Six schools in Cobb and Fulton counties were among the metro area's top 10 performers on this year's high school graduation tests.
Scoring highest among metro schools with at least 50 test-takers was Cobb's Walton High School, with a 98.4 percent passing rate on the Georgia High School Graduation Tests.
Students in Georgia are required to pass all four tests, in mathematics, science, English language arts and social studies, to graduate.
Other top scorers, behind Walton High, were: two other Cobb County schools, Pope High and Lassiter High; Cherokee County's Etowah High School and Woodstock High; DeKalb School of the Arts; Fulton's Northview High, Chattahoochee High School and Alpharetta High; and Gwinnett County's Brookwood High.
Statewide data, showing improved passing rates on all four tests this year, was released by the Georgia Department of Education last month. School-by-school figures came out Monday.
Students have multiple chances to take the test; if they still fail, they can appeal to the state Board of Education for a waiver.
Find your school: Metro test scores
2009 High School Graduation Test Scores
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Contracts signed show a big jump, especially in the Northeast, another indicator the market may be bottoming
Low interest rates and an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers helped push pending home sales up for the third month in a row, another indication that the decline in the real estate market may be stabilizing, the National Association of Realtors reported on June 2.
The group's Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in April, rose 6.7%, to 90.3 from a reading of 84.6 in March, and is 3.2% above April 2008, when it was 87.5, the group said. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters (TRI) had expected the index would edge up to 85 from a reading of 84.6 in March. It was the biggest monthly jump since October 2001.
Pending home sales activity was greatest in the Northeast, where the index increased 32.6%, to 78.9, in April, 0.8% above a year ago. The only region that showed a decrease was the South, where the index declined 0.2%, to 93.0, 3.5% higher than a year ago. In the Midwest the index rose 9.8%, to 90.4, and is 11.1% above April 2008. In the West the index rose 1.8%, to 94.8, but is 2.9% below a year ago.
VERY FAVORABLE CONDITIONS
Lawrence Yun, the group's chief economist, said buyers are responding to very favorable market conditions, and while the total number of existing-home sales is expected to improve, there will be sharp local variations. "The market has already bottomed in some areas, but this is an unusual housing cycle with some areas improving rapidly while others languish or decline," Yun said in a news release.
Typically there is a one- to two-month lag between a contract and a done deal, so the index is a barometer for future existing-home sales.
Paul Dales, U.S. economist for Capital Economics in Toronto, said in a report that if the April increase in pending home sales is reflected fully in existing-home sales numbers, it would bring them to an annual rate of 5.1 million, a level last seen before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September.
"The pending home sales index has now improved for three months in a row, adding to the evidence that housing activity is finding a floor," Dales wrote. Nevertheless, even if existing-home sales were to rise to 5.1 million, they would still be 30% below their peak. Accordingly, even if activity is finding a floor, it is at staggeringly low levels."
Original article by Phil Mintz, Business Week. Click here to see original article.
SEE RELATED HOME BUYER ARTICLES
March stats in national Case-Shiller index offer hope, local analysts say.
Metro Atlanta home prices kept falling in March, but the pace of decline slowed a bit, according to a closely watched index.
Local prices slipped 1.5 percent in March from February, following several previous month-to-month declines of more than 2 percent. Still, on a year-to-year basis metro Atlanta home prices were down almost 16 percent from March 2008, dropping to levels not seen since late 2000, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.
But the long fall is over, argued Steve Palm, president of SmartNumbers, a real estate research firm in Marietta.
"Case-Shiller is a great survey, but you just can't read too much into that," he said. "We have every [home loan] closing tracked, so I know February was the bottom."
Buyers closed on 3,303 homes in April, up more than 20 percent from March although down 21 percent from a year ago, Palm noted.
During April, sale prices averaged $191,803, up 4.4 percent from March although down 18 percent from a year ago.
Residential real estate typically sees sales surge as spring slides into summer.
Whether April's data is more than a whiff of recovery depends on whether the spurt of demand can soak up huge inventories of unsold homes. That challenge is made greater as foreclosures and bank sales continue flowing into the market, dragging down the value of surrounding homes.
Half, if not more, of all recent resales have been bank or foreclosure sales, said Eugene James, division director for MetroStudy in Atlanta.
Inventory has started to drop, "but more importantly, the number of foreclosed listings are 13 percent of the total, which is lower than this time last year," James said. "These are good signs."
