Guest post by Andrew Hill @ www.NewHomeSource.com

At a time when cutting back has become the norm, it’s no surprise that many in the process of buying a new home might be asking themselves, “Why do I need a realtor?” This seems a natural question for those interested in buying a new home, while wanting to save all they can. After all, you can talk with the home builder or his agent and quickly be the owner of a brand new home- and you can do it all without ever having to sit down with those money-grubbing realtors. But what you may not realize is that the money you are saving by skipping out on the realtor isn’t really being saved at all. In fact, those who don’t use a realtor are costing themselves more in the long-run. Come…

We are excited to bring Providence back on the market after a break for the holidays! As you can see from the pictures below, there is nothing quite like this anywhere in North Fulton, or really, anywhere in Metro Atlanta quite like this.

Providence is a very sophisticated, classic American home custom designed by Stephen Fuller. The setting - your choice of either 30 or 60 acres (both with lake frontage), is private and peaceful and the home itself is a magnificent achievement of understated elegance and symmetry inspired by Thomas Jefferson's Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon estates.

If you are interested in viewing this home, please contact me directly and I will arrange a private showing. You can find more photos and a video…

Luxury homes in Atlanta are available in all of the most sought after areas, but the highest concentration of luxury homes (homes for sale over $1,000,000) are found in Buckhead, Sandy Springs and the areas north of the Chattahoochee River on the east or west side of GA 400. It stands to reason that the closer you get to the city, the higher the concentration of luxury homes will be, but Buckhead and other intown areas do not hold exclusive rights to all of the finest homes available and there are many reasons you might want to look to Sandy Springs, Alpharetta or MIlton (to name a few) if you are in the market for a luxury home. Other areas of note might be Sugarloaf in Gwinnett or Virginia Highland, Ansley Park and Decatur, but those areas are small and…

Last Tuesday the bar was raised on the north side of town for land values with a sale that took place on Clarity Rd just across the border from Milton in Cherokee County. The $2,600,000 sale was a nice home, but it was the amount of land that sold with the home is what gets me excited. I've been in the home - I showed it to a buyer and the home with it's 33 acres represents the best sale this year to set a new floor for pricing in this market. based on the the size and quality of the home, the land would have had to be valued at or above $50,000/acre. Given its location in Cherokee County, this should set the prices higher for North Fulton for hopeful sellers.

Property Details

• 6,100+ square feet according to the tax records
• Small Stable
• 2…

This is something that we (and I think many other agents) struggle with in the market today. We meet with a client and go over what we believe should be the list price of a home and it's seldom a pleasant conversation. Typically, sellers know it's worth less than it was a few years ago, but getting the price right today really is more important than it used to be.

A home gets it's most activity from potential buyers in the early part of a listing period - the first 2 weeks. If it isn't priced for the market, it won't get an offer. Still, seller's feel they need to leave room to negotiate because they feel they need to squeeze every penny they can out of their sale. It's a fair enough idea, but it isn't grounded in what the data says they should…

This is a 3 minute video introduction on what a short sale is and who might be a good candidate for one. The transcript of the video is below.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Ryan Ward with Premier Atlanta Real Estate and Keller Williams. Thank you for your time with me today to learn about short sales. For too many reasons to go into today, the term short sale has become one of the most talked about types of transactions in the real estate market. So first, let’s make sure we get our definitions correct. A short sale happens when a lender agrees to accept a contract on a home when the sales price is less than the amount needed to pay off that mortgage. The bank is allowing the owner to sell the property “short” of the full payoff. So that’s…

This is a great listing in Roswell located just a few minutes from the historic district.

Details: 5 beds, 5.5 baths, $725,000

I know what I think - I'll never be a TV star, but I think it came out pretty good!

I know video can be used between friends and coworkers in a sharing kind of way. You know, sort of - did you see that crazy kid play the piano on youtube??? - kind of way. But can we use video in real estate to connect with people with whom we do not yet know? What about using videos - I mean real videos, not those ridiculous panning slideshows with hokey voiceover narrations to market listings?

It seems to me that we can - or, at least we should be able to use video as part of a larger plan to connect with and meet new potential clients and I also think that high quality videos can be used to market listings, but probably not all listings. Videos may be time and cost prohibitive unless you are going to forego photos or have the budget for both on a…