From their site: “The Harbour Bar & Fish House is a casual seafood restaurant designed to give our customers a local place where they can come together to enjoy themselves with family, friends, and co-workers. Harbour Bar & Fish House feels like a Coastal Restaurant that you may have experienced while on vacation in Hilton Head, Charleston, Cape Cod or Newport RI. We want you to feel as if you are on a vacation in your own backyard.

The interior decor is comfortable and relaxing, accented with natural woods and nautical tones of gray and blue. The exterior has outdoor deck/patio seating, two bocce courts and an outdoor bar.

There is a large area in the backyard that can be used for private events when the weather permits.” Some of my fellow Keller Williams Realty metro Atlanta agents hung out yesterday in the outdoor area near the bocce ball arena, and we had a blast.

Check it out!

Curbed.com’s regional real estate reporting is superb. Their site is interesting and they are really on point with the style of their site.

Recently, they reported on a grim forecast that surfaced for Atlanta’s metro economy, bringing up the bad and the ugly that “planners” statewide need to consider.

The article cites ““Atlanta’s persistent unemployment, traffic congestion, a 29% loss in average per-square-foot housing prices between 2000-2010, and the fact that the city is increasingly offering a lifestyle opposite of that desired by the most desirable workers and companies. The opportunities he sees are also legion, though, and many of them simply involve re-embracing our transit roots: i.e. investments in commuter rail, continuing to capitalize on the power of our airport, making The BeltLine everything it can be and getting T-SPLOST passed.”

The AJC reported on the same Brookings Institution report that brought up these findings, stating the following about some of the vibrancy in Intown Hot’lanta:

“ One piece of evidence of the pent-up demand for walkable urban space: The only ZIP codes to actually gain housing value in the past decade were Virginia-Highland, Grant Park and East Lake. All of these were considered slums 30 years ago. Today they are among the highest price per square foot for housing in the region.”

When I decided to move Intown in 1998, I never looked back – isn’t it great to hear those stats about VAHI, GP and East Lake???

I was at an Atlanta Falcons tailgate party about three years ago, down in “The Gulch.” “The Gulch” is going to be the subject of another blog post soon, but in the meantime – if you don’t know about “The Gulch” and want to know exactly what it is – click here.

I looked up, and saw that on the very top of an old, decrepit building that sits at the edge of the US federal government buildings was a massive graffiti name tag  – actually two tags – quite an accomplishment, and because of the limited and probably dangerous access, quite an effort just to get the names up there.

Those nicknames, HENSE and BORN have been tags that I have seen for years around town. I have immense respect for the staying power of GREAT graffiti artists.

I have immense disrespect for those who vandalize, and I tried to run off untalented taggers when I was living in Inman Park – so to me, the HENSE and BORN tags on top of the dilapidated building are artistic, cool and worthy of respect – they are an improvement to the building.

So, when the Rocky Ford Road and Arizona Avenue underpasses were recently improved with beautiful new artwork that covers the depth and breadth of the walls, I was quite happy – these displays are not likely to be painted over with stupid, unskilled tags, cursewords and generally weak, eyesore sprays from amateurs.

I found this photo of the lovely artwork at the Arizona Avenue MARTA bridge on HENSE’s website – great artists can turn an eyesore into a street level, free gallery. I write this post to say thanks to HENSE for doing cool work and to anyone else involved in enabling these improvements. Read more about HENSE and this particular piece, here.

He calls it Float – “The public works are roughly 18×100 feet and painted with exterior latex enamel and aerosol on concrete. The pieces were funded with a grant awarded by the City of Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs. These murals are now an asset of the City of Atlanta and will be included in the permanent collection of public art.”

Lets see more of this! The Beltline is leading the way…stay tuned, and maybe, just maybe, the punkass, untalented taggers will remain on the sidelines and away from our beautiful Intown neighborhoods…

It means “to have a common center.”

I just learned that in the world of fiber optics, the definition of concentricity is about being “well-centered.”

