New homes sales were up nationally in April by 16.2% over March 2007. The south was the strongest region in the country, with sales up a whopping 27.8% over the previous month. This sound good at first read but is it?

I reviewed the sales figures for April resale homes in our area and they showed basically no improvement over March. The market is staying pretty much the same, not bad but not rip roaring either. So what is going on with new home sales? Read the rest of this entry »

The Alpharetta and Johns Creek real estate markets continued to show weakness in April (as compared to last year at the time).

April 2006 sales totaled 240 homes sold from the 848 homes in inventory across all price ranges. This year showed a substantial (but not devastating) drop in sales, and an increase in inventory with 207 homes sold in April 2007 out of 1079 total homes for sale (across all price ranges). This represents a 13.75% drop in sales and a 27.24% increase in the total number of homes for sale between April 2006 and April 2007.

These figures equate to a 5.21 month supply of homes at April’s absorption rate which is up a whopping 47.59% from April 2006′s 3.53 month supply.

What does this mean to buyers and sellers in Alpharetta and Johns Creek Georgia? Read the rest of this entry »

January Sales Report

What a way to start the year! My recent optimism has proven to be well founded. Sales were up strongly in most price ranges. The only slow spot in the market compared to December 2006 was the price range from $600,000 to $800,000, where sales were off 71.4%. Now it is time for the good news and there is lots of it. Home sales for those listed under $275,000 went up 28.7% over December. The mid price range from $275,000 up to $600,000 saw sales shoot up 55.9%. Our happiest Alpharetta home sellers were those with homes listed over $800,000, as sales soared 200% over last month. Sales were strong compared to December 2006 and now we will take a quick look to see how sales compared to January 2006. Read the rest of this entry »

I can feel the turn around for this market in the air. The last two weeks have been surprisingly active. I am hopeful that we will see sales levels start to climb back to where they were earlier this year. Why am I optimistic? Our local economy is good, people continue to move here, interest rates are low and we do not suffer from inflated housing prices as do some parts of the country. I think we our market slowed down due to the barrage of negative media attention which focused on the national housing market and not due to local fundamentals. I just wanted to let you know that I am feeling good about our market. All the best, Jeff

Ok, it is time for me to admit that my neutral to upbeat feelings from last month’s report have to be adjusted. I hoped that our market would continue to buck the national trends and avoid a big drop in sales. Well the numbers for October were not very good and it looks like I will have to join the hurricane forecasters and adjust my thinking.

Total sales for October were down 37.9% from October of 2005. This month there were no price ranges that were spared. The lower range (under $275,000) fell a whopping 46.7% as compared to October of 2005. The mid range ($275,000-$600,000) was down 32.4%, while the upper range (over $600,000) fell by 36.1%.

Overall October sales and inventory figures showed that Alpharetta, Georgia had a 7.68 month supply of homes (defined as the number of homes for sale divided by the number of sales) which is a 113% increase from October 2005. A more detailed analysis shows the lower range had a 4.5 month supply, mid range was 7.1 months and the upper range had a 15.1 month supply.

Read the rest of this entry »