Lane Bailey - REALTOR & Car Guy

Normally, each week I pull a post from the past to highlight again. This week, I'm pulling three of them. They were all part of a series I did on Cheap Tips...

• Cheap Tips #1… Getting Ready to Sell
• Cheap Tips #2… Tip-Top Shape in 5 Steps
• Cheap Tips #3… Making a First Impression in 6 Steps

It has never been more important to make sure your house shows as well as possible. And for most sellers that I deal with (spelled n-o-t b-a-n-k-s), they don't have a bottomless pit of cash to spend while getting ready to sell their home. Finding efficient and inexpensive ways to make their home look WAY better than the foreclosure up the street are priorities. It doesn't matter if you are hiring an agent selling unrepresented (FSBO or For Sale By Owner), these tips will help out. Check out the posts from last year and feel free to drop some of your own tips in the comments.

I ask myself all of the time...

• How good are my market reports?
• Are they compelling?
• Why should a buyer or seller read MY market report instead of one of the hundreds of other reports out there?
• Am I providing value?
• What do consumers want in a market report?

I am specifically NOT leaving a link to one of my market reports in order for everyone to grade it. Rather, I would love to hear about what YOU think makes a great market report... whether you are an agent, broker, consumer or vendor.

What makes a great market report?

Those of us that live in the Atlanta Metro area are all pretty familiar with Buckhead. And I have lived here for a little over 22 years... but I have a connection that goes back WAY before that.

I lost my father in 1997, and he never lived here... but he did visit Buckhead... LONG ago. He visited me several times after I moved to Atlanta in 1989, but when he was still a kid, he was passing through Buckhead with a few teammates. He was a student at the Columbia Military Academy in Columbia, TN, and on the Rifle Team. They had just completed a competition in South GA, and were passing through on the way back to school. It would have been around 1946... and my father would have been around the tender age of 14.

The driver of the car stopped in Buckhead for a short break. While he was out of the car, my father made a quick run into one of the local bars (yes, there were bars there then, too...) and bought a beer. He was in his Military Academy uniform, and the bartender probably assumed that he was a soldier...

So my dad had his first beer in Buckhead.

True to his nature, we drove down to Buckhead one day... probably around 1995 or so... and he was able to show me the exact place that they were parked, as well as the bar where he got the beer. It wasn't a bar then, and now it doesn't even exist as a building, but we found an old picture... and he was right on point.

Oddly, my dad was never really a beer drinker. He joked that if he'd bought a 6-pack at that time, it might have been a lifetime supply.

Image by lane.bailey via Flickr

I have been pulling Gwinnett County Real Estate Market Data, and I'm not done with it yet. But, I have been seeing a few things.

• Listings are down markedly from where they would normally be. This can be either a positive or negative, depending on your outlook.
  • On the Plus Side, fewer listings means that Absorption Rates are better. There is less inventory to get sold... it tilts the table back toward sellers. It has been largely tilted toward buyers for quite a while.
  • On the Minus Side, it shows that there is pessimism in the market on the side of sellers. They aren't confident about the market. That lack of confidence has carried over to buyers... sales are also slowing.
• Sales are down... like I just mentioned. Even though Absorption Rates make the market look better... the sales just aren't there.
• Results are mixed. There are a few cities that are doing well... and there are a few price segments that are doing quite well. Others are VERY weak.

Related articles

• Norcross, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Buford, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Sugar Hill, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Let's take a break from Market Reports in Gwinnett County, GA (lanebailey.com)

Image by lane.bailey via Flickr

Kind of odd that for a "Wayback" post I would talk about an upcoming car show... But the show happens around the first Saturday in May each year... and so THIS Saturday is the day.

Smokerise Baptist Church is having their 11th Annual Smokerise Car Show on Saturday from 9am until 3pm. Registration runs from 9am until Noon... so there might be a few cars that don't show up until late. Judging runs from Noon until 3pm.

And check out this link for pictures from last year's show. There were some pretty cool rides on hand... and that was with showers threatening all day.

BTW, the other car show mentioned in that post, Mud4Blood, will be on May 28th. That one promises to rock, too...