“The Donald” is Coming | Trump Rumored to be Interested in Echelon
By all accounts, Echelon a.k.a. The Georgia Tech Club, so far has not lived up to expectations. Its rival high-end golf course community, The Manor, has done significantly better in terms of home sales and overall build out.
The Manor is not breaking any sales records, but Echelon has performed so poorly that people are wondering what the future holds - and this uncertainly has absolutely affected buyers’ decisions to not buy in Echelon. I have personal experience on that front.
The developer at Echelon, The Melrose Group, has a track record of under performance as evidenced by Bloody Point in Hilton Head.
Enter Trump, or so the rumor goes. Here is a man who appreciates a smooth seven iron from the middle of the fairway. Trump is also no stranger to golf course development. He has an entire portfolio of beautiful courses under the Trump National brand and courses outside the U.S. as well.
Plus, Trump is already building in Atlanta at the new Trump Towers of Atlanta, in midtown, so he is likely familiar with Alpharetta’s market demographics and the huge upside of investing in this area.
Trump could be the 6 handicapper in the shiny golf cart that rides in and saves the day at Echelon. I’ve always maintained that Echelon is a diamond in the rough. The golf course is outstanding and its advantage over The Manor is that it has acre-sized lots - and fewer of them, precisely because they are larger. Echelon will be a smaller and perhaps more exclusive community once it is built out and we are 20 years down the fairway.
The proposed deal I heard rumored is that Trump would buy out the lender’s position at Echelon and complete the development with The Melrose Company, but again, this is all speculation.
Someone needs to step in, though, whether it is Trump or someone else. A golf course as good as that one is a terrible thing to waste (and by the way, you can currently get a membership there for only $15,000 regardless of whether you went to the North Avenue vocational school ;-> ).
A Trump development in Alpharetta would be just another jewel in a crown of high-end developments (Prospect Park being the other big one) that is really putting Alpharetta on the map nationally.
Let’s tee it up, Donald. And I want strokes from "the Donald" just to say that I got them!
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, May 16th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Golf Communities, Stuff I like to talk about | Comments Off
FHA Loan Opportunities for Alpharetta Home Buyers | 100% Financing is Still Available
I wanted to make a quick post regarding a subject near and dear to many of you, and one that has in the past, sent shivers down your spine. Yes, I am alluding to the infamous FHA loan. With the tightening credit market and many of the true 100% loans gone by the wayside, more and more borrowers are turning to the FHA loan as a way to get into their new home.
But don’t let these deals scare you!
- Most lenders have beefed up their FHA underwriting staff. We can close most FHA loans in 5-10 business days;
- Loan limits in the metro area are as high as $346K;
- The 3% down payment requirement still can come from a gift or a down payment assistance program for the 100% loans;
- Seller contributions on FHA can go as high as 6% of the sales price;
- The Monthly Mortgage insurance cost about 30% less than conventional loans;
- Rates are excellent with yesterday’s 30 year fixed around 5.75% for the 30 year.
FHA loans are great for first time home buyers. We have at least 10 lenders who offer FHA loans. If you have ANY questions regarding FHA procedures or policies, please drop me an email. With the market bottoming out, don’t let financing be a problem in achieving your home ownership goals.
Ted Fithian, Home Town Mortgage
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, May 6th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Buyers, Lending | 1 Comment »
Searching Online for a Home in Alpharetta? What Would You Like Your Search Engine to Do?
I was online last night looking at various home search websites, comparing and contrasting and trying to determine what works best. I stumbled upon the Real Estate Book and while it is not that different than any other online home search engine it has some nice features.
You can search for foreclosures (there is an integration with RealtyTrac) and you can search for "new listings," although it doesn’t tell you how new. What would you like in a search engine that you haven’t been able to find to date?
I’m not exactly sure where The Real Estate Book is getting its listing data. However, it provides a database of over over 400,000 homes for sale in the US, which is an over kill for me but I guess if you want to price things around the country it could be useful. It is showing 654 listings for Alpharetta homes for sale.
I picked a larger city for my area, Atlanta homes for sale, and it allowed me to check other nearby towns by hovering my mouse over the city tags. For example there are 356 homes for sale in Roswell. However, it didn’t allow me to select cities like Johns Creek or Milton from the list. I know these cities are new, but I think what we have is a generic solution built for Anywhere, USA and it fails to understand the local housing landscape and political boundaries. Guess you have to rely on me for that ;-> and perhaps a more local solution.
