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 … [Read more...]
Making an example out of $10,000 houses in Georgia
This will probably be my only post this year that addresses value in this particular price range. 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 … [Read more...]
The Intown Insider foresees price increase
Yesterday, while standing on the rooftop of Six Feet Under in Grant Park, I made the bodacious claim that we will see a median price increase for metropolitan Atlanta for residential real estate. 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! … [Read more...]
A is for Atlanta, D is for Decatur and KW is #1
2011 ends with one or two real estate brokerage surprises that I did not see coming 365 days ago. Kind of a turbulent year for some in the real estate brokerage business. 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 … [Read more...]
What does being on the first Google page really mean, Lee?
My friend Sinoun is the designer of the look and feel of this website. She has a really nice web shop called Shiftweb Solutions, and she is an online real estate marketing expert. 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 … [Read more...]
Best performers in Atlanta
In the past two posts, I wrote about distressed properties. Today, I am writing about two of the best performing neighborhoods of Intown Atlanta and Decatur. Last night, my daughter was the best performer in Kirkwood. So, when thinking about real estate values, one of the safer notions to consider about today’s real estate market is that even the best performing neighborhoods of Atlanta are “down about 10% or so…” I looked up 2 neighborhoods that offer tremendous value, two neighborhoods that have pretty consistent demand, just to see if my notion is valid. 1. Morningside - there were 209 sales in 2007, at an average sold price of $578,072, and the number of days on market average was 74 … there have been 143 sales so far in 2011, at an average sold price of $524,815, and the number of days on market average was 81 2. City of Decatur - there were 273 sales in 2007, at an average sold price of $391,342, and the number of days on market average was 64 … … [Read more...]