Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

Not just "on sale", but "really on sale."  Williamscraft, the builder of Crabapple Crossroads has reduced prices by $40,000 t0 $150,000 across all their communities.  In Crabapple Crossroads, the reductions are from $40,000 to $95,000 for a 4 bedroom and 3 bath house with no basement.  The advertised price is $459,900.

Crabapple Crossroads is the Lew Oliver designed neighborhood with the seven three storey "brownstones" at the entrance and the design made to feel like a village.  The homes mostly have front porches and are closely set to the street with sidewalks.  The idea is to get people out of their homes and develop more of a community feel.  It is possible to walk to diner and to some of the best public schools in North Fulton: Crabapple Crossing, Northwestern Middle and Milton High School.

However, even given this innovative community design, the Crabapple location and the good schools, Crabapple Crossroads has struggled.  To date, only seven homes have sold and there are currently thirty-three homes for sale. 

Clearly the issue has been price.  They say, "Price cures all ills," so Williamscraft has reduced prices.  Paying over $500,000 for a 4 bedroom home on a small lot with no basement was a hard sell when you could go up the road into Milton and find any number of larger homes on acre lots with basements for $500,000 - or less.  Admittedly they are older homes, but everything is a tradeoff.

With the price reductions, now you can buy a brand new 4 bedroom house in the mid $400’s at Crabapple Crossroads, which is more inline with the current resale market. 

One funny thing about these huge price reductions, though.  I was talking with a builder of million dollar homes recently.  We were discussing some of the huge price reductions on luxury homes in Milton and Alpharetta - and the one in Echelon, in particular.  This builder asked me, "Just home much profit do the buyers think builders have in these luxury homes?"  He was alluding to having to make a living himself. 

I was EXTREMELY curious to know exactly how much profit is built into a $2,000,000 home in someplace like Echelon or The Manor, but I wasn’t gauche enough to ask him for his profit and loss statements.  I will say, though, that when a builder like Williamscraft reduces prices 20% more or less across the board it gives the buying public the feeling that there was a lot of profit built in initially…assuming that Williamscraft is not taking a loss on these homes.

This market behavior, in turn, leads other buyers to get jaded and feel like they should be demanding more concessions from sellers…and the cycle perpetuates itself.  This is why, from an overall market perspective, it is so important to get the price right from the beginning.  Once you start reducing the price, you never get close to what you would have gotten because buyers smell that blood in the water.