Unbelievably, there seem to be lots of people who are not using the Internet as the Free Real Estate Book magazine still has a distribution of over 8.5 million copies. This is the same Real Estate Book that all the agents in my office used to advertise in religiously but which I haven’t heard a whisper of in a loooooooong time. It looks like they are switching their strategy to online. Duh.
Please let me know which are your favorite online home search engines. I’m always looking for ways to improve the way people can search for homes and my own website search engine. Remember, one of my latest projects is working with the guys at softrealty.com on their new search engine. It is still in beta but has a lot of promise.
Let me know what you’d like to be able to do, but have a hard time doing currently when searching for a home online. What would be your killer application?
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, May 6th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Buyers, Stuff I like to talk about | 2 Comments »
New Home Sales Outpace Resales in Alpharetta | Retake on Alpharetta Housing Trends
Last week I wrote a post showing market data indicating that house prices continue to rise in Alpharetta; it is just that the volume of sales is down. This is true overall for the market.
However, one of the insightful readers of this blog, took me a little bit to task on differentiating between new home sales and resales. This is one of those cases where you can easier lie with statistics. While I believe that it is valid to look at the market as a whole (both new sales and resales), maybe it just makes a point that realtors want to tell but doesn’t make the whole point.
I try to be a "glass half full" kind of guy and I truly believe that we can - and have to some extent - talked ourselves into today’s recession and slump. When I fell a cold coming on, I tell myself I’m not going to get sick and most of the time I don’t.
Yes, there are some fundamental problems with the economy: credit availability, price of gas, value of the greenback…even climate change.
But there are some fundamental things right with our local Atlanta, and Alpharetta in particular, real estate markets: job creation, quality of schools, cost of living and overall quality of life. (Heck, even our underachieving NBA team not only made the playoffs, but took Boston to seven games.) Just yesterday, I showed homes in Johns Creek to a young couple who was relocating here from Los Angeles. They were so happy with the type of home and the type of neighborhood they could afford to live in here. They said that you just can’t compare.
So while I strive to be realistic in presenting the housing market data here, I also don’t want to lose focus on the big picture which is very positive in Alpharetta even while the immediate housing market is definitely a challenge. Maybe I fudged a little in the last post by looking at the composite market and not the resale and new construction sub-markets individually. Thank your, Mr. Robs, for point this out. Now, let’s take a deeper look at the data for Alpharetta and see how the story changes.
Resale Housing Sales Trends in Alpharetta and North Fulton
Resale only sales for the past five quarters show a about a 3% decline in sales price and a 40% decline in number of transactions. See Chart Below. My opinion based on this is that the ones that are selling are doing a pretty darn good job of holding their own as far as price goes. It’s the ones that are selling that concern me because they are a real drag on the market. For them to sell, they need to reduce their prices, very likely much more than 3%.
New Construction Sales Trends in Alpharetta and North Fulton
Now let’s look at new construction only sales in Alpharetta and North Fulton since January 1, 2007 (the past five quarters). Wow! The data shows a 36% increase in sales price, while it also shows 45% fewer sales. What gives? For one, the luxury market, and both these homes clearly fit that criterion, is doing much better than the rest of the market, but that is material for another blog post.
As you’re probably guessing, there were a few very large sales in Q1 2008. Two to be precise. A $6.3 million dollar new home finally sold in Windward after going under contract in August 2007.
The other large transaction was in Greystone, west of GA-400 off Hopewell Road. Originally listed a $2.8 million dollars, it sold in only 42 days on the market for $3.9 million, presumably after some major upgrades.
| Windward | Greystone |
 |
 |
| $6.3 million dollars |
$3.9 million dollars |
If you take these two sales out of the numbers, you get a more representative picture of the local housing market trends. New construction sales prices are up about 7.5% while number of sales is still half of what it was.
|
North Fulton Sales Trend: New Construction
Minus two largest New Construction Sales
|
||
| Quarter | Avg Sales Price |
# of Sales |
|
Q1 2007 |
$668,785 | 81 |
| Q2 2007 | $792,013 | 81 |
| Q3 2007 | $802,338 | 63 |
| Q4 2007 | $570,176 | 46 |
| Q1 2008 | $717,953 | 43 |
| Totals | $719,657 | 314 |
If you look at the whole market and remove the two very large sales, the whole housing market is down 2.5% from Q1, 2007 to Q1, 2008. The number of sales is, of course, still way off at 40%.
