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.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/003908

A reader of my last post on bank-owned property in Alpharetta and Milton asked specifically if there were any foreclosures in Crabapple.  A few properties come to mind.

Foreclosures in Crabapple

Crabapple Chase, 5 Bedroom / 2 Bath listed at $319,000.

Wallace Woods, 4 Bedroom / 2 Bath listed at $294,000.

Michaela Woods, 3 Bedroom / 3 Bath listed at $147,500.

There are two others, that while not technically in Crabapple, are pretty close, just a little further north.

Gates Mill, 5 Bedroom / 4 Bath listed at $539,000.

Enniskerry, has been withdrawn from the market but I suspect it will be put back on after some repairs:  4 Bedroom / 4 Bath was listed at $379,900.

For more information on any of these properties, please feel free to contact me.  And, yes, Anne, Fieldstone Farms is the neighborhood across from White Columns.  I thought it was a great buy, too.  That house has a TON of space for the price and was four sides brick.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/0038F7

Nothing in going to change, at least in the near term, in Crabapple.

Because the topic of development and traffic in Crabapple is such a hot button in Milton, the Crabapple Crossroads Community Plan UPDATE was initiated to see if any recommendations could be made to City Council in the interim while the overall City of Milton Comprehensive Plan is being developed.

Basically the Update Committee recommended to do nothing until the Comprehensive Plan is finished.  They said, "Making any sort of recommendation would be planning before you plan."  I thought that was the point:  The Comprehensive Plan won’t be completed until the summer.  There could be decisions that come up between now and then regarding permitting or zoning that could be addressed now to prevent further irreversible decision making from happening.

Lots of time at the meeting last night was spent reviewing allowable amounts of residential, commercial and office development under the existing plan and then discussing the the traffic volumes currently in Crabapple.  As of January, 2008, there is 213,000 sq ft of commercial and office space existing or permitted vs. the 200,000 allowable in the plan.  How does that happen?  What good is a plan if you don’t follow it, particularly given the amount of work and community input that goes into creating a plan.

On the residential side, the Crabapple Crossroads Overlay initially called for 761 total residential housing units.  Only 433 have been proposed for construction today (and 413 of those have been west of Birminghand Highway and/or Broadwell Road).  Imagine about twice as many houses as you have today in the Crabapple of the future.

But even if something could be done to affect the future of Crabapple, what would you do?  You basically have only two choices:  build less and/or increase the road infrastructure.  We haven’t shown that we can or what to limit development in the area and while every plan I’ve ever seen for Crabapple shows an inter-connected grid of "neighborhood streets" to handle the overflow traffic, what we have today doesn’t come close to that vision.

The bottom line is that to build more road capacity you have to have two things:  land and money.  The City of Milton has neither.  The land would have to be purchased on the open market or acquired through eminent domain; one takes money the other political capital, both in short supply.

So, for the time being we do nothing and ultimately what we get is what we have:  a developed community that is the result of convenient decisions of the day, even if they were practical at the time and not the result of a carefully planned, efficient community.

It is somewhat ironic too, that in order to achieve the stated goal of "Live Work Play" in many of our suburban entanglements we actually need to INCREASE density.  If we want Crabapple to be a thriving "village" and not just a quaint wink at a bucolic past, we need people living there.  And I’m not talking about people who live there at night and get into their car and drive thirty minutes to work each morning.  I’ve asked it here before, but when was the last time you saw someone out walking in Crabapple and it wasn’t the Antique Fair?  When was the last time you stopped in Crabapple for something other than gas?

If we want those new shops and restaurants in Crabapple to prosper, people have to patronize them.  That means getting out of the car and walking between stores, running around the corner for a cup of coffee, walking to pick up the dry cleaning or running over to the gym.  Isn’t that the idea of a "village?"  To me, the term village implies a certain level of density and it implies pedestrians.  Every picture of every plan you ever see of Crabapple (or any urban development these days) always has people walking along broad sidewalks often with their family or their dog.  Is that reality or a vision implanted by urban planners?

To put more residential units in Crabapple would certainly mean more traffic, so my opinion is that we must first divert the "thru traffic" around Crabapple.  If I were the traffic planning god, the first thing I’d do is improve the connection from Cherokee County to Alpharetta and Windward and get those people off Crabapple and Mayfield Roads. 

