Michelle Francis Realtor Buckhead Atlanta Homes for Sale & Lease

What don't we do might be a better question? In the past eight years that we've been property managers we've run into a variety of situations. Let's start with the basics. The typical items a property manger handles is leasing a home, organizing handyman or other folks for any items needed to be completed before or during a tenant-occupied home, collecting rents, paying bills as agreed to with the owners, figuring out how to solve problems in a house (are they user error or is something broken?), and making sure the property is being taken care of by the tenants, as well as annual maintenance items.

We also work with our owners to do updates to their homes between tenants. We keep our painter very busy, as we almost always need to paint in between tenants. Because we have a higher end property management business, we try to keep the houess in excellent condition such that we continue to make improvements over time. In one house, we've installed multiple rooms of new hardward, painted the entire inside and outside, put on new gutters, installed new appliances like dishwashers and HVAC systems. We find that a better taken care of home will attract better quality tenants. If a house is run down, it's typically not going to attract this same high quality tenant.

Sometimes there are less than pleasant surprises! The biggest one this year is the momma racoon and 3 babies that was taking up residence in one attic of a home we property manage. (And I thought rats were no fun!) Other activites that we do a lot and probably the most often is fix heating and A/C systems. Let's face it, if you are not comfortable, that's the first call I will get.

Our tasks also vary in that we have even fought a property tax valuation (and won by a lot), as well as signed refinancing mortgage paperwork for an out of town owner. These are much more rare. The best part is we've been able to build a strong network of vendors for almost every task that we need to help our owners. From handyman to painters to hardwood flooring to lawn care to HVAC repair folks to termite companies to wildlife control and beyond, we have a person to call in every instance. We have a group of good reasonable cost folks that I use as well on my personal property. And we share, in case you need a name, just give us a call or e-mail!

How is the current leasing market? Not so hot, but it still can be a good option. Tim Francis Realty has been leasing and property managing executive homes in Atlanta from Buckhead to Sandy Springs to Alpharetta for the past eight years. For a long time, there were no decent homes to lease. This is not the case today.

There are many options today for tre prospective executive home lessor. For the owners, the good news is the process that worked in the past of doing a rental application to verify credit, criminal and employment is still a very solid tool for today. There are a number of folks that are still excellent tenants, that are putting off buying or have a home to sell in another area of the country. We've still been able to find excellent tenants.

For the lessors, there are a lot more choices. Really, it's almost too many. A few years ago, I was showing homes and there were just 6-7 choices. Today, there can be many. My only caveat to prospective tenants is to make sure the owners of the home you are considering leasing are financially viable and not about to be foreclosed. (Unfortunately, that is happening more and more with some varied results. Today, the laws are changing and you might be able to stay through your lease term, but it's not gaurenteed.0 So, my advice is to check why the home is being leased. Is this the first time the home is being leased? Why does the owner want to lease the house? Is the home in foreclosure?

On the flip side, the landlords have the same challenges, too. Some tenants today have been foreclosed out of their homes and are looking to lease. Obviously, it needs to be seriously considered if the home is within their means to lease. If not, don't do it. No lease is better than a bad tenant you have to get rid of. It's still a decent option for owners who have a vacant house, one just needs the right tenants and they still exist!

One of the first lessons in elementary school is the seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Did you know that real estate, like almost all businesses has seasons too? With respect to buying and selling real estate, these seasons are varied in different areas of the USA.

For instance, in Altanta, when preparing to list a home for sale or to buy, there are two busier times of year, our Spring and Fall market. For us, the "Spring" market is Feb 15th through Memorial Day, and the "Fall" market is the week school starts back (early - mid August) through early November. While houses do sell all year long, there is statistical and consistent sales volumes to support these time frames.

First, with respect to Spring, the new leaves are starting to pop, the dogwoods are starting to bloom and the open houses are packed. Now, having said that, there are some folks that think it's great to peek at houses on a nice spring day, which doesn't turn into home buyers. However, we also have more folks seriously preparing for the next school year or ready to make a housing change. While some homes go to the closing table in June and July, a large part of the home search and getting under contract was done 30 to 60 days earlier!

