Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

Over the last few years I’ve received a number of phone calls from residents of Milton and Alpharetta neighborhoods asking my opinion, as a realtor, about how they can increase their home values.  Usually these calls are from older neighborhoods where the price of their homes was relatively lower than some of the newer neighborhoods.  However, the owners in the older ‘hoods think that their homes are not THAT much less desirable than the new homes.

The problem stems from the fact that raw land appreciated so quickly in north Fulton County, and particularly in Milton, where it is said to have quadrupled in a few short years prior to our current "market correction."

This created a price gap between the "original neighborhoods" and the new neighborhoods.  The original residents want to bridge that gap, but how?

Some of the neighborhoods like Brierfield near Crabapple have redone the entrance to the neighborhood with stacked stone signage and have replaced all the mailboxes and sign posts to given an updated look. 

That’s great, although, I don’t think that you can say the houses in Brierfield are worth $2000 more today than they were last year because of this.  Here’s my suggestion:  Promote the benefits of living in your neighborhood.

By that I mean:  market yourselves.  A neighborhood should have a unique selling proposition, just as a house should.  For instance, the neighborhood has one of the few swim teams around, or the best ALTA tennis program, or multiple lake lots with community access to the lake for fishing, or well-organized kids events like Halloween and Easter egg hunts, or horse trails, or proximity to a park or even a Starbucks or lawn maintenance included in the HOA dues.

For the longest time, I’ve been trying to get my neighborhood to build an artificial putting green (don’t forget the sand bunker) next to our pool.  How about that for a unique selling proposition?  How do you think the conversation would go when a prospective buyer drove into the neighborhood?  Man speaking to wife:  Look honey, they have a putting green.  I love this neighborhood already.

The HOA should have an External Communication function/person whose job it is to spread the unique selling proposition.  If your neighborhood does not have an external website, build one.  Get a neighborhood kid to spend a little time optimizing it for the search engines…he or she will know what to do.

Publish your community calendar, tennis matches, swim lessons, etc.  Take lots of pictures of different times of year and post those.  Calculate the number and age of the children and publish that because every mother I’ve ever worked with wants to know if there are kids her kids’ age to play with and the only place this information exists is with the existing homeowners.

Ultimate goal:  make your neighborhood desirable.  Market it.  Make someone in Iowa reading about your blooming azaleas in April drool to live in your neighborhood. Let them know what kind of people live in your neighborhood and that you all aren’t a bunch of raving lunatics!

A good time and place to start could even be right here and now.  Leave a comment to this post and tell us what neighborhood you live in and why it is a great place.  Go ahead…sell me on it.  Leave the url for you neighborhood website if you have one.

In the end, the value of your home is based on the comparable sales in your neighborhood.  If you can make your neighborhood the envy of the area and get people wanting it instead of just "taking a look," you’ll be more likely to get some solid sales at closer to list price and develop some price momentum.

Of course, you all need to be keeping you homes maintained and updated, particularly the kitchens, but marketing the neighborhood as only residents can do won’t cost you a dime, just a little time.  Go ahead, start today!

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003929

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.

 

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/Tennis Seventy-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 Ammersee Lakes Atherton Park Autry Township Cameron Crest Farms Centennial Citadella Country Club Of The South Ellard Enclave At Glen Abbey Grand Estates Of The South Windward Haynes Manor Haynesbrooke Homestead Horseshoe Bend Johns Creek Walk Jones Bridge Estates Laurel Pond Montclair Olde Taylor Farms Quail Hollow River Falls Riverside Park St Ives Stonewyck Tavistock The Gates At Johns Creek Willow Royal Winfield On The River Winthrop Park Woodvale Wrights Mill Commons Wyngate   Gated Neighborhoods West of GA-400.  Click to see homes for sale in that neighborhood. Atlanta National Chatham Park Clearbrooke Crabapple Brook Crabapple Pointe Five Oaks Farm Garrison Hill Glenayre Greystone Heatherton Hidden Forest Ivey Mills Jennifer Oaks Lakeside At Ansley Reminisce Roxbury Estates Stonegate Stonegrove Taimen On The River The Manor The Overlook At Litchfield White Columns Windsor

 

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?

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00392A

By all accounts, Echelon a.k.a. The Georgia Tech Club, so far has not lived up to expectations.  Its rival high-end golf course community, The Manor, has done significantly better in terms of home sales and overall build out.

The Manor is not breaking any sales records, but Echelon has performed so poorly that people are wondering what the future holds - and this uncertainly has absolutely affected buyers’ decisions to not buy in Echelon.  I have personal experience on that front.

The developer at Echelon, The Melrose Group, has a track record of under performance as evidenced by Bloody Point in Hilton Head.

Enter Trump, or so the rumor goes.  Here is a man who appreciates a smooth seven iron from the middle of the fairway.  Trump is also no stranger to golf course development.  He has an entire portfolio of beautiful courses under the Trump National brand and courses outside the U.S. as well.

Plus, Trump is already building in Atlanta at the new Trump Towers of Atlanta, in midtown, so he is likely familiar with Alpharetta’s market demographics and the huge upside of investing in this area.