That means improving Arnold Mill and its intersection with Rucker Road.  That means improving (widening) Hardscrabble Road all the way to HWY 92 and that means serious improvements to Rucker Road between Alpharetta and Crabapple.  This would give drivers a direct shot into Alpharetta from the West, something they don’t have now, and create a by-pass of sorts for Crabapple.

All of this is mostly beyond the control of Milton, though because Arnold Mill is a state highway, Hardscrabble Road is in Roswell and Rucker Road is in Alpharetta…and they all impact Crabapple, which is in Milton.  Regional planning anyone?

After I build the road capacity, I’d next build higher density housing in Crabapple to support the village like atmosphere that is apparently desired.  Otherwise, you go from village to ghost town and I don’t think that is an approved planning designation by the county!

Stay tuned for more comments here on Crabapple.  Even if the local government is not going to do anything in the short term, at least we can talk about it here.  I’m interested in the collective mind out there, particularly residents of Crabapple today.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/0038F5

The Silos Shopping Center in Crabapple used to house an Ingles grocery store that no one ever patronized.  I don’t even remember when Ingles finally closed their doors, but redevelopment of The Silos has been many years and many rumors in the making.

For a while, it looked like redevelopment would never begin, but now that it looks like it is almost complete, residents are curious to know which new businesses are going to be in The Silos.

I placed a call to the developer only to be politely told that they could not divulge the names of the potential tenants because they were still in negotiations.

Then my wife and I decided to have lunch.  Lost ya, didn’t I.

See, we decided to have lunch at Happy Wok.  Happy Wok, along with the nail salon, have been the only two businesses to weather the redevelopment storm and hang on admist the vacancies, construction and uncertainty.  I’m glad, too, because Happy Wok has been my faithful Chinese take out companion for many years, reliable late at night.  To have lost them would have been to loose a dependable friend in my alimentary assortment.

Happy Wok has a loyal following of locals and when having the lunch buffet the other day, which, don’t get me wrong, is not the best Chinese food in Alpharetta, merely the quickest, cheapest and most adequate, the local clientele shared with me that they had heard the new anchor of The Silos was going to be Fresh Market.

Interesting choice.  The west side of GA-400 does not have a Fresh Market.  The only other one in the area is at Old Alabama and Haynes Bridge Road, on the east side.  But does Crabapple need a THIRD grocery store? 

I can only assume that if this rumor is right, that Fresh Market has done its market research and believes that they can survive, if not flourish in this location.  But Crabapple already has a Kroger, which is who drove Ingles out of business, a new Publix (that is not doing gang busters), and Harry’s (owned by Whole Foods) and Trader Joe’s just around the corner.  What does Fresh Market think it can offer the market that the existing grocers are not?  This is not meant to be a rhetorical question…I would really like to understand their value proposition and market analysis.  If you know, please comment on this post.

I was always wishing for a non-grocery anchor in The Silos.  For a while the rumor was that there would be a fitness center.  My secret vision - we all have these grandiose business plans playing out in the backs of our head, don’t we - was to have a shopping area dedicated to kids and families; to have a theme for the center.

The anchor could be an entertainment venue for kids, or maybe even an indoor paint ball facility or roller rink / skate park or sports complex.  The supporting stores could be children’s clothes, pediatric dentistry, birthday party center, art store … you get the idea. 

In another development in Crabapple, I learned recently that the property where the old Korean Church (eye sore?) is on the north side of Crabapple Road has a contingent contract on it.  The buyers, Sunrise Development, want to build a Senior Housing Facility of some sort there but need to get approval from the City of Milton to proceed.  The property is five acres and the proposed contract price is $1.35M; the property has been listed at $1.7M.

What do you think?  Is senior housing a good use of that property?  It certainly might lend itself to people getting outside and walking and "living in the neighborhood."  Plus, we certainly need more options for senior housing in this market.  There just aren’t enough stepless ranch homes to go around.

All this is to say that Crabapple continues to evolve.  In fact, tonight is the second in the three-meeting series to review the Crabapple Comprehensive Plan.  The vision has always been to create a "village" atmosphere in Crabapple, but does it have the density and economic viability to exist as a "village"? 

I just noticed that the home decor store Eddy West is closing its retail store in Historic Crabapple.  (My wife hears they are consolidating into their North Georgia warehouse.)  The old antique store across the street is still empty with no signs of future economic life.

