Not Found buyers | Garage with a Detached Home | Gwinnett County GA

LaneBailey.com

Garage with a Detached Home

Contact Lane

  • Browse Listings

    Take a look at what is currently on the market in the areas that interest you.

    Read More

  • Custom Listings

    Sign up to get notified when new listingscome on the market that meet your specs.

    Read More

  • What's YOUR Home Worth?

    Get a free Maximum Price Analysis to find out the current market value of your home.

    Read More
  • 1

Follow Me on Pinterest

Category Archives: buyers

Wayback Wednesday… Buyers and Sellers, Same Advice…

Wednesday, 29 June 2011 08:05
Written by
0 Comments
Deal Castle

Image via Wikipedia

I’m going WAY back this week.  I’m going back 3 years.  There are a LOT of real estate bloggers that can’t go back close to three years because their blogs didn’t exist that long ago.  I actually had been blogging a year by then.  [Horn-tooting over]

I had a series of posts earlier that year called “Into The Mailbag” where I answered on the blog, questions I got from my email.  It was fun, and still one of my favorite things to do… help consumers have a better experience while buying or selling property.  [As a side-note, feel free to shoot me questions for my blog… they are great post ideas]

These two posts were actually inspired by the Into The Mailbag series, but they were not actually asked by my readers or clients.  They were subjects that I always seemed to end up addressing with clients.  I called them “Not into the Mailbag“.

In Not into the Mailbag… Buyers… I posted about offering strategies for buyers.  Many seem to think (still) that offering some percentage of the listing price is the magical solution to getting a good deal and making sure to actually be able to get the property.  It isn’t so…

In Not into the Mailbag… Sellers… I posted about listing price strategies for sellers.  Some sellers try to game buyers by thinking that the listing price should be some magical percentage higher than they actually expect the home to bring.  That isn’t so, either…

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Duluth, GA, Market Report, May 2011

Tuesday, 28 June 2011 08:23
Written by
0 Comments
This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

Image via Wikipedia

Preliminary stats for Duluth, May, 2011 indicated that there were 585 properties on the market. Overall, there is about an 8.5 month supply of properties.  Sales in May were 71, compared to 76 a year earlier.  While it is better, the change is mostly seasonal.  Duluth is trailing Gwinnett County as a whole.

In the Under $200k arena, there were 244 listings in Duluth, GA, with about a 7 month supply.  The Absorption Rate as recent as December, 2009, was in the low 5s.  Sales for May were up sharply this year v last year (37 v 29), but flat compared to April, 2011 (37).  This segment could do really well, but sales need to strengthen a little more…

Between $200k and $400k, there are 154 listings for sale, and about 8.3 months of supply.  Absorption rates have similarly risen, dropped and then risen again, but have been moving the right way (down) since February.  Sales were way down compared to April, 2010 (18 v 29).  Duluth is a market that favors luxury, and this segment isn’t doing terrible…

From $400k to $600k, there were 60 homes on the market. The absorption rate was around 11.2 months.  Two months ago I wrote “Sales might not seem that strong, with only 5 units, especially compared to 8 last year, but I think the problem is with the inventory.  I’ll keep looking for an increase in sales.  Maybe April will show it.”  April did NOT show it.  Sales DIVED to just 1 unit.  May, on the other hand, brought in 10 sales.  There were 5 last year.  I really want to be over a dozen for June.

In the $600k to $800k arena, there were 52 listings, with about 10.4 months of supply.  Sales were 3 for May… 5 for May last year.  Month to month sales halved (3 v 8).  I was looking for somewhere around 10-12 sales for May to show me this segment was coming back… but I got less than half of that.  June will need to be stellar… 12-15.

In Duluth, GA, from $800k to $1m, there were 31 homes listed and approximately 11.6 months of inventory on the market.  The 2 sales recorded for May tied last year and dropped 1 from last month.  The AR actually looked better than it had in the last 18 months, but was one of the few to really increase for May.

Above $1m, there were 44 properties listed. The current absorption rate indicated about 18.9 months of inventory.  A couple of sales at this level could have a large impact on the Absorption Rates…  There were 7 sales in the Mar-May period this year, and 12 sales for the same time last year…  The whole summer was weak last year, but we should be posting half a dozen sales a month here.

Duluth, GA is a suburb of Atlanta, in the heart of Gwinnett County. It actually straddles the county line and has unincorporated portions in South Forsyth County. The population of Duluth is estimated as about 26,000 people as of 2008, but this doesn’t include unincorporated areas outside the city limits, but with a Duluth mailing address. It is also home to Sugarloaf Country Club, a PGA stop until recently.  Forbes Magazine rated Duluth 26th in their nationwide survey of the best places to move, and it is one of the wealthiest parts of Georgia.  It is also home to the Arena at Gwinnett Center (Home of the ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators) and the Atlanta Thrashers practice facility (the Duluth Ice Forum). There is a LONG list of celebrities and athletes that call Duluth home, largely because of the country clubs and proximity to Atlanta.

