North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains Market Update - August 2010

North Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge Real Estate, Market Update for North Georgia

National Level
The pending homes sale index is a forward looking indicator and we saw a moderate increase in August, rising to 5.2% after a significant drop in previous months.  We expected the drop after the federal tax credit expired so that in and of itself was not surprising.  There is caution in the wind the the recovery of the housing market will be a long, slow process.  Home sales remain soft and there continues to be too much supply and too little demand.  It may take a decade for homeowners who bought at the peak of the market to fully recover lost equity.  Loan underwriting standards are tighter than ever experiened in years past.  For qualified buyers and cash buyers, it's absolutely one of the best times to buy.  Housing prices have come down dramatically in the last couple of years.

Market Facts
Although there is not a lot of great news, the economy is growing (albeit very slowly) resulting in some improvement over the last few months.  The private sector is finally creating jobs and perhaps, turned the corner just a bit.  As for small business, we are still in a "wait and see" mode.  Consumer confidence remains low but is better than it was.  We may see a spike once we get past the November elections.  The thirty year mortgage rate is at a generational low and the cost of money is phenomenal.  Combine that with affordable housing prices and we should see a very nice run when buyers come back.  There ws a huge drop in average median price nationally and delinquincies are still high.  As all of these dynamics continue to shake out, the tight underwriting restrictions are stabilizing the market in the foreseable future.

Local Trends
Locally, our market is a bit more stable than the major metro areas.  We see more cash buyers in the local marketplace but the trends that hit the major markets hit us as well.

Local Activity (August 2010)
Our Northeast Board of Realtors is comprised of 3 states and within those states, 8 counties.  The data reported below is from six counties: Gilmer, Union, Fannin & Towns Georgia; Clay & Cherokee North Carolina; Polk Tennessee.

Total Actively for sale = 11,800
Approximately 4000 Residential homes
Approximately 7500 pieces of land (includes developed or undeveloped)
A smattering of commercial properties

Out of 11,800
824 Foreclosures (this is the largest number of foreclosures seen on this market than ever before)
We believe there is another wave of foreclosures coming plus we've had two banks taken over by FDIC in the last couple of months

Sold = 212 compared to same time 5 years ago with 721 sales and a couple of foreclosures
Out of 212 solds, there were 72 foreclosures which made up 34% of the total sales.  Bank owned properties remain a very tough competition for sellers since banks can drop their price easier than the private owner.  Buyers are almost always asking first about foreclosures.  The media has trained our buyers to believe that foreclosures are the best value, when in fact we know, many times it is not.  The reality is, we are dealing with a buyer mentality that foreclosures are the best buys out there and it's requiring education and showing prospective buyers the difference between a foreclosure and a resale.

As for Land ---  Less than 1% of all the land on the market is selling in a month's time.  We have a serious glut of land on the market.

Average Sold Price
Combination of land and homes = $146,XXX and has been hovering for many months between $140,000 to $150,000.  Compare this to the average sold price in August 2007 which was $208,000.  Buyers have a mindset where they are willing to select a smaller property now.

We are coming into the busiest time of the year when the leaves change, the weather is cooler and buyers fall in love with the mountains.  Coldwell Banker continually works to improve our already innovative marketing program and we know that an aggressive marketing program on the web is absolutely neccessary.  We constantly work to give our seller client's property the highest visibility.  Print media is shrinking and somewhat outdated but we believe some print media is appropriate so we print our own inhouse brochure with ALL Coldwell Banker High Country listings and we distribute to more than 1500 outlets.  Our brochure is the largest to date in the number of pages increased by 20% and the largest in the number of copies being produced.  Our new brochure will be out by early October.  

Donna Yates
Associate Broker, GRI
Coldwell Banker High Country Realty
706-633-0644 cell   706-632-7311 x252 office
www.move2northgeorgia.net

 

  

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