If someone who actually lives in Milton or Crabapple would comment and tell me the last time they stopped and actually shopped or purchased something in Crabapple, I’d be interested to know.  Because for now, Crabapple, at least the historic part, is simply a nice intersection to look at but still one that you just want to get through on your way to some other place.  That is why traffic at that intersection is such an issue.  If Crabapple were the destination and not the pass-thru, then we would know that Crabapple has an economic future.

I’ll be curious to see what comes from the planning meeting tonight and how we can really affect the future of Crabapple.  Hope to see you there.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/0038F4

The corner of Bethany Road and Providence Road in Milton is looking much better these days.  That’s because a local cabinet maker purchased the run down and overgrown farm house, has completely renovated it and has it for sale.  Yes, this is the property that had the old bus permanently parked in the front yard.  The story goes that the bus was a tour bus for the Allman Brothers and that the owner of the house was a sound producer for the band.  The stories, I imagine, those walls could tell. The house is now being marketed for sale as “historically significant.”  According to the Multiple Listing Service, the house was built in 1860.  Not surprisingly, the Fulton County tax assessor records disagree and say the house was erected in 1920.  But what makes it historically significant, the fact that it is 87 or 147 years old?  Or is it significance through association and that someone who worked with a famous musician lived there?  Is it the architectural style:  early twentieth century farm house with wrap around porches?

Fields Crossing Farm House

Don’t get me wrong, the house is now a work of art.  The owner should be very proud of his work.  Every square inch has been lovingly renovated.  A trailer of wide, heart pine was brought in from North Georgia to be used as the floors and they are magnificent.  All the plumbing and electrical has been updated.  The house has a modern kitchen and all the fixtures are period appropriate.  Well, I hesitate on that.  If the house was truly built in 1960, they very possibly didn’t have indoor plumbing fixtures. As much as I enjoyed seeing what the new owner has made of the house, and it really is a “This Old House” special, I doubt I could really be comfortable living in the house.  Talk about functional obsolescence:  I know I’m tall, but people must have been a lot shorter way back whenever.  No way is the upstairs usable for anyone over 6’ tall.  At $750,000 for the 2,300 square foot house and the one and a half acre lot at one of the busier intersections in Milton, that special buyer may come along who just has to have historic.  However, in my opinion the ideal use of this property would be as a doctor or dentist office – or as an office for an architect who would appreciate the building.  I wouldn’t be opposed to a land use policy in Milton that would allow such “historic” properties to be used as offices.  That would encourage their preservation and reward those willing to take the financial risk to renovate them.  They are nice to look at; I just don’t necessarily want to live in one. While this house is not specifically on the list of Milton Georgia Historic Landmarks, the intersection where this house sits is.  It is named Fields Crossing and it even shows up on Google Maps as such, so maybe this house does have some historical claim to fame other than the Almond Brothers association.

Crabapple

But is historical significance or just merely being old reason to be preserved, or for that matter reason to pay a premium price for a piece of real estate?  Let’s take Crabapple, for example, which is also listed as a City of Milton Historic Landmark.  No specific buildings are listed, just the area in general.  I love the quaintness of Crabapple as much as the next guy, but quaint gets old after a few years of sitting in traffic trying to get through Crabapple in the morning.  The problem is obviously the lack of turning lanes and those are impeded by an “historic” building on the northeast corner of the intersection.  It is too close to the road, empty since the antique shop went out of business, had no parking and frankly it is in the way.  Ask the truckers who have hit the front corner trying to make a right turn. I want to preserve the heritage of the area, but most of the older buildings in Milton are barns and many of them are just plain falling down.  While they are bucolic and give the area a nice rustic feel, I’m not in favor of propping every last one up until the wood disintegrates.  When they fall down, they fall down and at some point they become junk and an eye sore.  In Crabapple, the only reason most of the remaining buildings are still there is that they were built of brick.  Am I a heretic to say that I wouldn’t be too terribly upset if the old antique shop where torn down in favor of a turning lane?  To me that building is as much an historic inconvenience than anything else.  Am I crazy to suggest that we tear down a building that has a tin roof, sloping porch and an outdated electrical system, I’m sure.  Obviously, “the market” can’t find a good use for it, since it has been sitting empty for easily a year now, even though it has been painted. Where do we draw the lines?  What do we preserve and what do we tear down and rebuild?  How much to we cater to the automobile?  What is historically significant and what is just plain old and falling down?  Should we allow some of the older buildings to be used as office space in an otherwise residential community?  I have opinions, but not necessarily answers.  Did I mention there is an election coming up?

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/0038DC