« Alpharetta City Officials Pay Up | Main | Park Creek Homes and Alpharetta Market Statistics »
Atlanta Poised For A Return to a Seller’s Market?
By Ryan Ward | October 30, 2007
Yesterday I read an article on Yahoo about the 10 cities poised to have real estate markets bounce back. I am happy to say that Atlanta is on that list and I am in complete agreement with the article about our local real estate market. However, some of the information about the market was inaccurate. Cited statistics, well, I’m not sure where they got them from, were different from a report I just read so I want to take a moment to set the record straight as to what some of these inaccuracies were and get out some more accurate statistics.
The article cited that the projected median sales price for a home in Atlanta for Q1, 2008 would be $177,750. Let’s hope they are incorrect about that because I just did a quick check from some statistics put together by the First Multiple Listing Service here in Atlanta and they indicate that the median home price year-to-date in Atlanta is $195,000. That number is actually up from 2006! So, if we are looking at $177,750 for quarter one of 2008, we are in for a very large downturn in the market. Certainly the information stated in Yahoo’s report was wrong.
I do agree about the arbitrage of properties in the higher end segment of the market. In fact, the high end segment has not seen a slowdown from last year which is why the median home price has continued to increase in Atlanta. Here is a quote from a market report available to every agent affiliated with the FMLS:
The median price for year-to-date 2007 is $195,000, compared to 2006’s median price of $192,500 or an increase of 1.3%. The reason the increase for “average†is higher than the increase for “median†is that the high-end market has not declined like the rest of the market. The following chart is for 1MM+ closings for the past three years through September. One of the bright spots for housing in 2007 is that the high-end is ahead of last year.
I didn’t add the chart here because I didn’t want to make the post any longer than was necessary. So we have corrected a couple of the issues and I have one additional statistic of note:
According to the same statistical report I cited from the First Multiple Listing Service, the average price of homes in Atlanta is up year-to-date from 2006 2.9%.. Additionally, some markets in Atlanta have seen even better results.
For example, the City of Sandy Springs continues to outperform Metro Atlanta as a whole. There are definitely some signs that we are going to be working our way out of the slowdown and that could mean something very important for you if you are a buyer: Now may be the “bottom of the market” for sellers and that makes it the “top of the market” for buyers.
Atlanta homes for sale were fortunate not to see the over-extension of pricing in the run-up and we will certainly benefit from that as the market shifts back to what historically is considered to be more balanced.
Topics: Categories |