If you look at the numbers this way, which I think is more valid, instead of having a 3% increase we actually have a 2.5% decrease in home sale price in North Fulton.
|
North Fulton Sales Trend: All Resale and New Construction
Minus two largest New Construction Sales
|
||
| Quarter | Avg Sales Price |
# of Sales |
|
Q1 2007 |
$413,791 | 784 |
| Q2 2007 | $429,863 | 1,069 |
| Q3 2007 | $442,331 | 923 |
| Q4 2007 | $400,453 | 576 |
| Q1 2008 | $403,688 | 472 |
| Totals | $421,916 | 3,824 |
Thank you, Mr. Robs, for holding my feet to the fire and forcing me to do some sensitively analysis on the data. I am fond of saying that "skepticism is the chastity of the intellect." You’ve proven that here.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, May 5th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Local Market Conditions, Luxury Homes | 1 Comment »
The “F Word” for Real Estate
While a lot of sellers want to use the real "F" word for this real estate market, my "F" word in this market is Foreclosure.
Everyone is fixated on foreclosures. Last week alone, I had three people contact me out of the blue looking for foreclosures…looking for a deal.
CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL CURRENT FORECLOSURES IN ALPHARETTA, ROSWELL, JOHNS CREEK and MILTON (The page may load slowly, there are a lot of them!)
While foreclosures are getting all the limelight in the press and while there are more and more of them on the market - there are going to be 7,335 properties auctioned next Tuesday in the 13-county metro Atlanta area , they may or may not be the best buy for you. My word of advise to you would be: Don’t fixate on foreclosures.
One of the people who contacted me wanted a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home on an acre for around $250k. There are a few foreclosures that meet that criteria, but they are mostly junk. Understand that someone living in a $250,000 house and facing financial difficulties is not going to leave the home in tip top shape.
I told this prospective buyer that there are 65 homes in Alpharetta with 4 BR and 2.5 Baths (including one in Sable Pointe, an affordable neighborhood in Milton High School district, that has an acre lot) that are under $275,000. Some of them are nice, clean, well-maintained homes. Unfortunately, they aren’t attracting as many potential buyers becuase they don’t have the foreclosure label. Might we look at some of them as well?
Competition for Foreclosures is Higher than for Resales
Which brings me to competition. In the past four weeks, we have made offers for clients on three foreclosure homes. All three cases were multiple offer situations. We got two of the homes; lost the other. We offered slightly more than list price on the two that we got. Lesson: if a bank has a house listed at $300k, don’t think you are necessarily going to get it for $50k less - or even list price. The banks are in this for profit, too, or perhaps less loss.
Foreclosures Might Not be in the Best Condition
Foreclosure properties are sold "As-is." This means you have the right to inspect the property and can terminate the contract within your due diligence period if you don’t like what you find, but the bank is not going to make any repairs. On one of our recent foreclosure purchases, active termites were found. Apparently they moved in when the previous owners moved out. The previous owners had had a termite bond, but it expired with then left and it had been almost two years since any termite inspection or treatment had been done. You are going to find issues caused by neglect when you purchase foreclosure property…and remember, Georgia is a Buyer Beware state.
Our recent experience with foreclosures, particularly the competitiveness of them, is not unique. Another local agent told me last week that they had made three with a client on three different properties and not gotten any of them.
A local resident shared with me her experiences trying to buy three foreclosures recently. She bid on what I’ve always maintained was a great buy on Francis Road only to be out bid. The auction was held online and she told me that they kept calling for "highest and best" and people kept increasing their bids. The house finally sold for $560,200. It was listed at $599,900 at the time and had been listed at $699,900.
This resident also tried to buy a foreclosure in White Columns. She worked with the bank for two months and came up to within $10,000 of their list price. Five other offers then popped up; the house is currently under contract to someone else to close in May.
Then there was the pre-foreclosure in Providence at Atlanta National: not the monster house, which sold for $100k more than list in 12 days, but a much more traditional and modest home. The one I’m talking about is a big house with a finished basement in a gated Chatham, swim-tennis neighborhood.
It had been on the market for about a year and was last listed at $699,900. The bank wouldn’t budge on the list price. It went to auction on the courthouse steps and Wachovia, who held a $140k second mortgage on the house, bought it and left it on the market at $699,000 where it remains.
I could go on with more stories, but I think you are getting the point: Foreclosures may or may not be "a deal." There is significant competition in the market for them, so be prepared to pay list price if it is a good house. Also, the houses may have damage, visible and non-visible, like our little termite friends. Of course, the problem houses tend to get weeded out, but buyer beware.
Finally, the brokers representing the banks are likely doing it at a reduced commission for the volume. Therefore, the service can suffer sometimes and frankly the banks are very slow to respond, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.
We have a foreclosure under contract and there was an issue dewinterizing the property: The main water didn’t come back on. We have spent over two weeks trying to get the bank to get someone to the property just to see what the problem might be.