Nationally, home prices dropped 19.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to the Case-Shiller Index, which is based on a 20-city survey. They are down 32.2 percent since peaking in the second quarter of 2006.
Prices never soared in Atlanta the way they did in Las Vegas or Southern California. Prices here are down about 21 percent since the peak, compared to roughly 40 percent in Los Angeles and nearly 50 percent in Las Vegas.
Markets within each metro area vary widely as well. Some areas of Atlanta have already seen prices rise modestly. It's just that the broader region shares some problems cooked into the housing bubble.
Declining prices are the result of too many homes for sale, combined with financial trouble for many boom-time buyers.
That combination swelled the normal pool of homes for sale -- and that means the market will continue coping with the aftermath of the housing bubble, said Jim Crawford, a Roswell-based Realtor with Re/Max of Greater Atlanta.
"The Atlanta market, due to the no-money-down financing -- has been extremely difficult," he said. "It may remain that way in the near term."
One house's ups, downs
The metro Atlanta housing market has seen remarkable highs and lows. Here is how the sale price on one house in Clayton County, in zip code 30236, has fluctuated in recent years, based on numbers from SmartNumbers.
> The house, located in the Lake Spivey Country Club area, originally sold for $216,000 in 1993 as new construction.
> The first three times the property changed hands, the price went up. It sold in June 2005 for $343,000, a 59 percent jump from the original sale price; in September 2005 for $440,000, a 28 percent increase; and in January 2006 for $480,000, another 9 percent increase.
> In November 2007, with the housing boom over, prices metro-wide dropping and Clayton County's school system woes coming to a boil, the house went on the market for $334,400, a 30 percent decrease from the previous sale price.
> Within the month the asking price was cut 18 percent, to $274,900 . The listing expired on Nov. 30 and the house had not sold.
> In early 2009, the house, then bank-owned, was relisted for $251,900 .
> The house sold in April at auction, in fairly good condition and after 533 days on the market, for $136,500.
Article By Michael E. Kanell, Michelle E. Shaw
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
See Related Posts:
Atlanta's Home Prices Drop 11.2% But Still Better Than Most Other Places
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The most common questions I am asked are: Is the market getting any better and is activity picking up? The problem in providing an answer is that is really depends on the day you ask. Over the last 6 - 9 months, there really has been any consistent trend in the market. Some weeks see lots of activity and interest while others have no activity. It has been this lack of consistency that has made this such a difficult market.
On the positive side, we have low interest rates, an $8000 federal tax credit for first time buyers, an $1800 Georgia state tax credit for all buyers and a buyer's market. On the negative side, high unemployment, low consumer confidence and a credit crunch have kept buyers from jumping back into the market.
To get a clear picture of the overall Atlanta market, I have broken down the sales trends for 2006 through April 2009. The chart below shows the trends for all of the Atlanta using the FMLS data for single family homes.
EXPLANATION OF CHART
This chart shows the number of homes sold in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (thru April). 2007 and 2008 are also broken down into Jan-July an Aug-Dec time frames. The last column represent the the number of currently active listings and their average asking price. The actual data for each bar and line is shown at the bottom of the chart.
ANALYSIS
Units Sold
2006 saw 46,437 homes sold with that number increasing to 58,115 in 2007. We know that that market slowdown began in summer of 2007. This is clear by looking at the breakdown of 2007 sales: 37,497 units from Jan-July and 20,618 units from Aug-Dec. Total units sold in 2008 declined to 46,677 with the second half of the year seeing only 18,178 homes sold. Thru April 30, 2009, only 11,631 homes have sold so far. If we extrapolate this for the entire year, 2009 will see approximately 35,000 homes sold. This is approximately 25% less homes sold than 2008 and about 40% less than the peak homes sold in 2007.
There are currently 44,351 homes on the market. Using a total absorption of 35,000 homes for the year translates into the metro-Atlanta area having 15.3 months of inventory. A balanced market is typically in the 7-9 month range of inventory.
Average Sales Price and Average List Price
In 2006, the average sold price was $264,000. This increased slightly to $265,000 in 2007. The average sold price peaked in the first half of 2007 at $269,000. By 2008, the average sold price was down to $229,000. For the first four months of 2009, the average sold price has fallen to $184,000.