At any given real estate brokerage office with more than a few agents on staff, even the most free-wheeling and independent agents are part of the culture – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

At my “market center” in Decatur, Georgia – we live up to the title of market center. We sit in the center of our core submarkets and we dominate the numbers in FMLS Area 52 – the “Greater Decatur” submarket. We also have significant market share in the nearby areas both inside and outside the perimeter. How do we do it? Well, pretty much just like other successful, mature Keller Williams market centers do it.

1. provide the The Best Technology tools to our agents

As technology continues to transform the ways in which buyers search for homes and real estate professionals communicate with their clients, Keller Williams Realty’s, agent driven technology development group is on the forefront of advances that continue to sharpen our agents’ competitive edge.

Read about our latest technology initiative, the eEdge, which is making news in the real estate industry!

2. offer The Best Training and Coaching in the area

A commitment to training and coaching at every level is at the heart of what sets Keller Williams Realty apart. Keller Williams University provides an industry-leading curriculum addressing every aspect of success in real estate. Multimedia training is offered online, via KWConnect, the real estate industry’s most innovative distance learning program. Among the industry’s top tier coaching programs, MAPS Coaching, led by Dianna Kokoszka, is having a profound impact on the careers of thousands of real estate professionals.

3. offer The Best Wealth-Building Opportunities

In keeping with the philosophy that agents are partners and stakeholders in the success of the business, Keller Williams Realty has created a distinct profit sharing program in which approximately 50 percent of every market center’s profits every month are returned to those who have contributed to a market center’s growth by attracting productive associates to the office. To date, 14 Keller Williams associates have earned more than $1 million in profit share and fully 23,769 associates are participating in the profit share program.

Read the recently published White Paper on profit share.

Find out how profit share is changing lives.

4. instill A Culture of Caring

Become part of something bigger…

Keller Williams Realty is a company that changes lives. The culture is as diverse as the countless ways in which associates and market centers commit themselves to finding and serving the higher purpose of business, and is united by cohesive understanding of our Mission, Vision, Values, Beliefs and Perspectives.

During the first, annual nationwide RED Day, which is now a companywide tradition, 22,000 associates participated in a coordinated effort to give back with their local communities.

At the heart of Keller Williams culture in action is KW Cares, a public charity created to reach out and support each other during times of extreme and unexpected hardship

Now,  take all four of those components of success, and find it in action at Keller Williams Metro Atlanta – my market center in downtown Decatur, GA.

1. technology is driving the success of our agents – we have 100% adoption of an online “paperless” real estate processing platform, we train and certify our agents on many MLS tools, research tools, and business operational tools that are in play today – we make things happen for our clients with savvy use of the latest and greatest technologies

2. the best local training and coaching comes from our association with Rick Hale – one of the top real estate agents in Georgia, and the owner/operator of 4 market centers that comprise the Heart of Atlanta Group. Our group is one of the top places to work in Atlanta according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Name another real estate office that can claim that!?

I can name another one – can you? No surprise – it’s another Keller Williams Group…

3. the best wealth building opportunities – in the past year, we’ve had Kay Evans, Bob Kilinski, Jennifer Barnes, Shaun Rawls (twice) and one of KW’s leaders in individual agent profit sharing Aaron Kaufman, plus attornies, accountants, and financial planners, all come to our market center and work with our agents on wealth building. There is not another real estate office in Georgia who can claim that who’s who list.

4. a culture of caring in Decatur, GA – In 2012, we will have a big Decatur Red Day in May! We will host our fourth annual charity event The Taste of the Town in August. We have fun things and heartwarming things and socially bonding things happening on our calendar every month.

One guy, our Team Leader for 13 months, Sean Damman stands as a shining example of the culture in our market center. We are proud to have him as our day to day, face to face, or better yet – IN YOUR FACE, leader – he’s a real estate agent first, with a decade long track record of success. When he left Re/max a few years back, he took full advantage of the technology, the coaching, and the wealth building opportunities at KW Metro Atlanta and shifted his entire team’s business so that he does not have to operate it on a day to day basis. He leads our team of nearly 100 agents. Sean, like Rick Hale, like Gary Keller, sets a terrific example.

And Sean cares. He proves that daily.

What’s really cool is that we are celebrating our TENTH ANNIVERSARY as a market center later this year – we see ten plus more years ahead of continued success, and we welcome anyone to call, stop by or inquire online about what we are up to.