So if you have no tolerance for bad service and poor communication, consider something other than the foreclosure market. Heck, we had an above list price offer in on a foreclosure and never even got a callback from the broker telling us we didn’t get the house. We had to read it in the MLS over a week after they took another offer.
Last tidbit: if the foreclosure market is for you, consider this little gem. Well…there you go. I went to check on it and it has a pending contract already. It was a house in Cobblestone Farms that had been on the market for $1.1 million as a foreclosure for a year. It had some damage - and I made the mistake of opening the refrigerator last summer, but was big, bold and an interesting floorplan. Plus it had a great lot for a pool. Anyway, I guess the bank decided it was time to cut bait and they reduced the price to $749k. It was under contract within weeks…who knows, there may have even been multiple offers at that price.
That is par for the foreclosure market.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 28th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Foreclosures | 4 Comments »
Sales Price Up, Number of Sales Down | Real Estate Market Trend Remains the Same in North Fulton and Alpharetta
I received a phone call from a local newspaper yesterday asking for some real estate market analysis. It seems that word has gotten out that I like to crunch the numbers.
Someone had forwarded the reporter a link to an article on CNN Money that listed Atlanta (and mentioned Alpharetta) as one of the six best places to buy a home based on prices expected to rise the most - or decrease the least - in the next 12 months.
How seriously should you take a list like this when Detroit (Farmington Hills) is on the list with you? Isn’t the housing market in Detroit a train wreck? Maybe the wreck has already happened and now they are just cleaning up. After all, Ford did announce today a $100M of net income in Q1, a $382M increase over Q1 last year.
The CNN Money analysis was done by looking at the Metropolitan Home Price Index published by OHFEO and the "fundamental housing value," a measure also called the price-rent ratio which is derived by taking the price of a home and dividing it by the discounted value of the future stream of rent payments you could get for that house. This is an investment based valuation method that says anything over 1 is overpriced (as an investment) and anything under 1 is underpriced. CNN selected metro areas with high momentum and low price.
In selecting Atlanta, CNN singled out Alpharetta as a "typical affluent suburb" and pegged the average sales price at $359,950. I could take exception with CNN that Alpharetta is typical, but that is an entirely different post ;-> Here I want to focus on the average sales price for Alpharetta, which is what the local reporter was looking for, too.
Average Sales Price in Alpharetta for Q1 2008
The average sales price in Alpharetta for Q1 2008 was $384,612. This includes all resale and new construction single family residences. The average for Q1 2007 was $372,895.
The change represents a 3% increase in sales price, but doesn’t tell the whole story. The real story is that in Q1 2008 only 237 homes sold in Alpharetta versus 402 in Q1 2007. That is $63M less sales volume than a year ago.
If you look at North Fulton as a whole, which includes the four cities of Alpharetta, Roswell, Johns Creek and Milton, the numbers show the same pattern on a different scale. [Note: it is a little difficult to separate sales in the City of Alpharetta from North Fulton as a whole because there are homes in Milton that have an Alpharetta postal address and homes in Johns Creek that have a Duluth/Alpharetta/Rowsell postal address, but I did my best based on high school districts.]
In Q1 this year, the average sales price in North Fulton was $423,503 vs. $413,791 a year ago. However, again, that represents far fewer transactions: 474 in Q1 2008 vs 784 in Q1 2007. To most sellers, that is the definition of a buyer’s market regardless of average sales price.
So, while the exposure given Alpharetta by CNN Money is nice to get, I’m not sure that their methodology, as with most "Best of Lists", is anything but hogwash. Yes, we have price momentum. Yes, real estate is priced more affordably to begin with in Atlanta and Alpharetta. But CNN’s methodology doesn’t take into account the inventory that is not selling in this market and the effect that it will eventually have on the overall market. Maybe sellers will just withdraw and wait until price recover. Maybe they can’t wait and will reduce their price to sell. Only time will tell.
CNN Money’s point in the whole story is that Alpharetta is a good place to buy because it has good potential for appreciation. While I couldn’t agree more, because there are some many fundamental growth factors in favor of Alpharetta, the short term prognosis is dicier. Alpharetta real estate prices are increasing; that is, we have positive price momentum which is what CNN Money was measuring. However, you can only take advantage of that momentum if you are able to sell. There were 310 fewer sellers realizing any gains this quarter and a year ago.
