Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, August 2012

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Market stats for Lawrenceville, GA, August, 2012, indicate that there were 901 properties on the market. Overall, there was about a 3.2 month supply of properties. In 2011, sales for August were at 269, so 308 sales was a good increase, year over year. Last month’s sales were at 276. Coupled with the decrease in inventory, things are looking pretty good. Normally the market picks up from January through about June-August. This month we are rocking, in fact, some are arguing that constrained inventories are still holding back sales or we would be looking even better.

For Lawrenceville, GA, Homes Under $200k, there are 736 listings, with about a 2.8 month supply of homes. Sales were up from August, 2011 (275 v 250), although sales may very well be off because of constrained inventories. Last year in this segment, there were over 1200 listings v just over 700 now. This segment is easily the lion’s share of sales for the area. With the 2.81 month A/R, it is solidly in Seller’s Market territory. The low Absorption Rate (AR) is due to very strong sales, coupled with dramatically lower listing inventories. Month over month sales were up from 262 in June.

Between $200k and $400k, there are 142 listings for sale, and about 6.7 months of supply. Oddly, this had one of the weaker segments in the county, now it’s mid-pack. The 29 sales for August, 2012 beat down the 19 from last year. as well as well above the 12 sales last month. But, we are close to Balanced Market territory here.

From $400k to $600k, there are 15 homes on the market (big drop from the 22 last month). The absorption rate is around 7.5 months. However, with the level of sales in this segment, a couple of sales added or subtracted can have a HUGE impact. There were 4 sales for August, the Absorption Rate has dropped from 78 months last June, through good, but sporadic sales. This is acting like a luxury market and the A/R is jumping all over the place… with just a few sales (A/R was 33 two months ago). While the long term trend was looking a little better, now it is still pretty choppy.

In the $600k to $800k arena, there are 5 listings, with about 15 months of supply. As with the next lower priced segment, a couple of sales makes a big difference and there were 0 sales in August. There were only 6 sales at this level in all of 2011, 2 of them were last January. There was 1 sale in January 2012 and 1 in May.

Between $800k and $1M, and Above $1M there are 3 homes listed (combined) and not enough sales data to give an accurate absorption rate. Until this month, there had only been one sale in this range in the last 3 years (Aug, 2010), according to FMLS. But, there was 1 sale in July, but none in August. It was over $1M, if that makes a difference…

Lawrenceville is in Gwinnett County, GA, just outside of Atlanta. As of the 2000 Census, there were 22,937 people in Lawrenceville, but that is only including people in the city limits, and there has been a lot of growth since 2000 in Gwinnett County (2008 estimates from the Census Bureau peg population around 29,000). It was incorporated in 1821. Lawrenceville is home to Central Gwinnett High School, and also has students that the Mountain View and Archer clusters. It is also home to Gwinnett Technical College and Georgia Gwinnett College. Another recent addition to Lawrenceville is that it is home to the Gwinnett Braves, playing at the Gwinnett Stadium on GA20 between I-85 and GA316. Possibly the most famous resident of Lawrenceville was Oliver Hardy. As a small boy he lived in Lawrenceville with his parents for a short time. Lawrenceville was also home to Junior Samples. Some of its other residents included Jeff Francouer, Brian McCann and Jennifer Ferrin.