Literally, again in the fall, my phone that is more quiet in the summer starts ringing off the hook the week school gets back in session. It invariably doubles in number of phone calls starting that week. People are back from summer holidays and ready to make big decisions and changes again. This continues in the fall until the pre-Thanksgiving season. Typically the weeks from mid-November until just after the Christmas holidays is slower in volume. The great news about this time of year though is that if folks are out looking there are very serious buyers who have to buy in the near timeframe. Otherwise, they would be getting ready for the holidays without this interuption.

On the flip side of this for leasing a home, the May through September market is the hottest, literally! The winter months are much more quiet and one can have longer vacancies in that timeframe verses the summer months. Whatever your needs, it's important to take advantage of the busier times to buy, sell and lease!

We've seen a lot of downward activity in terms of price and units sold in the Atlanta Metro area over the past 18 months. While there is possibly more shake out happening, there are some great indicators that the downward trends are moderating. For instance, April to May statistics in Atlanta by SmartNumbers showed a .4% reduction in price month to month for 2009. Also, even more interestingly, fewer homes have been listed, expired and withdrawn.

On the flip side we have started to see interest rates inching up from mid 4% to low to mid 5%. This makes a huge difference in what a home "costs" you. Let's look at an example. Say you are buying a home for $480,000 and taking a $400,000 mortgage. If the interest rate is 5%, just the interest payment alone is $2,000. Should the interest rate increase to 7% that same payment of just interest would climb to $2,800. As inflation is expected, this is probably not out of the question in the next year. Along that same line, if the interest rate climbed to 9%, the interest portion of the payment would be $3,600. None of these figures includes the principal or taxes payments would be fixed for all three of those interest rates.

To make money in real estate you need to buy low and great a great rate. If we are at, close to or just past the bottom of the market, the next biggest factor is the interest rate. This will dramatically affect what you can buy. Along these same lines, our supply of inventory is decreasing and demand is holding steady if not very slightly increasing. More and more agents I talk with have business and are going to closings. (This was not the case six months ago.)

Having said all this it only makes sense to buy if you DO NOT have a house to sell and can get a great deal on the house you buy as well as a great rate. If you do have a house to sell, sell it, rent for a temporary period and then buy when all the cash is in the bank.

It depends! Are you getting a good deal if you get over 25% off the asking price? It depends! Does it make sense to buy now? It depends. By now you get the idea, it takes a full evaluation to decide what makes sense this days. (It always did take a full evaluation, it just had gotten so good in some areas, folks were leaving out some steps in the process!)

As far as paying more than asking price, we have seen a trend here for the past 8+ months of foreclosures being offered at very low prices to draw out buyers. Let's walk through an example. In one case, a lovely newer home in Buckhead was offered for about $500k. The home next door had sold for over $650k just a month before. This particular home had been on the market for high $600's, when it was a short sale and the bank had turned down a number of qualified offers in the mid $600's within the past six months.

This foreclosure was offered at $495k. The home got four qualified bids within three days. The bank then asked everyone to come back with their "highest and best offer". All four parties re-bid. The home closed for $501k. This was and still would be considered a great deal. (It was six months ago!) Not many of these deals come around and when they do educated buyers should be ready to BUY! How unfortunate for the bank handling the home that they were not able to look at the original contract offers when it was in short sale and take a number that would have been over $150k HIGHER! This doens't include the carrying costs for the 6-9 months that they were not receiving a mortgage payment.

On the flip side of this is another scenario I recently heard about at our monthly mastermind meetings with other Atlanta boutique real estate firms. One of the agents shared that he had recently lost out on a new listing where he had suggested a listing price of $899k. He felt this was stretching the limit of what this Buckhead home was worth in today's challenging market and that a reasonable sales price would be low $800's. The home was listed by another agent who listed it at $1.199 Million. Even getting it at $900k is way beyond what the home should get in todays market in it's current condition, so paying 75% of listing price would still be too much!

So the answer to the question is price is a measure of value in terms of what the home is worth. It's very important to pull together all of the resources of CURRENT information you can before making any important decision to buy a home for personal or investment use. Current in my definition (as well as the mortgage appraisal basis) is within three to six months. Data from past that is not so relevant to today's market. It's a great time to work with an intelligent agent to determine what the Competitive Market Analysis yields and present that same data with your educated offer. What should you pay? It depends!