Now, on a slightly different slant, if you want to live in one of the skinniest counties in America (Marin County, CA was the skinniest), CNN Money has that coverage for you, too. They actually compared counties based on the body mass of their residents. But what if you have a county with just a bunch of mammoth-sized but lean residents, wouldn’t that skew the rankings? Anyway, you won’t find anywhere in Georgia on that list, that much you can bank on.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 24th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Local Market Conditions, Sellers | 5 Comments »
Examples of Brick and Stone Architecture in Alpharetta Real Estate
I’ve received a lot of questions and interest in these pictures that I innocently posted months ago, so I thought that I’d repost them this time using Next Generation Gallery and Piclens so that you can view them more easily. If you don’t have piclens, GET IT!
Stone and Brick elevations on homes are increasingly popular in Alpharetta and the surrounding areas. While I like a lot of the stone and brick combinations, I also think that it is the cedar timbers that make the whole thing come together.
Of corse, it is also possible to make some terrible mistakes when combining brick with stone…it can be like wearing stripes and plaids together, and it is not like you can just change the paint color if you don’t like the look. I should start taking pictures of the bad combinations, too! Ah, another project…
I took these pictures at The River Club, which is technically not in Alpharetta, but just over the Chattahoochee River in Gwinnett County. None the less, they are representative of this style of home being built today in Atlanta and the northern suburbs.
PS: These houses are all a million dollar and up. However, you can find brick and stone homes for a lot less if you like the style but don’t like the price ;-> Just call me and I can tell you where to look depending on your price preference.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 23rd, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Buyers, Luxury Homes | No Comments »
Freemanville High School Environmental Impact Meeting Scheduled
For people interested in learning more about the proposed Freemanville High School in Milton from the citizens’ perspective, there will be a presentation by local residents tonight at the City Council working session. The presentation is scheduled for 6 PM and will highlight some of the environmental impacts of building a new high school on the proposed site.
I don’t want to ruin the ending for you, but one of the significant findings is that the a new high school would product 100,000 gallons a day of septic waste. It would be the highest single source septic system in the City of Milton by far and would further increase the bacterial load in Chicken Creek, which is already elevated.
Negative environmental impact is the horse that community opponents are betting on to stop the development of the high school at that location. For more information you can goto: ProtectMilton.com or check back with the City of Milton website for the minutes after the meeting.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 21st, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Announcements, Schools | No Comments »
New School Update for North Fulton | Johns Creek High School Gets Principal
With Spring Break over, all attention is back to the classroom and CRCT testing which began this week. I’m sure our students will keep our scores in North Fulton the highest in the county and among the top in the state.
As students sharpen their No. 2 pencils, new classrooms are under construction to house the continued influx of children into North Fulton school districts. The growth that we experienced in 2004-5, when 2,236 new students enrolled in North Fulton schools, has subsided somewhat. However, we still have over 1,000 new student each year.
By the 2011-12 school year, projections show that there will be almost 50,000 students in North Fulton public schools, up from about 45,000 today. Growth pains, as they say, are a good problem to have, but we have to find a way to have classroom space for these students. Currently we have some elementary schools that were designed for 850 student packed with over 1,000 students.
The most construction progress has been shown at the new North Fulton High School, which has creatively been named Johns Creek High School. It takes about two years to build a high school, so Johns Creek High School is not
scheduled to open until August, 2009. None the less, discussions between the School Board and community started this week to define the school’s attendance zone. Two more community meetings are scheduled for May.
As one insider at Alpharetta HS told me: "Johns Creek High is going to be an academic powerhouse. It is going to get the best of Northview and Chattahoochee High Schools."
Johns Creek High School Principal Appointed
Johns Creek is also getting Buck Greene as its first principal. Greene is transferring from Alpharetta High Schools, where he has served as principal since opening in 2004 and which won the Governor’s Cup this year for most improvement in SAT scores. Alpharetta HS was ninth in the state last year for SAT scores with an average score of 1647.
Birmingham Elementary School Planned to Open August 2009
In contrast to the visible progress on Johns Creek HS, is Birmingham Elementary School. You can’t tell by looking at the land - because no disturbance has been done at all - that in a little over a year there will be a new elementary school at Wood Road and Birmingham Highway, in Milton. The School Board is completely committed to this school, the plans are selected and the Board says construction should start soon. It takes about nine months to build an elementary school, they say. Looks like they are going to take it down to the wire.
Planning sessions with the community will begin this fall to discuss the new attendance zone. I’ve received a number of inquires from people about my opinion of who will go where. My OPINION - and it is only that - is that all neighborhoods north of Providence Road and west of Freemanville Road will attend the new school. Some scattered other neighborhoods like Fieldstone Farms, Wood Valley, The Oaks at White Columns and Highland Manor will also likely be zoned to Birmingham ES, but again, this is only a guess.