The average list price in 2006 was $271,000. The difference between the average list and average sold in 2006 was 2.7%. By 2007, the gap between list and sold price increased to 3.4%. In 2008, the gap had further increased to 6.1%. For the first four months of 2009, the gap reached an amazing 20.0%.
The continued growth in the gap between list and sold prices clearly shows that while the number of homes sold has slowed dramatically, the pressure on price has increased. Even though the average list price is down considerably from the high points in the market, sellers are going to have to price their homes attractively in order to capture the lower number of buyers.
Average Days on Market
This data is not shown on the chart but in the table below:
2006: 76
Jan - Jul 2007: 84
Aug-Dec 2007: 91
2007: 87
Jan-Jul 2008: 95
Aug-Dec 2008: 91
2008: 94
2009: 98
As we can see, the average days on market has increased from to 76 to a current 98 days.
Please feel free to contact me with questions about your specific market or community. You can request a FREE home market analysis here.
Click here to read original post.
The most common questions I am asked are: Is the market getting any better and is activity picking up? The problem in providing an answer is that is really depends on the day you ask. Over the last 6 - 9 months, there really has been any consistent trend in the market. Some weeks see lots of activity and interest while others have no activity. It has been this lack of consistency that has made this such a difficult market.
On the positive side, we have low interest rates, an $8000 federal tax credit for first time buyers, an $1800 Georgia state tax credit for all buyers and a buyer's market. On the negative side, high unemployment, low consumer confidence and a credit crunch have kept buyers from jumping back into the market.
To get a clear picture of the Roswell/Alpharetta market, I have broken down the sales trends for 2006 through April 2009. The chart below shows the trends for Roswell and Alpharetta, Georgia (Fulton County only) combined.
EXPLANATION OF CHART
This chart shows the number of homes sold in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (thru April). 2007 and 2008 are also broken down into Jan-July an Aug-Dec time frames. The last column represent the the number of currently active listings and their average asking price. The actual data for each bar and line is shown at the bottom of the chart.
ANALYSIS
Units Sold
2006 saw 2475 homes sold with that number increasing to 3028 in 2007. We know that that market slowdown began in summer of 2007. This is clear by looking at the breakdown of 2007 sales: 2034 units from Jan-July and 994 units from Aug-Dec. Total units sold in 2008 declined to 2077 with the second half of the year seeing only 734 homes sold. Thru April 30, 2009, only 388 homes have sold so far. If we extrapolate this for the entire year, 2009 will see approximately 1200 homes sold. This is approximately 43% less homes sold than 2008 and about 60% less than the peak homes sold in 2007.
There are currently 1961 homes on the market. Using a total absorption of 1200 homes for the year translates into the Roswell/Alpharetta, Georgia area having 20.2 months of inventory. A balanced market is typically in the 7-9 month range of inventory.
Average Sales Price and Average List Price
In 2006, the average sold price was $411,000. This increased to $421,000 in 2007, an increase of 2.5%. The average sold price peaked in the first half of 2007 at $427,000. By 2008, the average sold price was down to $417,000. For the first four months of 2009, the average sold price has fallen to $376,000.
The average list price in 2006 was $423,000. The difference between the average list and average sold in 2006 was 2.9%. By 2007, the gap between list and sold price increased to 5.1%. In 2008, the gap had further increased to 5.5%. For the first four months of 2009, the gap reached 7.5%.
The continued growth in the gap between list and sold prices clearly shows that while the number of homes sold has slowed dramatically, the pressure on price has increased. Even though the average list price is down considerably from the high points in the market, sellers are going to have to price their homes attractively in order to capture the lower number of buyers.
Average Days on Market
This data is not shown on the chart but in the table below:
2006: 55
Jan - Jul 2007: 66
Aug-Dec 2007: 76
2007: 70
Jan-Jul 2008: 80
Aug-Dec 2008: 88
2008: 83
2009: 94
As we can see, the average days on market has increased from to 55 to a current 94 days.
Please feel free to contact me with questions about your specific market or community. You can request a FREE home market analysis here.
Click here to read original post.
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I specialize in North Atlanta and cover these counties (and cities): Cobb (Marietta/Kennesaw/Acworth/Smyrna), Cherokee (Woodstock) and N. Fulton (Roswell/Alpharetta). I work with buyers and sellers.
ActiveRain Corp. is not responsible for the accuracy of the site's content (which is written by members of the ActiveRain Real Estate Network) and does not endorse the views of the real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and others listed here.
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