About Hall County, GA

Is it okay? Can I toot my own horn please???
Airing tonight 10/21/09 on Their Evening Edition. Tune in if you wish!

Marina at full pool! What a difference, beaches and sand bars could be seen from this location last year!

Last October I was interveiwed by The Weather Channel due to our severe drought and how that would impact Real Estate Values. It was not a pretty picture as we were 18 feet below full pool at that time.

I contacted The Weather Channel last week when we hit full pool to tell them the good news (we rose 18 feet in one year) and that they should do another story about Lake Lanier hitting full pool and what good news that is for all concerned. Well, they contacted me and today at Aqualand they are conducting an interview with myself and Len Jernigan of Aqualand Marina , to talk about Real Estate now and Business now with the lake being full. Should be a much happier story!

The only bad news is the average Lake Home Sales price declined 25% from 7/08 - 10/08 as compared to the same time this year. But the GOOD news is that we have seen 2 times, yes double the number of sales in this same period on Lake Lanier and we have 19 homes pending, of which 30% went under contract in October and 80% went under contract in the months of September and October combined.

I plan to tell them that we have 3 things in our favor, dock permits being gone by the end of October, water levelsabove full pool and the market seems to be stabilizing.

I also plan to tell them that Lake Levels seem to be tied to the DOW interestingly enough, whether that little tidbit will make the cut, who knows!

So I will let you know how it all turned out and when they plan to air the show.

Have a great day everyone. Remember if you need a current value on your Lake Lanier home you know who to call.

Mary Thompson

Georgia Lake levels are up. But that is not the end of the good news. It appears that Lake Lanier, the largest lake East of the Mississippi will maintain higher lake levels in the future. We at all Mountain Realty have a great 3 bedroom 2 bathroom Home on the lake. It is in a cove and has a dock. It comes with a pontoon boat. Asking price is 349,900. Why so low. previous years have seen low lake levels and have depressed this market. You now have an opportunity to own on this great lake and have a clean and updated home. Contact us for more information

Lake Lanier is an Army Corp of engineers lake. It is the largest man made lake East of the Mississippi. It has also been the subject of water wars between Georgia, Alabama. and Florida.

At the heart of the wars is the use of water from the Lake for the City of Atlanta. When the Lake was first built use by Atlanta was NOT included in the plan. This is a big oops! Recently the courts have ruled that Atlanta has 3 years to find an alternate supply of water. What does this all mean?

Well the fight has been going on for 22 years at least and I am not sure it will end in 3 years. Georgia is trying to get Atlanta included in the use of the water. This makes total sense to me. But then who knows. In the end I think what will happen is new water sources will be added. They are long over due.

What this means for the folks on Lake Lanier in the long run is , I think, 100 percent good. New water sources will place less demand on the water from the lake. This in turn will keep lake levels up and mean that folks who own on the lake will see their property worth more due to the high lake levels and the ability to boat.

This is a great time to buy on Lake Lanier as folks are still recovering from the drought and the low lake levels. We have a great home now listed on the lake for 359,900. It is 3133 Lee Circle FMLS # 3948229. There is a dock as well as a pontoon boat that comes with the deal !!!

Have you ever hung out around the County Courthouse on the first Tuesday of the month?

The County Courts CAN make for some great people watching on any day of the month (ok, any weekday...), but the first Tuesday on the month here in Georgia is a little more special. There are deals to be had... property deals.

OK, maybe there are deals to be had. Honestly, there wasn't much action on the foreclosure auction front... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The the tax record on the County's website said that the sale would take place at 8:30am...

First up were the tax sales. They started a moment after 10:00am. There were six parcels to be auctioned off. Five of them sold... and might have been good deals. The final property was unable to attract a bid, and there were a few chuckles from the assembled thirty or so people. None started above $1500 (except the last one) and the final bids ranged from just under $10,000 to just under $30,000... I wasn't there for those properties and hadn't done any background, so I don't know if they were good deals or not...

A few minutes later, some attorneys started showing up for the foreclosure auctions. The banks involved had predetermined their minimum pricing.

Each lawyer would stake out his spot and begin "the chant." It consisted of the legalese that they were required to read before accepting bids. They were quietly "speed-talking" the required verbiage in their own space... bidders wanding near to try to figure out which property they were representing. They would each briefly mention the address of the property and the tax ID... before anyone knew what they were doing there.

It was largely the same crew of bidders, even though there was no actual bidding...

• Mr. Bored This guy would mention his bid as if it was bothersome. As he was outbid, he would slightly top the new bid... trying to sound like he would rather be anywhere but here...
• Miss Aggressive She actually punched the air with several of her bids. It was funny as she outbid Mr. Bored... the juxtaposition between her excitement and his "duty to respond"...
• Mr. Business He effectively combined boredom and excitement... It was obviously a duty for him to bid, he seemed to not care about the outcome. At the same time, he was quick to react...
  
• Mrs. Pre-occupied Perhaps she couldn't be bothered to bid. She would bid... but it just seemed that she was annoyed that the auctioneer expected her to stop her other conversations to pay attention...

In the end, I'm sure I missed some of the sales. There were anywhere from 2-7 lawyers chanting at any given time. But the one thing I did notice... nothing was sold. One of the properties that I was familiar with was going for something between two and a half and three times what it would fetch on the open market...

Deals DO come up at auction. But, you have to know the properties and what you are willing to spend to get them... BEFORE you get there. And you have to know the players... who will be auctioning off the property.

I really hope this makes the featured blog as I want to pay it forward to a special business man.

Steve Burge with www.LakeLanier.com.

I am wearing my Radio Show Host hat rather than my Appraiser Hat with this post.

The news is so depressing these days and aren't we all sick of the big companies with their hands out for government bucks that we are paying for in taxes, with NO thanks or appreciation of any kind?

Well, today I was really taken back by a large company right here on Lake Lanier paying it forward to us. www.lakelanier.com Steve Burge, the owner of this very successful online company is helping a budding radio show www.lakefrontradio.com with some needed sponsorship to keep is alive and well.

The hosts of the show are yours truly and my husband Chuck Thompson. We have been fortunate enough to interview some really interesting people, from Shark Divers, to a 73 year old female aerial pilot and photographer, to Lake Lanier Islands, Navy Pier out of Chicago, a Navy Captain, Treasure Hunting Diver - Mel Fisher's grandson, etc.

If you want to take advantage of the now HUGE exposure we will be getting on this show due to www.lakelanier.com sponsoring and placing our show on their website, you too can become a sponsor and I guarantee you it will be worth the ride along with us!

We want to sincerely Thanks Steve at www.lakelanier.com for placing his confidence, financial and moral support behind our Radio Show. It makes me feel good about Big Businesses who help the little guy.

We cannot thank you enough!

Chuck & Mary Thompson - Your Hosts