The Alpharetta Blog

The real estate market in the North Fulton area is back!  Well, sort of!  Over the past 3-4 weeks, sales have picked up considerably.  There are several reasons for this.  A large part of the sales increase can be attributed simply to the time of year.  We're well into the Spring Buying Season.  Families move in the Summer when kids are out of school.  They put their homes up for sale in the Spring, get it sold and closed in late May, move to their new location, find a home and close in time for the kids to be settled before the start of school in August.  So, people sell, move and buy in their new location.  That's what's happening now.

Another piece to this sales puzzle is that sellers are learning, often the hard way, how to sell their homes.  The prices they're asking are more realistic than they've been up to this point.  They are also making the repairs and upgrades necessary to grab a buyer's attention.  They are beginning to understand their competition.  They're more negotiable and will accept offers that are fair for both parties.  The deals are out there, but they're harder to find and one has to work smarter to bring them to the closing table.

A third part of this equation is that interest rates are still very low.  With good credit, you can still find rates below 6%.  Yes, the collapse of the subprime mortgage market has made it more difficult for some to realize their dream of owning a home.  It may mean that some will have to save more for a downpayment since 100% financing will be hard to come by for many buyers.  That's not all bad.  It may help eliminate the flood of mortgage defaults and the subsequent foreclosures that we're seeing.

The sum of these several factors is that the local market has recovered somewhat in the past few weeks.  How long we will continue to see an improving market or if we will, is still not certain.  As long as the economy continues to chug along and the unemployment rate stays steady, we should see a continuation of sales.  The key question in my mind is if the current market will continue after the end of the Spring Buying Season?  I hope it does since this is my chosen field of employment.  But there are no guarantees that sales will continue at the current increased levels.  Just one more factor to watch over the next few months.

I'm happy that the market has picked up and hope that it continues at an even better pace.  If you're looking to buy or sell, be assured that sales are taking place every day.  You just have to be smart about how you go about it.  Retain the services of a real estate professional to help you.  It's what we do on a full time basis.