I know that this has been a long blog post, but I hope that it helps some of you who might be looking for some CONCENTRICITY!

We got it in Decatur…

The folks at Local Market Monitor, a Cary, N.C.-based real estate research firm, helped Forbes compile a list of the top ten markets poised for a rebound. “They sorted through a plethora of housing and economic data for the 100 most populous cities and their surrounding suburbs, defined as Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and Metropolitan Divisions (MSADs) by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. LMM assessed home prices over the past 12 months, unemployment rates, 12-month job growth projections, population increases from 2006 through 2009 (the most recent data available from the U.S.Census) and new-home construction rates for the third quarter of 2011 as compared to the same quarter in 2010. Home price changes over the past three years were also taken into account, as markets that lost less value in the downturn have the potential to recover and appreciate that much faster.”

Atlanta is not one of those top ten markets. “Markets that will experience further price drops this year include Atlanta, Ga. (14.4% anticipated loss), Los Angeles, Calif. (10.3% anticipated loss), Seattle, Wash. (7.5% anticipated loss), Oxnard, Calif. (6.7% anticipated loss), and  foreclosure capital Las Vegas, Nev. (6.4% anticipated loss).”

Housingpredictor.com calls for a 6.7% drop in Atlanta – they’ve been about right for the 4 years that I’ve been reading their forecasts…

So, all real estate is local. Using the word “ATLANTA” does not accurately depict specific real estate submarkets. As an example, Decatur prices are up year over year and are trending upward. Inventory is down and a seller’s market exists in some cases. Some Buckhead neighborhoods are up and trending upward. Some Eastside neighborhoods are in flux and trending downward until the public schools get reoriented and reset for an honorable future.

So, stay tuned and know the facts and the data that drive your street’s value – your property’s value. The macroeconomists are not wrong about 2012 in “Atlanta,” so filter these forecasts with a hyperlocal lens, and please call me if I can help you with the valuation of a property, OK?

The Fairfield site is loaded with information – here’s the links page if you want to do some further reading.

First, the biggest news of the week – The Mortgage Insurance Tax Break is Gone.

On Dec 31st, Congress let 58 tax code benefits expire, including credits for home energy improvements, credits for builders of energy-efficient new houses, and home buyer tax deductions for mortgage insurance.  The mortgage insurance deduction has been a key mortgage financing benefit in place since 2007 which benefitted home buyers with income of $110k per year or less.  Combined with the new fees they are imposing on Conventional loans this Spring, Congress continues to increase the costs of homeownership rather than reduce them!  It should be noted that Congress still has the power to reauthorize all or some of the write-offs retroactively this year, but the current political atmosphere raises doubts about that happening.  Its time to let our elected representatives know how we feel!

FHA Extends Anti-Flipping Waiver Through End of 2012
To cut down on fraud, FHA has had an anti-flipping regulation in place for years preventing a seller from selling a home owned less than 90 days.  In an effort to accelerate the resale of foreclosed properties, FHA waived this rule in Feb of 2010 and then extended the waiver through the end of 2011.  FHA recently announced that they are extending the waiver through the end of 2012. This announcement has been well publicized but its important to understand that this is simply an extension of FHA’s policy for most of the last two years.  So, although this is good news, it is not necessarily new news.  It is also important to understand that most every FHA investor has "overlays" on top of the stated FHA guidelines that make the FHA guidelines more restrictive.  The most liberal overlays allow for the anti-flipping waiver BUT with the strict limitation that the resale price not be more than 20% greater than the acquisition price, even if there were renovations.  An exception would need to be granted for a resale value of more than 20%.  The bottom line is always be careful when your FHA buyers are buying homes that the seller has recently acquired.  Check to see when the seller acquired the property and make the Loan Officer aware of the acquisition date if it was within the last six months. 

What Every Lender Wants the Realtor to Know When Writing a Contract:
The “Financing Contingency Exhibit” is a wonderful addendum to the Purchase & Sale Agreement and something that the realtor should make a standard part of every financed transaction.  Here are a few tips when completing this form:

Always show the interest rate a good .25% to .5% more than the prevailing rate in case rates rise between the binding contract date and the rate lock-in date.