Trump could be the 6 handicapper in the shiny golf cart that rides in and saves the day at Echelon.  I’ve always maintained that Echelon is a diamond in the rough.  The golf course is outstanding and its advantage over The Manor is that it has acre-sized lots - and fewer of them, precisely because they are larger.  Echelon will be a smaller and perhaps more exclusive community once it is built out and we are 20 years down the fairway.

The proposed deal I heard rumored is that Trump would buy out the lender’s position at Echelon and complete the development with The Melrose Company, but again, this is all speculation.

Someone needs to step in, though, whether it is Trump or someone else.  A golf course as good as that one is a terrible thing to waste (and by the way, you can currently get a membership there for only $15,000 regardless of whether you went to the North Avenue vocational school ;-> ).

A Trump development in Alpharetta would be just another jewel in a crown of high-end developments (Prospect Park being the other big one) that is really putting Alpharetta on the map nationally. 

Let’s tee it up, Donald.  And I want strokes from "the Donald" just to say that I got them!

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003928

Last week I wrote a post showing market data indicating that house prices continue to rise in Alpharetta; it is just that the volume of sales is down.  This is true overall for the market.

However, one of the insightful readers of this blog, took me a little bit to task on differentiating between new home sales and resales.  This is one of those cases where you can easier lie with statistics.  While I believe that it is valid to look at the market as a whole (both new sales and resales), maybe it just makes a point that realtors want to tell but doesn’t make the whole point.

I try to be a "glass half full" kind of guy and I truly believe that we can - and have to some extent - talked ourselves into today’s recession and slump.  When I fell a cold coming on, I tell myself I’m not going to get sick and most of the time I don’t.

Yes, there are some fundamental problems with the economy:  credit availability, price of gas, value of the greenback…even climate change.

But there are some fundamental things right with our local Atlanta, and Alpharetta in particular, real estate markets:  job creation, quality of schools, cost of living and overall quality of life.  (Heck, even our underachieving NBA team not only made the playoffs, but took Boston to seven games.)  Just yesterday, I showed homes in Johns Creek to a young couple who was relocating here from Los Angeles.  They were so happy with the type of home and the type of neighborhood they could afford to live in here.  They said that you just can’t compare.

So while I strive to be realistic in presenting the housing market data here, I also don’t want to lose focus on the big picture which is very positive in Alpharetta even while the immediate housing market is definitely a challenge.  Maybe I fudged a little in the last post by looking at the composite market and not the resale and new construction sub-markets individually.  Thank your, Mr. Robs, for point this out.  Now, let’s take a deeper look at the data for Alpharetta and see how the story changes.

Resale Housing Sales Trends in Alpharetta and North Fulton

Resale only sales for the past five quarters show a about a 3% decline in sales price and a 40% decline in number of transactions.  See Chart Below.  My opinion based on this is that the ones that are selling are doing a pretty darn good job of holding their own as far as price goes.  It’s the ones that are selling that concern me because they are a real drag on the market.  For them to sell, they need to reduce their prices, very likely much more than 3%.

New Construction Sales Trends in Alpharetta and North Fulton

Now let’s look at new construction only sales in Alpharetta and North Fulton since January 1, 2007 (the past five quarters).  Wow!  The data shows a 36% increase in sales price, while it also shows 45% fewer sales.  What gives?  For one, the luxury market, and both these homes clearly fit that criterion, is doing much better than the rest of the market, but that is material for another blog post.

 

As you’re probably guessing, there were a few very large sales in Q1 2008.  Two to be precise.  A $6.3 million dollar new home finally sold in Windward after going under contract in August 2007. 

The other large transaction was in Greystone, west of GA-400 off Hopewell Road.  Originally listed a $2.8 million dollars, it sold in only 42 days on the market for $3.9 million, presumably after some major upgrades.

Windward	Greystone
$6.3 million dollars	$3.9 million dollars

 

If you take these two sales out of the numbers, you get a more representative picture of the local housing market trends.  New construction sales prices are up about 7.5% while number of sales is still half of what it was.

North Fulton Sales Trend:  New Construction Minus two largest New Construction Sales
Quarter	Avg Sales Price	# of Sales
Q1 2007	$668,785	81
Q2 2007	$792,013	81
Q3 2007	$802,338	63
Q4 2007	$570,176	46
Q1 2008	$717,953	43
Totals	$719,657	314

If you look at the whole market and remove the two very large sales, the whole housing market is down 2.5% from Q1, 2007 to Q1, 2008.  The number of sales is, of course, still way off at 40%.

If you look at the numbers this way, which I think is more valid, instead of having a 3% increase we actually have a 2.5% decrease in home sale price in North Fulton.

North Fulton Sales Trend:  All Resale and New Construction Minus two largest New Construction Sales
Quarter	Avg Sales Price	# of Sales
Q1 2007	$413,791	784
Q2 2007	$429,863	1,069
Q3 2007	$442,331	923
Q4 2007	$400,453	576
Q1 2008	$403,688	472
Totals	$421,916	3,824

Thank you, Mr. Robs, for holding my feet to the fire and forcing me to do some sensitively analysis on the data.  I am fond of saying that "skepticism is the chastity of the intellect."  You’ve proven that here.


http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003925

While a lot of sellers want to use the real "F" word for this real estate market, my "F" word in this market is Foreclosure. 

