Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

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.

You need your GPS not to find this house, but to navigate the inside once you get there.  There is so much square footage, so many rooms and so many hallways (and closets) that it lead my nine-year-old to comment:  Dad, can we buy this house?  It would be great to play tag and hide and go seek…no one would ever find you!

This foreclosure in prestigious Atlanta National (in the golf course section) is a foreclosure among foreclosures.  Truly, I don’t believe that you will find more high-end finished square footage for the dollar than this house.  And I guarantee that you will not find this floorplan anywhere else.  No one will say your house is cookie-cutter.

The house itself is over 6,000 square feet, although it feels more like 8,000.  That is probably because the ceilings are so high in so many rooms.  The exterior is four sides hardcoat stucco with a tile roof.  On the inside you have six bedrooms and a ton of bathrooms.  There is a mud-room / pantry / office that is the size of most kitchens and a room for most every other purpose too.

My favorite part is the grand two-story covered back porch overlooking the nice swimming pool - with diving board.  You don’t see diving boards much in this day of insurance claim fear.

$1.6 Million Dollar Price Reduction

The numbers  on this house are that it originally sold for $1.8M in 2002 when initially constructed.  It was put on the market by the owner at $2.4M a year ago and then gradually reduced in price to $1.65M as it didn’t sell.  The bank apparently took the property earlier this year and put it back on the market at an eye-popping $808,900.  That is 33% of the initial list price.  I’m not saying the house was ever going to sell for $2.4M, but it is DEFINITELY well worth $808,900 for that amount of space and character.

There are of course some negatives in the house.  The master is not huge and the kitchen could use a little spiffing up.  But there is a theatre in the basement, an elevator serving all three floors, a wet bar in the basement, and a five-car garage.  It is one of the few homes with a pool that I’ve seen recently that has a well thought out bathroom right off the patio with a toilet and shower for after pool use.

Did I also mention that there is an 900 sq. ft. au pair suite (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room) above the two-car detached garage, that, by the way has bays large enough for RV parking?

The question with this house is not whether it is a good value or not.  It is whether you like the style and funkiness of the house.  A client who I showed it to said it was actually too big.  Of course my son disagreed.  He said there were whole areas of the house that the kids could rule and grown ups would never have to come!

There is another good pre-foreclosure buy in Atlanta National (on the non-golf course side) at $699,000 with a full finished basement and level back yard.  Also, in Wood Valley, there is also a foreclosure listed at a crazy $599,900 on a great golf course view lot.  The house needs a good face lift though, and I’d think you could buy it at a significant discount.  By the way, here is a shameless self promotion:  I have a house on the second fairway listed for only $529,000 that is move-in ready and a great value, too.

I want to write more about these foreclosures, but time is short today.  Please feel free to call me to discuss on the phone if you want more details about these or any other foreclosures in the Alpharetta area.

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.

There is a "Blue Light Special" being run until Saturday off of Francis Road in Milton.  The house pictured here is being auctioned by a bank after having been on the market for over a year.  The house is priced at $599,900 and you very well may be able to buy it for a lot less.

When this house was originally listed, the bank had it on the market for $699,900.  In the past, this house has sold for $977,000, although I sniff some mortgage fraud somewhere along the way.

That is all bygones now and the bank’s loss could be your gain.  This house is BIG.  It is in a small gated community of eight homes.  It is on a acre lot and it has a fenced back yard that backs up to The Trophy Club golf course.  It has a three-car garage and the basement is finished.  The house is really in pretty darn good condition for having set vacant for over a year.

I think this house is a steal at $600k, let alone what it might go for at auction.  I’ve had this house on my radar for a year and shown it to a number of clients, only to have them ultimately find something they like better.  But I still feel this house is a keeper and I’d buy it myself if I had the inclination to move.

However, time is running out on the house.  The bank, American Home Mortgage, is apparently at the end of their rope and the action is this Saturday in Atlanta.  Call me if you want more details.

Speaking of banks as owners of Alpharetta foreclosures, another good / big house that was bank owned finally sold in Fieldstone Farms off Freemanville Road. 

The house needed more work than the above house off Francis Road, but it is all brick with a giant unfinished basement.  The funny story about that house is that originally it was listed for $599,900.  I showed it a number of times during the summer and had a client actually make a verbal offer to the bank for $500 or $515k, I can’t remember which. 

My client told the bank that they could stop the repairs that they were making and he would finish it because the owner of the house had beat it up pretty badly when he moved out, including ripping the sink off the wall so that the water ran all over the house.

The bank told us "No Deal" and proceeded to market it throughout the summer and fall.  They eventually got a contract for around $550k, which fell through because the buyer became irritated with how the bank was behaving so he let the contract expire.  The bank later dropped the price to $539,000, got an offer of $470,000 and sold it for $479,000 in December.

They could have sold it to my client for $20,000 more, six months sooner without having to do half the repairs.

The banks better wizen up or they are going to make what is already a bad balance sheet look even worse.  And whether you are able to actually negotiate a sale on one of these foreclosure properties seems to depend more on which way the wind is blowing and careful financial analysis.

There are more foreclosures where those came from; contact me if you’d like more details.