Prices Rise and Fall in Forsyth County at the Same Time | 13% Decrease on One Side, 3% Increase on The Other Side
categories: Buyers, Forsyth, Local Market Conditions
CUMMING GA - I had an innocuous question yesterday from an out-of-town buyer looking to relocate to the Alpharetta area.
The Question
He actually prefers to be in south Forsyth, just over the county line and asked what prices have done in Forsyth County in that past year.
The Canned Answer
I’ve had a working number in my head that I share with clients: Prices are down about 5-6% along the GA-400 Corridor (Alpharetta, Roswell, Cumming, etc) over the past year. There was an analysis in a local magazine this month showing prices are down 6.8% from May 2007 through May 2008, so I thought I was close to being accurate.
The analysis done by the magazine was for the zip codes 30004 (Alpharetta and Milton), 30005 (Alpharetta), 30024 (Johns Creek, but also Suwanee and large section of Gwinnett County), 30040 (Southwestern Forsyth County - Cumming), 30041 (Southeastern Forsyth County - Cumming), 30097 (Johns Creek but also Duluth all the way to I-85 on the east), 30075 (Roswell West) and 30076 (Roswell East). The 30022 zip code, which covers a large part of Alpharetta and Roswell East, was mysteriously left of of the analysis.
The Problem With The Canned Answer
This just goes to show how hard it is to do meaningful analysis on a geographic are like North Fulton. Even though we obviously know where it is, it is so hard to define in the real estate data: Zip codes cross municipal and county boundaries and city names don’t work because so much of the area was unincorporated until recently.
Past sale data won’t have a good city name and even current listings are labeled as Alpharetta when in fact they may be in Milton or Johns Creek. The Postal Service doesn’t help any because all they really care about is the zip code; there is a difference between your postal mailing address and your actual municipal address.
Therefore, I always do my analysis based on FMLS Area Number. The FMLS divides the city into ninety defined, geographic areas . Areas 13 and 14 are North Fulton. Area 13 is west of GA-400; Area 14 is east of 400.
So I turned my sites to Forsyth County to confirm the data to answer my client’s question. I was curious if the 6% decrease held up for Forsyth. What I found proves that even at an eight zip code analysis level like was done by the local magazine can be too large. Real estate is indeed local, even down to an elementary school district.
Forsyth has three FMLS areas, Areas 222 and 223 west of GA-400 and Area 221 east. In actuality, Forsyth needs to have four areas, one for each quadrant because the north and south parts of the county are so different.
The Reconsidered Answer
That probably has something to do with the results of my analysis, which showed that Areas 221 and 223 have lost 13% in average sales price over the past year . That is double what the magazine was reporting for the area, which infers that some other areas in the area are doing significantly better than reported.
Here is the kicker, though. Area 222, that part of Forsyth County west of GA-400 and south of Highway 20, actually has seen a 3% INCREASE in average sales price over the past year. I didn’t have time to breakdown the numbers by new construction and resales, but I still found it interesting, if not amazing, that there is an area realizing positive sales price growth in this market.
My suspicion is that the same is true of South Forsyth on the east side of GA-400 but it is not as easy to analyze in the data because there is not an FMLS area just for the southeastern part of the county.
If I had to venture a guess, though, I’d say that the northern part of the county is dragging down the average sales price for the southern part, so don’t let the 13% sales price decrease fool you in south Forsyth east of GA-400. I’m not saying they have positive growth there, or that it is not a buyer’s market, but statistics can be misleading.
To see a full chart of the last year’s average sales data for Forsyth County, CLICK HERE .
Hi Kevin,
That makes sense to me. The new West Forsyth HS is in area 222 and has been very popular with our clients looking to move to the Forsyth area. Improvements to the South Forsyth intersections at GA 400 and Exits 12 & 13 have also helped IMHO. The new Avenue Forsyth Mall at exit 13 and the recent approval of a major mall along McFarland Pkwy west of GA400 all add to the popularity of that area of Forsyth.
As far as dividing area 221 into two quadrants, that is long overdue. Maybe you could use the FMLS “search by map” feature in their search engine to isolate the southern and northern portions of 221 to see what kind of stats those two area are producing. I would think the new Emory Johns Creek Hospital is helping Southeast Forsyth property values in that corner.
Deryk