Atlanta Real Estate Blog 
Foreclosure Activity Increases 6% in February Nationally, Let's Look Locally Too
Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 7:51am. 29 Views, 0 Comments.
According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure activity is up 6% in February of 2010 compared with the same time period in 2009. This represents the smallest increase in activity in 4 years. To me, that doesn't mean we are seeing improvement and there isn't anything to indicate that we are heading towards consistent year of year decreases in foreclosures so in my opinion, this is still more bad news for home values.
Locally, foreclosure sales in February of 2010 were 1245 compared with 1430 sales for the same time period in 2009. Interestingly, non-foreclosure sales in 2010 totaled 1598 meaning that foreclosure sales made for about 44% of sales in 2010 while in 2009 non-foreclosure sales were 1512 or 48.6% of sales. In 2008, non-foreclosure sales totaled 2182 with an…
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Georgia Ranked 10th for Foreclosure Filings in January
Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 11:13am. 177 Views, 9 Comments.
From the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
"The Peach State had 11,274 foreclosure filings -- default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions -- last month. This was down 13.1 percent from December 2009, but was 13.8 percent higher than January 2009. The state ranked 10th for foreclosures".
The report also says that 1 out of every 357 houses in Georgia got a foreclosure notice in January. This is in line with national numbers that have a decrease from December, but a year over year increase. Nationally, 1 in 409 homes received a foreclosure notice so we are performing worse than the total market. More from ABC:
“January foreclosure numbers are exhibiting a pattern very similar to a year ago -- a double-digit percentage jump in December…
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Who Pays for Poorly Underwritten Loans?
Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 5:53am. 124 Views, 3 Comments.
Bank of America has filed suit against MGIC, one of the nations largest mortgage insurance companies. MGIC has rescinded many of its obligations to pay saying that they aren't contractually obligated to pay for loans that weren't properly underwritten. According to a Bizjournal story, MGIC cut 1.2 billion dollars in payments and Bank of America has filed a lawsuit as well as discontinued using MGIC for its mortgage insurance. Bank of America has also discontinued using MGIC to insure loans.
If you have a loan with less than 20% down, you or your lender has paid for mortgage insurance on your loan. If the loan goes bad, the mortgage insurance company is supposed to pay up. However, with so many bad loans, mortgage insurers are pointing the finger back at the…
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Short Sales and Distressed Properties in Atlanta
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 12:15pm. 165 Views, 2 Comments.
It's with great enjoyment for me to announce that I became a Certified Distressed Property Expert today. Since I began my career in real estate, my #1 goal has always been to help people. Like most real estate professionals today, I thought I could ignore this segment of the market - but recently I realized that this isn't a "segment" of the market, but is instead a segment of our society.
Instead of avoiding these homes and homeowners or casting blame upon them, I believe the best solution is to ensure that they are being represented in the best possible way to protect them from potentially fraudulent predators and to protect home values and neighborhoods by helping to keep these homes out of the foreclosure process and become REO properties.
In the coming…
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Atlanta Real Estate Market - 4th Quarter 2009 - Stats and Graphs
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 8:53am. 215 Views, 4 Comments.
The comprehensive report on the fourth quarter of 2010 is in. I would like to temper what looks like good news by saying that some of this is government induced and therefore not sustainable over the long term unless the government inducement creates enough sales to reduce the inventory levels significantly as there is almost a certainty that the sales volume will taper off at the end of the tax credit. Perhaps the most important graph below is the median sales price graph with a trendline on it. Please take a look at that graph. Prices are up and when you see the broad view it may change your perspective on the market. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the comments section at the bottom and I will post them/answer them for you as…
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Buckhead Condo Market Update - It's Better Than the Overall Condo Market
Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:29am. 113 Views, 1 Comments.
Here is a little summary I just emailed to a client looking to purchase a second home (condo in Buckhead). I thought the stats were interesting enough to post here so below is almost a direct copy of the email I sent. Please visit our Buckhead real estate page if you are interested in viewing homes and condos in Buckhead:
I’m only looking at 2 bedroom condos which represent the largest and most popular segment and I’m only looking at Buckhead. People that want Buckhead typically do not want Midtown or other areas so I want to make sure I don’t get results outside of the relevant market – you could make the case that it is necessary and on some level I agree so I’ve also included the overall market so that we can draw some relevant comparisons. I’ve…
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Atlanta Real Estate Market - Looking Back So We Can Look Ahead - 2007-2009 Sold Prices
Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 12:53pm. 261 Views, 3 Comments.
I've put together the same information two different ways in the charts below. To me, they show some interesting trends. While they don't give a complete picture, they do show how far we have fallen and the three year history begins to be enough to give us a nice perspective.
Inventories dropped every month in 2009 and the market looks to have stabilized somewhat during the second have of 2009 (see the first chart and compare the second half of 2008 to the same time in 2009. Prices did not continue to fall). There were less than 45,000 homes on the market at the end of 2009. At it's worst in August 2007, there were 72,000 homes. The last time the end-of-month inventory for all single family was below…
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Blue Moon in Buckhead
Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 8:17pm. 244 Views, 9 Comments.
I suppose this isn't a real estate blog post, but as I was getting ready to get on to GA 400 the other night and head north from Buckhead, this moon was staring at me. So, I jumped out and took a handful of photos.
A blue moon occurs every 2 or 3 years...
Feel free to share it with anyone just make sure to credit the photo. As you look down into the photo, that's Phipps around the bend on the left...
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Prices in Crabapple are Down, Buy Now
Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 7:44am. 314 Views, 4 Comments.
I can't speak for all of the listings, but I sure can speak about the brand new baby we listed last night (the one to your left). It's in Crabapple Crossroads, it's brand new and it's only $300,000. Yes, that's right. $300,000. View the details here...
4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, 2 masters; one on the main level and one upstairs, granite kitchen. It's Crabapple Crossroads in Milton. It's everything you would expect except it's only $300,000. Here are a few details:
The address is 209 Roseville Place in Crabapple Crossroads located in the Crabapple Overlay District in the City of Milton on the north side of Crabapple Road and to the west of Birmingham Highway. The schools are Crabapple Crossing Elementary, Northwestern Middle and Milton High.
- FMLS #: 4001683
- 4…
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Redfin Comes to Atlanta
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 6:55am. 275 Views, 6 Comments.
...and I don't care! If I was Rhonda Duffy or one of the other discount brokers I would be very concerned as it might take away market share from them. We are full service real estate professionals and don't compete based on fees this way. Instead, we use honest to goodness talent backed up with an incentive based fee structure that motivates our agents to do a better job. Good luck Redfin. You will need it. You will have some serious competition here in Atlanta for the discount market. I'm pulling for the local agents (yes, that's you Rhonda :) ).
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