If you are not sure how much the buyer will put down, shoot high on the loan-to-value showing the highest % you anticipate the buyer will finance.

Selling Agents, always maximize the number of days that your buyer has to satisfy the Financing & Appraisal Contingencies.  Anything less than 20 days will not leave enough time for the lender to get the home appraised and the loan approved.  Be firm that at least 20 days are needed!

Listing Agents, always write the name of your most trusted Loan Officer in the space underneath Section 2.  What an opportunity to require the buyer making an offer on your listing to pre-qualify with your favorite Loan Officer. 

Rate Update

The news from Europe has been mostly negative over the last week.  Economic growth in Germany has been slower than expected.  Negotiations on restructuring Greek debt also have not progressed as planned.  S&P is downgrading the debt of several European countries, including France.  Lastly, the European Central Bank (ECB) has given no indication that it will provide relief to the troubled countries.  As a result of all of this turmoil, investors shifted funds to relatively safer investments, including US mortgage-backed securities (MBS), which has helped mortgage rates move lower. However, we already know that Congress is imposing new fees on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac later this spring that are going to cause mortgage rates to bump up as much as .25% over the weeks ahead.  Anyone in the market to lock a mortgage rate should do it as soon as possible.

Looking Ahead
The most significant economic data due out this week are the monthly inflation reports.  The Producer Price Index (PPI) focuses on the increase in prices of "intermediate" goods used by companies to produce finished products and will come out on Wednesday.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most closely watched monthly inflation report, will come out on Thursday.  CPI looks at the price change for those finished goods which are sold to consumers.  In addition, Industrial Production, an important indicator of economic growth, will come out on Wednesday.  Housing Starts will be released on Thursday, and Existing Home Sales will come out on Friday.  Philly Fed and Empire State round out a very busy week.

Please call me or call Jeff if we can answer any of your specific questions…

Why? Well, because most of these properties are not worth buying…

But, this one is…

for the right price.

This one belongs to one of my clients, who needs to short sell this house in Oakland City – I listed it for $9000 in September – it remains unsold.

We are relisting the property soon, and I am thinking that $4000 is the right price. His mortgage lender may differ with me, but I let them set the $9000 price back in September. No offers followed!

Some of you may be thinking – huh? what? Is he really talking about this like it matters? Well, my client matters – he needs this short sale!

So, check out these FMLS statistics – 8854 houses sold for under $50,000 in Georgia last year, 1422 in Atlanta, 147 in 30314, 265 in 30310, and 205 in 30315.

363 houses sold for under $10,000 in Georgia last year, 266 in Atlanta, 39 in 30314, 73 in 30310 and 47 in 30315.                   

Only 4 houses sold for under $10,000 in Decatur’s 30032 – the most downtrodden Decatur (unincorporated Dekalb) zip code. 285 houses sold for under $50,000 in that zip.

Now, looking back just one year, there were 6279 residential properties sold in 2010 in Georgia for less than $50,000. That means that there were 2575 more sales last year for under $50,000 than there were during the year before.

There is a seller’s market in this price range, for the most part, so why did the $9000 house not sell quickly?

Because it is overpriced by 50%. Because, for $9000, on the edge of Oakland Park, this house is overpriced. Simple, right?

To relate this phenomenon back to any other price segment of the market, I simply suggest that the street matters most, and that chasing the market is never good, especially when  about 7-8 other houses per month are selling in the same zip code in the same price range.

Check this out and see how well this carries. On any given listing at higher price points I can probably find the same basic statistic – 7 or 8 other houses will sell nearby that month, while the overpriced listing languishes.

This will be my last article about houses in this price range for a while, but I’ll continue to make these same points about value. Because, most real estate listings are still initially overpriced and either chasing the market, or failing to sell. Lets use the bottom of the bottom of the real estate market to remind us that pricing matters most!

We are already seeing that in places like Decatur, and other high performing real estate submarkets in Buckhead, and in some of the suburbs.

Anecdotal evidence shows me that activity in the lower price ranges, particularly under $100,000, is strengthening while activity in the higher priced submarkets continues to show signs of stability.

