The Alpharetta Blog

I recently came across the following statistics and found them to be very interesting:

Buyers and Sellers:

• Typical buyer was 41 years old;  First time buyer was 32
• One in five homes purchased was newly built
• 85% of buyers used a real estate agent during their search
• 84% of sellers used a real estate agent to list their home
• Typical seller had lived in their home for 6 years
• FSBOs (For Sale By Owner) accounted for 12% of all sales; 40% of FSBOs were transactions between family or close acquaintances
• 80% of buyers used the internet during their search; 74% drove by a home they had seen online

Baby Boomers:

• There are 78 million baby boomers with a median age of 50 years old
• Most boomers plan to live in their home a median of 5 more years;  11% report they are likely to purchase real estate within the next  12 months
• Nearly 80% of boomers who have sold a home worked with a real estate agent
• Small towns and rural areas are the locations most often considered when deciding where to retire

Housing Outlook for 2007:

• 6.422 million existing home sales this year with a median price of $225,300
• 987,000 new home sales
• National homeownership rate - 69%
• Household growth expected to accelerate to 14.6 million new households in the next decade
• Continued low interest rates

As I read thru these numbers, I was very optimistic about the future.  Certainly as a Realtor I'm pleased to see how the future might stack up, but also as a citizen I'm enthused that the real estate industry is not only surviving and but prospering.  Real estate has been a solid investment and looks to be a stable place to continue to invest my hard earned dollars.  We have a growing immigrant population, a higher percentage of minority homeownership, the graying of the baby boomers and the strong projected growth of the echo boomers.  All in all, I'm looking forward to 2007 and beyond.

I'd be interested in hearing your comments.

I've just started writing this real estate blog.  As a mater of fact, this is the very first entry.  I want to ramble a bit about the current market in the Alpharetta/Milton area.  I also want to talk about the current buyer's market and what's going on with the listing side of the business.

The local market is very confused.  There seems to be a lot of buyers out there looking at homes.  The mortgage rates are very favorable for buying a new home.  Yet there seems to be a certain amount of sluggishness or reluctance to pull the trigger and get into a new home.  It's like everyone is waiting for something to happen that will help them make their decision to buy.  I hear over and over that "we're not in any hurry to buy."  It makes me wonder what they're waiting for.  The market currently favors the buyer because there is such a surplus of homes on the market.  Buyers can usually get a very good deal by having an agent assist them with their negotiations.  Yet they're not moving forward in the numbers I would have expected.  I suppose it has to do with being cautious.  The industry has gone thru some ups and downs, but that was in Florida and California.  The Atlanta market is not now, nor has it been, on the bubble, facing a declining market.  So I guess we'll continue to "muddle along" with no one anxious to get out of an apartment and into a home.  It makes me wonder what we should expect during the upcoming Spring buying season.

On the sellers side, they're seeing the effects of a buyer's market.  Home sale prices are declining from their double digit increases of a few years ago.  Don't get me wrong.  Homes are selling today, lots of them.  But those sales required the seller to be smart about pricing their homes.  We're not seeing multiple offers on properties, each one higher than the previous one.  Sellers must be more realistic about their asking price and their homes need to be in pristine condition.  The competition is too great to risk losing a possible sale because they didn't repaint or make some other repairs.  Sellers need to choose their real estate carefully, checking on their experience and pricing skills.  They also need to be realistic in their "comparisons" with other sold homes in their neighborhood.  We know that each seller's home is the best one on the block and therefore should command the highest price.  Things don't always work that way.  If you overprice your home, it will sit there until everyone wonders what's wrong with it.  Then you'll start lowering the price and finally receive a low ball offer.  That's not the smart way to sell your home.

I'm hopeful that we'll see the market picking up in the next month and a half.  As long as interest rates stay at their current levels, we have all the conditions necessary for a great Spring selling season.  I hope we do.

I'd appreciate hearing some of your comments on the views I've expressed.  I'll write again in a few days.