. Many high end builders in Milton are installing them in new construction and I’ve seen homeowners around Alpharetta doing “nose jobs” on their existing homes. They look fantastic on all styles of homes, offer great security, have a good heft to them and require little maintenance. They make a statement.
I wish I had before and after pictures of these two houses, but here are the after pictures of two recent nose jobs, one in the St Ives neighborhood and the other across the street in Medlock Bridge. These owners, in my opinion, have definitely increased the value of their homes and its marketability were they to sell.
I often get asked: “How do I increase the value of my home?” Or, “If I were to do something what would help me sell my house faster?” The usual answer you’ll hear is to upgrade the kitchen and master bath. I’d submit that you consider upgrading your front door. Give your house a nose job.
Which house would you rather own? The green door house or the iron door house?
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently 5 Comments »
Tennis Anyone? Swim/Tennis Neighborhoods in Alpharetta area
categories: Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
While a large part of the country was shoveling snow over the weekend, tennis season is in full swing in Atlanta. I’m not a tennis player myself, but I have never lived in a more tennis-active city. Last Saturday, I was out with a client from the Great White North who commented that she was amazed at how popular tennis was here.
Indeed, the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association (ALTA) has over 80,000 members who play competitive, recreational tennis on neighborhood courts throughout the city. For $20 a year you can team up with your neighbor or office mate, hit a few overheads and pull a few hamstrings. Atlanta apparently has the second largest local tennis association in the country.
The tennis facilities of some of the North Fulton neighborhoods are quite impressive; they would put my high school to shame. I was in the Seven Oaks subdivision today near McGinnis Ferry and Jones Bridge roads. What great tennis facilities they have: eight gleaming newly-surfaced courts in that trendy bright blue color. (The reason I know they are newly-surfaced is because from Google Earth they show up the old green color!) There were about a dozen neighborhood kids taking lessons in the 65 degree weather.
There are roughly 850 homes in Seven Oaks and with annual HOA dues at $1,420, that is a budget of over $1.2 million. For that amount of money, maybe they should have surfaced the courts with something shinier. Regardless, the neighborhood has great amenities, which include a pool, basketball court, fishing lake, park and gazebo. All this is possible because the neighborhood has enough critical mass to support it all.
On the other (west) side of GA-400, there are fewer large neighborhoods. Some that come to mind that have nice swim tennis facilities are Edenwilde ($620 year dues and six tennis courts) and Crooked Creek ($912 per year dues and nine tennis courts). Edenwilde also apparently has a swim team in the summer that you don’t have to live in the neighborhood to be on. (Please comment on this post if that is not the case.) Few neighborhoods have pools large enough for a swim team. Two other neighborhoods with swim teams are White Columns and Herrington Falls.
All this said, there are a lot more neighborhoods than you would think that don’t have swim tennis facilities. It is amazing that you can spend a million dollars on a home and not have a pool to jump into. The problem is that many neighborhoods are too small to support the amenities; and the builders didn’t want to give up a lot of two during development for such a “luxury.” Simply put, having a basement and having neighborhood swim tennis for the family are the two most frequent requirements in a house from my clients.
Therefore, I offer this completely informal list of neighborhoods in Milton that offer some type of swim tennis amenity. This list is not likely 100% accurate, but my first attempt. If you have corrections, please comment to this post.
With almost 70 degree weather today and the smell of Spring already in the air, it won’t be long before we are actually at the pool instead of just writing about it…and any time of year is tennis time in Atlanta.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Most Expensive House Sold in Atlanta and North Fulton in 2006
categories: Buyers, Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about
The National Association of Realtors recently divulged that the most expensive home sold in the United States in 2006 was a 10,000 square foot Alpine, New Jersey mansion on 63 acres. Located only 5 miles from Manhattan, it’s nice digs if you don’t like a long commute to the city. It went for $58 million.
I thought it would be fun to look at Atlanta (and Alpharetta for that matter) million dollar homes and see what the most expensive home sold in 2006 was.
According to the First Multiple Listing Service, 2006 was puncutated in November by the sale of a $9 million dollar estate off Mt. Paran Road just north of Buckhead. The home was only three years old and sits on 16 acres.
The tax records say the home is over 15,000 square feet and has ten bathrooms and amazingly the house was only on the market for 58 days.
Closer to home in North Fulton and Alpharetta, the most expensive sale was actually in Roswell on King Road. The winning home was a ten-acre horse farm that sold for an even $3 million. It weighed in with only five full baths, but it has an eight-car garage. Throw on top of that a seven-stall barn, riding ring, pool and a baseball field and you get much more for your money in North Fulton than in Buckhead, not to mention New Jersey.
It will be interesting in a year to look back and see how 2006 will compare to 2007. Currently in North Fulton, there are 25 homes on the market listed at over $3 million with 12 of those being in Country Club of the South. The most expensive is listed in Glenayre, which is in Roswell off Jones Road, for $7.25 million.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
Supersize It - Would You Like a 4-Car Garage With That?
categories: Miscellaneous
We all know that Americans like it big: Big screen TVs; big SUV’s; Big Gulps; and big garages.
It used to be that everyone wanted a three-car garage; how did we ever survive growing up with only a two-car garage? Where the heck did our parents put all our stuff back in the day?
You can certainly tell the age of a house by how many garages it has. Today, barely a house is built with fewer than three and clients will outright specify to me that they must have a three-car garage in their new home.
Well, three is starting to be too small, too. Heck, by the time you put two cars in the garage with one of them being a super-sized Yukon, and the third bay is filled with bikes, scooters, lawn tractor, skidoos and motorcycles, where do you put the third car?
People are now starting to ask for four-car garages…not every day, but they are asking. Right now, you’re only likely to find four-car gargages on million dollar homes and up. There are fifty homes in North Fulton listed in the MLS as having 4+ car garages. Only nine are less than a million dollars.
What we are also finding, though, is that people are buying homes with two car garages and adding a detached two-car garage, often with an office or guest quarters over the garage and a breezeway to the house. Aesthetically, this looks very nice, you just have to make sure that the lot (and the HOA) allow this sort of addition.
Posted by Kevin Warmath | Currently No Comments »
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