Alpharetta Real Estate Homes for Sale

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

I’ve received a lot of questions and interest in these pictures that I innocently posted months ago, so I thought that I’d repost them this time using Next Generation Gallery and Piclens so that you can view them more easily.  If you don’t have piclens, GET IT!

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Stone and Brick elevations on homes are increasingly popular in Alpharetta and the surrounding areas. While I like a lot of the stone and brick combinations, I also think that it is the cedar timbers that make the whole thing come together. 

Of corse, it is also possible to make some terrible mistakes when combining brick with stone…it can be like wearing stripes and plaids together, and it is not like you can just change the paint color if you don’t like the look.  I should start taking pictures of the bad combinations, too!  Ah, another project…

I took these pictures at The River Club, which is technically not in Alpharetta, but just over the Chattahoochee River in Gwinnett County.  None the less, they are representative of this style of home being built today in Atlanta and the northern suburbs.

PS:  These houses are all a million dollar and up.  However, you can find brick and stone homes for a lot less if you like the style but don’t like the price ;->  Just call me and I can tell you where to look depending on your price preference.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00391F

I’ve said here before that I really don’t care for virtual tours.  It is so tedious to watch still photographs zoom in and out to muzak.

In an effort to find something better, I was recently introduced to PicLens.  Now THIS is the way to display photos of homes for sale.

I’ve been working on a demo; CLICK HERE to see it and I’d really appreciate your feedback.  Be sure to click on the "Start Awesome 3D Slide Show" link.  You might want to download the plug in from the PicLens website, but it should work just fine if your browser already has a Flash plug-in. 

Is this a better way to view photos?  I think so, but it is all about you, the user, so please let me know.

These pictures are of a house in The Shoals at Arbor Hill.  The house is one of those that is on the "sleeper market."  The owner would like to sell it but it is not on the active market.  Therefore, I just take the opportunity to introduce it to my clients who are interested in The Shoals, a great Chatham-built neighborhood in East Cherokee with multi-acre lots and horses allowed, and million dollar homes.

In my opinion, this particular home is a better value than others currently on the market; it has a better lot and it has a new $22,000 well for both water use inside and irrigation outside.  But, of course, you wouldn’t know that unless you called me ;->

By the way, I also have one of the few remaining lots for sale in The Shoals.  It is probably in the top three if not the best lot in the neighborhood.  It is 3.5 acres with a small lake on the back.  There is a gentle slope that would allow for a great terrace level and the lot is almost all hardwoods.  $289,000, but make an offer if you are interested.

Back to Piclens.  If you like this, please let me know.  If you are interested in how I can do this for the marketing of your home, please give me a call.  A listing agent’s job is to inform the market about your home for sale and that includes pictures, the more the better.  I think this is a better way to inform the buyer!

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/00390A

ALPHARETTA - Would you be willing to allow a prospective buyer - or the buyer’s entire family - to spend the night or even the weekend in your house. 

This would give the term "open house" a whole new meaning, wouldn’t it?  An article in last Sunday’s Parade Magazine called it a "test drive sleepover."

Sure there are logistical problems with everything, but assuming you could work out the details, would you be in favor of this if you were a seller?  What if you were a buyer?

In a "Buyer Beware" state like Georgia, why shouldn’t the buyer have the chance to actually live in the house for a weekend?  Heck, we allow it with a lease-purchase:  We allow someone to actually live in the house (with a deposit) for up to a year before actually buying it.  Why not let someone spend one weekend … imaging the possibilities.

When on a sleepover, you can actually experience:

• how quiet it is at night and how dark the sky is;
• the way the sun comes in the kitchen window in the morning;
• how good the water pressure is in the shower;
• where the floor squeaks when you get up in the middle of the night (men);
• how functional the kitchen is to cook a meal in;
• how quickly the house warms up in the morning or keeps cool at night;
• what the commute home is like on Friday after work;

I could go on and on with both positive and negative things that could result from allowing a prospect to spend the night.  However, when marketing properties in Alpharetta, particularly million-dollar and above property, I would not rule it out.  I always try to put myself in the shoes of the people I’m dealing with:  If you were thinking about spending A MILLION DOLLARS, wouldn’t you want to have a thorough test drive?

If you were selling a property that was worth more than a million dollars, wouldn’t you want the opportunity to showcase it and allow a buyer to experience why it is such a worthy home?

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

It used to be that Realtors had the bulk of information necessary to be effective when buying or selling real estate.  This information included tax data, recent sales data, even lists of homes available for sale.  Remember the old MLS books Realtors might let you borrow over the weekend to see what was on the market?