The recovery is underway but it will be some time before we see prices firming across all segments of metropolitan Atlanta.

We will continue to see depressions in places like Lakewood, Vine City and even in some of the Atlanta neighborhoods  that are going through school struggles.

Here’s my video with the claim – stay tuned in 2012!

And 2012 is going to bring a big surprise to some real estate players, but to real estate business folks like me, we won’t be surprised.

My company President, Mark Willis, claims that Keller Williams Realty is poised to be the #1 real estate company in the world next year.

On 12/31/2010, I did not even speculate that one of the world’s largest Re/max franchisees, Re/max Greater Atlanta, would evaporate and scatter its agents far and wide by Spring 2011. A sad, broken business model. Ran out of money.

I also did not consider that one of Atlanta’s most formidable boutique brokerages, Sanctuary, was struggling too.

I got my real estate salesperson’s license in Georgia in 1999.

Back in 1999, when I became a Charter member of Keller Williams Realty First Atlanta, I became a “blueprint buyer,” for Keller Williams Realty in Georgia. “Keller who?” was a constant  statement. We were unproven, yet quite bodacious with the red signage, the talent pool and the belief that we had a better model – a better model that focused on the agent, and not the brokerage, as the key driver to a team’s success.

Today, worldwide growth places Keller Williams Realty International on it’s way to being the #1 real estate brokerage in the world. We’ve been rising place by place in the top 5 for about 5 years in a row.

Locally, the net results of 2011 in the Atlanta real estate market have transformed lives, businesses, careers and mindsets.

For those of us who have been a part of Keller Williams Realty for a while, we just keep shifting, and growing.

And, when I say that A is for Atlanta, D is for Decatur, I am offering an Eastside shout out to one of KW’s newest agents, and certainly Atlanta’s best real estate blogger, Jon Effron.

He just wrote a swell article that shouts out my walkable hometown of Decatur as the best submarket in metro Atlanta…nice call.

Jon’s A is for Atlanta blog is entertaining, informative and loaded with value.

Jon is also one of the best real estate agents in Intown Atlanta, and at the end of 2011, he and some of his fellow Sanctuary agents joined Keller Williams Realty’s Heart of Atlanta group.

We are glad to have them, and I am glad to know that I can use their cute little office space in Inman Park when I need it…

I believe that 2012 will bring some counterbalance to the past 5 years of real estate market upheaval. Intown, we have seen far less distress than the suburbs, and as an Intown specialist, I am very encouraged by the outlook for 2012.

Some of the most talented agents in metro Atlanta have joined me at Keller Williams Realty over the past 12 years. Many are hustling everyday and they are building careers worth having, businesses worth owning, and lives worth living.

As Zig Ziglar says, see you at the top!

She wrote me today and told me that when she googled “Atlanta real estate” the Intown Insider showed up on the first page. Cool!

This may not always be the case, but today, it is. Check it out here at this link to the google page for the search terms “Atlanta real estate,” and you’ll see about 262,000,000 results.

My article entitled The recent quarter in metro Atlanta real estate, dated July 2011, appears among the first 13 results today.

Again, cool.

Trulia, my favorite real estate monster site, published this piece today about “How to safeguard your online reputation.”

Trulia’s best advice to me today is: “Proactively use this to your advantage and create online content that demonstrates your knowledge and expertise.”

So, what being on the first page of google means to me today is that I just had a significant life lesson reinforced.

That lesson is that proactivity rules. Proactivity is the #1 habit of highly effective people.

Lets see if I can keep this up!

To tell you the truth, I have not ever spent a single dime on SEO for this website and I get a call every week from some numbskull in another part of the USA that wants to put me on the first page of google for “Atlanta real estate” with their magical web enhancements for $500-2000 per month.

I think I’ll just keep blogging…Thank you world wide web.

The long tail is right here, and if you have a property to list for sale or lease in Intown Atlanta or Decatur, then call me and lets talk about online marketing results that will get your house sold for top dollar in the fastest amount of time possible…my 3 year average is 28 days. My listings sell at an average of 96.3% of list price.

And today, I’m #1 on google.