Everyone is fixated on foreclosures. Last week alone, I had three people contact me out of the blue looking for foreclosures…looking for a deal.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL CURRENT FORECLOSURES IN ALPHARETTA, ROSWELL, JOHNS CREEK and MILTON (The page may load slowly, there are a lot of them!)

While foreclosures are getting all the limelight in the press and while there are more and more of them on the market - there are going to be 7,335 properties auctioned next Tuesday in the 13-county metro Atlanta area , they may or may not be the best buy for you. My word of advise to you would be: Don’t fixate on foreclosures.

One of the people who contacted me wanted a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home on an acre for around $250k.  There are a few foreclosures that meet that criteria, but they are mostly junk.  Understand that someone living in a $250,000 house and facing financial difficulties is not going to leave the home in tip top shape.

I told this prospective buyer that there are 65 homes in Alpharetta with 4 BR and 2.5 Baths (including one in Sable Pointe, an affordable neighborhood in Milton High School district, that has an acre lot) that are under $275,000.  Some of them are nice, clean, well-maintained homes.  Unfortunately, they aren’t attracting as many potential buyers becuase they don’t have the foreclosure label.  Might we look at some of them as well?

Competition for Foreclosures is Higher than for Resales

Which brings me to competition.  In the past four weeks, we have made offers for clients on three foreclosure homes.  All three cases were multiple offer situations.  We got two of the homes; lost the other.  We offered slightly more than list price on the two that we got.  Lesson:  if a bank has a house listed at $300k, don’t think you are necessarily going to get it for $50k less - or even list price.  The banks are in this for profit, too, or perhaps less loss.

Foreclosures Might Not be in the Best Condition

Foreclosure properties are sold "As-is."  This means you have the right to inspect the property and can terminate the contract within your due diligence period if you don’t like what you find, but the bank is not going to make any repairs. On one of our recent foreclosure purchases, active termites were found.  Apparently they moved in when the previous owners moved out.  The previous owners had had a termite bond, but it expired with then left and it had been almost two years since any termite inspection or treatment had been done.  You are going to find issues caused by neglect when you purchase foreclosure property…and remember, Georgia is a Buyer Beware state.

Our recent experience with foreclosures, particularly the competitiveness of them, is not unique.  Another local agent told me last week that they had made three with a client on three different properties and not gotten any of them.

A local resident shared with me her experiences trying to buy three foreclosures recently.  She bid on what I’ve always maintained was a great buy on Francis Road only to be out bid.  The auction was held online and she told me that they kept calling for "highest and best" and people kept increasing their bids.  The house finally sold for $560,200.  It was listed at $599,900 at the time and had been listed at $699,900.

This resident also tried to buy a foreclosure in White Columns.  She worked with the bank for two months and came up to within $10,000 of their list price.  Five other offers then popped up; the house is currently under contract to someone else to close in May.

Then there was the pre-foreclosure in Providence at Atlanta National:  not the monster house, which sold for $100k more than list in 12 days, but a much more traditional and modest home.  The one I’m talking about is a big house with a finished basement in a gated Chatham, swim-tennis neighborhood. 

It had been on the market for about a year and was last listed at $699,900.  The bank wouldn’t budge on the list price.  It went to auction on the courthouse steps and Wachovia, who held a $140k second mortgage on the house, bought it and left it on the market at $699,000 where it remains.

I could go on with more stories, but I think you are getting the point:  Foreclosures may or may not be "a deal."  There is significant competition in the market for them, so be prepared to pay list price if it is a good house.  Also, the houses may have damage, visible and non-visible, like our little termite friends.  Of course, the problem houses tend to get weeded out, but buyer beware. 

Finally, the brokers representing the banks are likely doing it at a reduced commission for the volume.  Therefore, the service can suffer sometimes and frankly the banks are very slow to respond, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.

We have a foreclosure under contract and there was an issue dewinterizing the property:  The main water didn’t come back on.  We have spent over two weeks trying to get the bank to get someone to the property just to see what the problem might be. 

So if you have no tolerance for bad service and poor communication, consider something other than the foreclosure market.  Heck, we had an above list price offer in on a foreclosure and never even got a callback from the broker telling us we didn’t get the house.  We had to read it in the MLS over a week after they took another offer.

Last tidbit:  if the foreclosure market is for you, consider this little gem.  Well…there you go.  I went to check on it and it has a pending contract already.  It was a house in Cobblestone Farms that had been on the market for $1.1 million as a foreclosure for a year.  It had some damage - and I made the mistake of opening the refrigerator last summer, but was big, bold and an interesting floorplan.  Plus it had a great lot for a pool.  Anyway, I guess the bank decided it was time to cut bait and they reduced the price to $749k.  It was under contract within weeks…who knows, there may have even been multiple offers at that price.  

That is par for the foreclosure market.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003922