Just as Johns Creek HS stands to be very good academically because it is drawing from a good base, Birmingham ES will be a quality school academically no doubt because it is drawing from the same population as Summit Hill, Crabapple Crossing and Cogburn Woods, all excellent schools.
Freemanville Road High School
The Board of Education maintains that it is still committed to building a new high school on Freemanville Road, dispite the community opposition. The only thing that has changed recently is that they have pushed back the scheduled opening date a year to the 2012-13 school year.
The Board of Education also has mentioned building a Middle School adjacent to the Freemanville HS that wouldn’t open until 2014. Some private individuals who are opposed to any school development on Freemanville have paid to have an environmental impact study done which has revealed that, due to septic system demands, at best only one school could (or should?) be built on the proposed site just south of White Columns.
It remains to be seen how this will play out. I still maintain the the best solution is to redevelop the "old Milton High School" site with a multi-story design that work on the smaller land parcel while still providing all the amenities of a modern school. Obviously, many well designed high schools are built around the country in urban settings on far fewer acres. We shouldn’t rule out redeveloping the old site just because we have a templated model of how we build high schools in Fulton County.
This case calls for breaking the model because the alternative is to build a (sprawling?) high school on a piece of land that (1) is not well suited for it and (2) will definitely impact the character of the area. Will it "ruin" the area? No. Is there a better option in my humble opinion? Definitely.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 18th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, City of Johns Creek, Schools | No Comments »
Pictures of Estate Home in East Cherokee | The Shoals at Arbor Creek
This is a gallery of pictures I recently took of a million-dollar home in The Shoals at Arbor Creek, Cherokee County, GA.
This home was custom-built by Chatham, is on over an acre and features many upgrades.
I wanted to show you these pictures, not only to interest you in the home, which is for sale, by the way, but not on the "open market," but also to give you the experience of viewing the pictures with piclens.
If you don’t already have it, get the piclens viewer from www.piclens.com; that way you’ll get the full experience of viewing these photos on a 3D "wall of photos." Then make sure to click on the View Awesome 3D Slideshow link below the pictures below. [Note: If you don’t get the piclens viewer, you can still view the photos, you just won’t get the full effect.]
I believe that piclens is the future of viewing photos on the web and how every home should be displayed and marketed. Let me know your thoughts about it by leaving a comment: Were you able to get it to work? Was it easier and better than traditional methods.
PS: I want to give a tip of the hat to Shack Dougall for writing the piclens plus plug-in for WordPress and for helping modify it to perform for my purposes. I couldn’t give you this functionality without Shack’s help. Thanks, Shack.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 14th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Buyers, Cherokee County, Photography | No Comments »
Market Indicator: Bowen Homes Sells 12 in 14 days
With so much doom and gloom in the real estate market, I thought that I’d share some market news that I got from none other source than my barber. Hey, barbers know what is going on around town.
Bowen Family Homes has sold 12 new homes in their Stonehaven subdivision in South Forsyth in the last two weeks.
The neighborhood will ultimately have about 500 homes in the $200’s and has a 10-acre recreation area. There are currently about 300 homes built.
I suspect that a lot of these buyers are first time buyers taking advantage of low interest rates and not having to sell a home before they buy.
Just wanted to let you know that it is not all doom and gloom in the Alpharetta (and Cumming) real estate market.
Now, if you need the best haircut in Alpharetta, go to Gino and Jacksons at Hwy 9 and Windward Parkway next to La Parrilla.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 5th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Buyers, Forsyth, Local Market Conditions | No Comments »
New Tool from SoftRealty for Searching Alpharetta, Roswell, Milton & Johns Creek Real Estate
The world of Real Estate Search is changing. Two years ago, I was one of the very first Realtors in Georgia to offer my website users a map-based search engine.
People flocked to it. It was cutting edge at the time - and still remains the best way to search for homes online - but it is time to introduce more and better search features.
Therefore, today, I’ve started offering my website users the option of using a new search tool from an Atlanta-based company named Soft Realty.
Click on the picture above to try a sample search or CLICK HERE to go directly to a search for Alpharetta Real Estate between $300k and $800k.
I need your feedback regarding how you like it - particularly compared to what I already have, which is pretty good, I think.
The new solution has some advantages for me, namely that it is free, as its revenue model is ad-based. (The solution is still in beta and no ads are showing yet, but would you mind if they were? It would be like Zillow or Realtor dot com, that both have ads.)
