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…

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…

January is the worst month for home prices in Atlanta and 2011 is no different - although not as bad as I thought. We now have all of the January data compiled and we do have a new bottom for home values in Metro Atlanta that takes us back to levels not seen since 1998.

But...

Closed sales were up and pending sales are up compared with 2010...

...and it's not as bad as it could be - or could have been for that matter especially with the weather we had early on in the month. Single family home (detached) prices are down 3.1% from 2010, but not lower than they were in January of 2009 and attached homes were down 18.4% from 2010. So I think it is more accurate to say that we have a mixed bottom. Technically, the new bottom of the market is January 2011,…

The 3rd quarter is over and it was not great - but not really worse than most analysts expected. During the second quarter (and before the statistics were complete), many of us thought that we would see year over year increases in sales volume, but those numbers were more heavily influenced by the tax credit than was factored in to many of the early interpretations. It now looks like we will end up a couple percent down in sales volume and 5-6% down in sales price. ANother significant statistics for real estate here localy is that for the first time, RE/MAX is no longer the number one real estate company in Atlanta. Keller Williams surpassed RE/MAX in the number of closed sides of real estate transactions. Congrats to all of us at KW in Metro…

ChartMasters creates a phenomenal quarterly market report that myself and our broker present to our office. A number of Keller Williams offices across Metro Atlanta are provided the same report - I presented it last Tuesday to our office. The presentation lasts for a couple of hours and gives all of us a pretty good leg up on other agents by providing us with a strong foundational base of the current real estate market.

If you have any questions, please either email me at ryan (@) premieratlantarealestate.com, call me at 404.630.3187 or post a comment and I will get back with you.

As with all YouTube video - make sure you switch it to 720p for the highest quality video...

Below is a question I received from a client I am working with so what I am writing is actually about answering the questions as best I can for my client, but it illustrates - at least to me - what one of the most significant differences is in today's market compared with the market of just a couple of years ago; regardless of price point, there is some reluctance to purchase now, whereas just a few years ago, there was almost a reluctance to wait for fear of losing the home to someone else who might also be interested in it. Here is the question from my client:

"I need an understanding of what price points are are likely to appreciate the most over the next 20 years.  Much of the appreciation before the crash was due to a declining interest rate…

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…

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…

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…