Effective on March 1st, the issue between Gwinnett and 15 of its cities has been upgraded by the State of Georgia.  The 15 cities and Gwinnett are now listed with the state as No Longer Qualified Local Governments.

The cities are: Auburn , Berkeley Lake, Buford, Dacula, Duluth, Grayson, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Loganville, Norcross, Rest Haven, Snellville, Sugar Hill, Suwanee and Braselton.

At issue are parallel services being offered by Gwinnett County and the individual cities.  Things like police services…  Several of the cities have local police departments, but Gwinnett County Police (one of the largest departments in the state) patrols the same areas.

In effect, the various cities and the county need to come to agreement on exactly who is going to provide which services in which locations.  And they need to do it quickly.  While the cities and the county are on this list, none are eligible to receive state grants, permits or loans.  Stimulus money could be held up or lost if there is a continued stalemate between the parties.

Hopefully they will be able to get this worked out prior to the end of the month and we can be restored before April.

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I have spent some of the last week updating the Local Market Explorers for Buford, Duluth, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Norcross, Sugar Hill and Suwanee.  I have added new market reports for January.

Tags: buford, buyers, duluth, gwinnett, lawrenceville, lilburn, market report, norcross, sugar hill, suwanee, website  |  Posted under all posts, buford, buyers, duluth, gwinnett, lawrenceville, lilburn, market report, norcross, real estate, sugar hill, suwanee, website  |    View Comments

Last year about this time I had the opportunity to participate in the VAR Blog Brawl for real estate blogs.  There was some pretty tough competition, and it really made me stretch and elevate my game.  And it was a lot of fun.  Part of the fun for me was personally knowing a lot of the bloggers in the Brawl.

I hope that they sponsor the event again sometime.  Here is the first post from last year… announcing my entry.

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If you are eligible for the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, or the Move-Up Buyer Tax Credit? If so, time is ticking away…  Properties have to by under contract BY April 30th, 2010.  This means that they contract’s Binding Agreement date can’t be later than that.  Offering on a property on April 30th could lead to missing the deadline.  In fact, with many bank owned properties, offers should be in in March in order to make sure negotiations are completed prior to the deadline.

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Of my more popular posts, those dealing with ways to increase home values have been near the top.  And being a Garage Guy, the posts I’ve written about increasing home value by making a cooler garage have done quite well, too.  I get a lot of searches for cool garages and cool garage stuff… as well as making a better garage.

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