For you the advantages are more features. The current beta solution doesn’t have all the features yet, but from what I’ve seen so far, the promise of better usability and fuller features for you, the real estate searching public, is just around the corner.
As a real estate agent, I must use a third-party vendor to provide the home search feature for web clients. There are only a handful of such providers to choose from and most of them offer solutions that are woefully inadequate. These vendors are catering to the lowest common denominator, and I don’t want to be the LCD.
I don’t want you, my client, to have to settle for average when we have so many ideas to make home searching better and easier. Getting someone to implement them is the hard part; if we were allowed to do it ourselves, believe me we would.
For instance, my existing solution does not allow you to view all homes in a specified school’s attendance zone, if you can believe that. With Soft Realty, I can do this as basic functionality.
Basic Searchs for Alpharetta Homes by School Attendance Zone
For example, CLICK HERE to see all homes for sale in the Crabapple Crossing Elementary attendance zone (there are 94 as of today); or CLICK HERE to see all homes for sale in the Alpharetta High School attendance zone (there are 245 as of today).
My hope is that the Soft Realty solution will allow us to implement more of the features we know that you want and differentiate our search solution from the lowest common denominator agents.
For now, there is no registration required to use the solution. I won’t know who or if you are trying it, so I’ll rely on you to contact me if (1) you like the solution and/or have some feedback; and (2), if you want to see any of the houses in person.
After all, that is the primary purpose of online search: To find houses to actually go view. So, when you are ready, please reach out to me - you might consider leaving a comment to this post - and let’s not be the lowest common denominator together.
Happy searching.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 5th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Buyers, Real Estate Industry, Schools | 3 Comments »
Buyer Beware! Sellers of Alpharetta Real Estate Don’t Need to Disclose Potato-Throwing Neighbors
There is an attention grabbing real estate case going on in Phoenix where a new home buyer is suing the seller for not disclosing that the neighbor is a dingbat.
Stories of crazy neighbors are fairly commonplace - and funny, like this Utah resident shown in the picture giving his neighbor the finger with his exterior modifications.
What makes the Phoenix case stand out from the crowd is that the neighbor in question is a little crazier than usual: she’s been arrested for throwing potatoes at the dog, has answered the door with a shotgun in hand, place 701 calls to 911-emergency herself in one year alone and can be often found barefoot in the street talking to herself. She has lived there for 23 years.
The new buyer is now suing because he feels the seller should have disclosed the nuisance. The seller is claiming the buyer just has buyer’s remorse and wants out - the property has dropped about $35k in value due to the market.
Arizona’s property disclosure has an item asking whether the seller is aware of any neighborhood noise or nuisance and the seller either left it unanswered or checked "no," I’m not sure. None the less, the buyer feels deceived and the seller feels relieved.
What makes matters even more interesting is that both parties are realtors. The seller is COO of Realty Executives and the buyer a commercial real estate broker. These guys should know better, you’d think.
Observers are anxious to see how the courts rule in this case. As it was put in the Phoenix New Times: Should the seller be required to diagnose the neighbor’s mental health?
Is this any different than having to disclose that a sex offender lives next door, which you do NOT have to do in Georgia?
If a seller has to disclose this, does the neighbor have the right to effectively devalue the seller’s property by their mere presence and peculiarities?
Buyer Beware in Georgia
You’re not likely to find a case like this in Georgia. First of all, Georgia is a Buyer Beware state, which means it is the buyer’s responsibility to check out any problems with the property, neighborhood or surrounding area. Post closing, the seller is not responsible for anything you discover on your own.
Furthermore, the Georgia Purchase and Sale Agreement clearly stipulates that it is the buyer’s duty to inspect the neighborhood:
Buyer acknowledges that: (1) in every neighborhood there are conditions which different buyers may find objectionable and (2) Buyer has had the full opportunity to become acquainted with all existing neighborhood conditions (and proposed changes thereto) which could affect the Property including without limitation land-fills, quarries, high-voltage power lines, cemeteries, airports, prisons, stadiums, odor and/or noise producing land uses, crime, schools serving the Property, political jurisdictional maps and land use and transportation maps and plans. It shall be Buyer’s sole duty to become familiar with neighborhood conditions of concern to Buyer. If Buyer is concerned about the possibility of a registered sex offender residing in a neighborhood in which Buyer is interested, Buyer should review the Georgia Violent Sex Offender Registry available on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Website at www.state.ga.us/gbi/disclaim.html
Residential real estate in Georgia is purchased with a Due Diligence period of usually 10-14 days when the buyer can inspect and do any other sort of investigation that they may wish and have the option to cancel the contract up to the end of the diligence period.
