William M "Mack" Perry

The numbers are in for single family detached homes in Forsyth County. See how each of the three area performed as well as how the county did in the Forsyth County Market Upgate for October 2008.

Gwinnett County is divided into six market areas for real estate. To see how the county as a whole performed as well as each of the six market areas check out the Gwinnett County Market Update for October 2008.

Timing the real estate market is much like shooting an arrow at a target in a wind storm. Hitting the bulls-eye, or in this case, purchasing at the bottom of the market is just not going to happen with any level of certainty. Recently I heard that we will not know that we have hit the bottom until 3 to 4 months have passed by. This is the situation in the Atlanta Real Estate market as well as most other markets that I am aware of.

What Are The Current Trends

So how would you advise your clients that are looking to buy at the bottom of the market? Think back to you days in school. Many of the teachers used a bell curve for grading. This same bell curve applies to real estate. Sure there are cycles in real estate and we are on the low end of one now. So lets look at some trends in Atlanta. After approximately 18 months of year vs. year declines in closings, September 2008 showed a positive. (Remember that 3 to 4 month thingy) Explaining the reasoning for this increase is fairly simple. September figures for 2008 are compared to very weak figures from September 2007, but that is not the main reason. I think the main reasons for starting to see the Atlanta market pull out of the decline is that sales prices have adjusted over the last year and a half and mortgage money is at very favorable rates, actually interest rates are notoriously low. Couple these trends with the price of fuel declining by 50% recently and I think you could make an argument that we reached an "Analytical Bottom" in Atlanta. Now if the governments can get this unstable international financial environment on track we should all see the current market making the improvement that it deserves.

Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful announced the plan for Gwinnett County Trash Pick Up. This plan has been in the making since 2004 and is mandated by Georgia Law.

The experts called for a huge turnout for voting in the Gwinnett County Election 2008 so the decision was made to get in line early. Not only was there a benefit of being close to the front of the line but we had fun.