Realtors used to keep as much of that information close to the vest because they believed that information was power, or at least a competitive advantage in earning a living, if not an outright anti-competitive tactic to preserve an industry.  The Internet pried all that information loose even as certain MLS’s tried in vein to keep it out of the public eye.

Today, information about real estate is everywhere and easy to get online.  In fact, there is too much real estate information for any carbon-based being to consume.  I can’t consume it all and I doubt you can either.  Granted, I’m a slow reader, but if real estate is my full time job and I can’t wade my way through, how is it even slightly possible for a non-real estate professional to consume it when you have a full time job doing something else?

That leads me to my premise, which is that today, a good realtor’s value is not in providing you with information, but rather in interpreting that data in a meaningful way.  I get calls at least weekly from readers of this blog saying basically, "There is some much information about schools, traffic, new communities, recreation, housing prices, etc., that I don’t even know where to start.  Can you please help me sort it all out."

Absolutely.  THAT is my job:  to sort it all out, make sense of all the data and help guide you in an important buying or selling decision.

Let’s get right to the data.

Would you believe that in this "horrible" real estate market that the average sales price for a home in Alpharetta / Roswell / Milton / Johns Creek is UP 4% over last year at this time?  Amazing isn’t it.

That’s right. The average sales price through October, 2006, in Alpharetta and surrounding cities in North Fulton was $409,000.  This year through October it is over $427,000.

But what about all the sellers in the market who say that there house is not selling?  They do have a beef:  There have been fewer homes to sell in the Alpharetta area year to date than last year.  So far this year, 2,953 homes have sold versus 3,336 last year.  That is an 11% drop.

Fewer sales X a higher average sales price = about the same amount of market volume, right?.  That’s almost right.  To date, $1.37 billion of residential real estate has transacted so far versus $1.62 billion last year.  That is a drop of 8%.

The Alpharetta / Roswell real estate market is over a billion dollars.  Where exactly is the 8% drop showing up?

If we dig a little deeper, the bottom end of the market is the part getting hit the hardest.  Homes sold below $200k are off over 30%; fortunately, that is not that large of a part of the market.  The number of sales between $200 and $500 is off by approximately 10%.  The $300-$500k price range is the heart of the market and why it matches the overall numbers closely.

Above $500k, the market looks a bit different.  Between $500k and $1MM, the number of homes sold is off about 6%.  And get this:  more Million Dollar Homes have sold in 2007 than 2006.  In fact, the absorption rate (the common measure of supply and demand) for million dollar homes has decreased from 45+ in July to   This 13% increase in the high end market has also likely masked some of the market pain at lower price points by making the averages sale price higher than it otherwise would have been.

The interesting thing about the new high end home sales, particularly on the west side of GA-400, is that while, yes, there have been more sales this year than last at the top of the market,  there is also much more inventory in the high end as 2007 ends.  Last year there were 70 $750-$999 homes on the market west of GA-400; this year there are 99, which is 3 months more inventory than last year.  There are 129 homes over one million dollars versus 99 last year.  That is a formula for hungry builders and great deals for buyers at this price point.

So what are the lessons?

Houses are still selling; fewer of them yes, but still at fair prices.  Buyers still complain about the market, but I’d challenge them to really evaluate the condition and value of their home.  Two of my favorites sayings are that "pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered."  Are you a pig or a hog in this market?

One of my other favorite saying is:  "The market is always right."  If you have your house on the market and it is not selling, that only means that there is a better value in the market someplace else regardless what your belief system tells you.

If you are a buyer, consider this:  Atlanta, and Alpharetta in particular for reasons mentioned all over this blog, has huge upside potential for appreciation.  Albert Niemi, former dean at the Terry School of Business at UGA, recently spoke at a Bank of North Georgia function and said:

1. North  Georgia (Greater Atlanta) is going to be one of the great growth engines in the U.S. economy.
2. Atlanta is one of the cheapest places to do business in the country (and also has a relatively low cost of living and good climate - I added that part ;->).
3. Atlanta is one of the four fastest growing cities in the U.S. (with Dallas, Phoenix and Las Vegas).

A blogging real estate colleague of mine in neighboring Cherokee County wrote last year that metro Atlanta is growing at about 100,000 new residents per year.

Atlanta’s and Alpharetta’s real estate market won’t be this "depressed" for long.  You can buy million dollar houses for a fraction of appraised value and you can buy a $600,000 house in Alpharetta for what you’d pay hundreds of thousands more in other cities. 

Regardless of whether you are a buyer or seller, though, remember:  The market doesn’t lie.

http://www.alpharettarealestatehomes.com/0038F0