Assaying the neighborhood is perhaps the hardest thing to do in the process. All the better reason to have a local expert as your buyer’s agent to steer you clear of troubled situations.
What I recommend to my clients is to check out the neighborhood at different times of the day, specifically when the school bus drops off in the afternoon and on Saturdays. Most families are curious to know how many other kids there kids’ age are in the neighborhood. The school bus is a good indicator and you’ll also likely see other parents and have a chance to strike up a conversation. Just make sure they don’t think you are stalking the children getting off the bus!
Visit the neighborhood at night to see how dark or quiet or loud or busy it is.
I also suggest that clients "do the commute" from the proposed new home. Actually do the drive at the same time you would normally leave to get an idea of how long it will take should you buy that house.
Shop at the local grocery store if you want or have dinner at a local restaurant.
You can also knock on the neighbor’s door and actually introduce yourself and interview your potential neighbors. Remember, they are interviewing you, too, and are often as anxious about who their new neighbors might be as you are about who yours might be.
Additionally, there is a new website called Rotten Neighbor you can go to check out, but there are no rotten neighbors currently posted for Alpharetta, GA. Now that is certainly not the case; I’ve personal testimony to the contrary!
Finally, there’s Google. No one can hide from Google. Do a tax records search on the neighboring properties, or have your Realtor do it. Get the owners’ names and Google them. You might just find where your future neighbor works, went to school, all sorts of interesting tidbits.
And remember, good fences make good neighbors.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 2nd, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Alpharetta, Buyers | 3 Comments »
How Easily Can You Be Fooled by a Home’s Price
Since it is April Fool’s Day, I thought that I’d see if I can fool you. No better place to start that with home prices.
It’s old school to price a million dollar house for $999,900. Were you fooled?
How about $19.99 for a twenty-dollar book. Even my third grader sees through that and quickly rounds up.
What about that little raised "9" at the end of the gas price? I didn’t pay $1.35 this morning for gas; I paid $1.35-NINE. Really, who are we fooling?
Well, while you say you’d never fall for any of the price tricks above, it turns out there you may be falling for a "pricing strategy" widely used by retailers and you might not even know it.
Researchers at Cornell University have discovered that consumers perceive that when an item is priced at a round number, say a $500,000 house, it is more expensive than one priced at $512,433. Interesting, huh?
While we don’t realize it, we are subjected to this strategy everyday: At Wal-Mart, the paper towels are $2.19, not $2.00. At Home Depot, nails are $3.79 a box; washers are 67 cents a piece. Are you telling me that they know that exactly the cost of a washer and what they "need" to charge to make their margin? Nope, they know we perceive something listed at $2.89 as a bargain because we might think it was reduced from $3.00.
I am thinking about using this strategy when marketing homes for sale in Alpharetta and considering that it might work better for home price below $500k than above. What do you think?
At a minimum it might cause buyers to take notice and ask: "How the heck did they come up with this price?"
I don’t think I will take the price all the way out to the pennies, though, although that would really be a good April’s Fool test. So, let me know: Are you a price fool or not? Would this strategy work on you?
NOTE: I initially heard about this research on National Public Radio last week. To hear the whole story, go here: Study Shows Precise Pricing More Enticing to Buyers
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, April 1st, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Stuff I like to talk about | 3 Comments »
Blogging for Alpharetta Real Estate Has Lighter Side
I’ve been blogging about Alpharetta Real Estate now since September, 2006, and mostly it is a pretty sober affair here: North Fulton housing trends, the latest information on schools, new home construction in Alpharetta, etc.
I appreciate all the kind phone calls and emails I’ve received since I started this blog and the new clients and friends I’ve made; I’m a blogger for life given my experience so far.
Along the way, I’ve tried to find the lighter side of real estate when possible: I recall the post on front doors as noses. In fact, I recently came across some new information on garage doors innovations and how they can dress up a home. If a front door is the nose of a house, then what is the garage door? I digress.
Anyway, yesterday I attended the first RETechSouth conference in Atlanta, a conference for realtors focusing on blogging, social networking and video for real estate. It was right up my alley: all these things are the future of real estate, and I you read this blog you already know that.
At the conference, they played this video. Now you kinda have to BE a blogger to appreciate it, but many of you have asked me about my blogging, how much time I spend on it and how thorough it is, so you will definitely appreciate this. I’ve watched it probably five times and laugh out loud each time. Laugh with me and have a funny day.
Posted by: Kevin Warmath, March 28th, 2008 | LiveInAlpharetta.com
Posted in Miscellaneous, Stuff I like to talk about | 2 Comments »
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