I have a page dedicated to Duluth Market Information.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

A Short Round-Up… Articles of Interest.

Monday, 27 June 2011 08:03
Written by
0 Comments
Real Estate = Big Money

Image by thinkpanama via Flickr

There are a lot of blog posts and articles over the course of an average week… and you can’t get to them all.  So, here are some home-related links that might be of interest.

Pruning Your Landscaping Costs

Cash Buyers Getting the Sweetest Deals?

“Shadow Inventory” Fading

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, May 2011

Thursday, 23 June 2011 08:15
Written by
0 Comments
This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Lawrenceville, May, 2011, indicate that there are 1573 properties on the market. Overall, there is about a 6.5 month supply of properties. In 2010, sales for May were at 215, so 262 sales is a pretty good increase, year over year.  Coupled with the slight decrease in inventory, things are looking up.  Normally at this time of year we should be seeing healthy increases in month to month sales.

For Lawrenceville, GA, Homes Under $200k, there are 1340 listings, with about an 6 month supply of homes.  Sales were way up from May 2010 (246 v 194).  This segment is easily the lion’s share of sales for the area.  Last month this was just a mid-pack price/area segment in Gwinnett County, but this month it is one of the strongest.  The big drop in Absorption Rate (AR) is due to strong sales, coupled with slightly lower inventories.

Between $200k and $400k, there are 198 listings for sale, and about 11.4 months of supply.  Oddly, this was one of the weakest segments in the county.  The 16 sales for May, 2011 were down from the 20 from May last year.  Sales should have been closer to 30 units for May, and I’d like to see over 30 for June.

From $400k to $600k, there are 28 homes on the market. The absorption rate is around 42 months.  However, with the level of sales in this segment, a couple of sales added or subtracted can have a HUGE impact.  Case in point is that we went from a 12 month AR to a 42 month AR because of a lack of sales for the last 2 months.  Just 5 months ago there was 87 months of inventory, though…

In the $600k to $800k arena, there are 4 listings, with about 12 months of supply. As with the next lower priced segment, a couple of sales makes a big difference and there was only 1 sale in the last three months.  I was looking for 2 sales in May… and there were none.  It has been quite a while since sales were strong here… the only saving grace is low inventory.

Between $800k and $1M, and Above $1M there are 3 homes listed (combined) and not enough sales data to give an accurate absorption rate. There has only been one sale in this range in the last 2 years (Aug, 2010), according to FMLS.

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.

I have a page dedicated to Lawrenceville Market Data.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Wayback Wednesday… How Much Earnest Money?

Wednesday, 22 June 2011 08:15
Written by
0 Comments
Blog entry

Image via Wikipedia

Two years ago I thought it would be good to post a little about Earnest Money… how much is enough, and what is it for?  It is actually a pretty common question, especially among first time home buyers.  But, even those that have been through the process a few times still often have a few questions, both buyers and sellers.

What is Earnest Money…

Basically, it is like a little insurance policy that the buyers are serious.  Buyers offer Earnest Money (EM) in order to show that they are serious (earnest) about the offer they are submitting.  In offering the EM, they are saying “we intend to follow through on this offer”.  The EM is credited to the buyer at the closing table, either toward their down payment or their closing costs.  If the sale doesn’t happen, and the cause of the failure is the buyer, the EM usually serves as “Liquidated Damages“.  In effect, it compensates the seller for the extra costs of removing their property from the market.

How much Earnest Money is enough?

 

An icon from the Crystal icon theme.

Image via Wikipedia

A good rule of thumb is 1% of the purchase price.  In most cases, the buyer will need to have a minimum of 3.5% at the closing table, so having less than a third of that wrapped up with the contract shouldn’t seem onerous.  In some institutional sales (generally foreclosures), the seller requires Cash Buyers to put up 10%.  Their thought is that if there is enough money in the bank to buy the property, coming up with a tenth of that shouldn’t be a problem.

 

Sellers always want to see more EM…  Buyers usually want to use less.

What happens to the Earnest Money?

If the sale closes, the EM is credited to the buyer at the closing table.  It goes toward closing costs, down payment or as a credit against the price (in any winning combination).  In that regard, more EM isn’t a hardship for buyers… up to a point.

If the sale doesn’t close, then there are more possibilities… all are ruled by the purchase contract.

  • If the property has an inspection issue, generally the EM is refunded to the buyer.
  • If the buyer is unable to qualify for financing, the contract will state the time-lines that will determine if the buyer or seller gets the EM.
  • If the buyer backs from the sale outside of the contract’s time-lines, the seller generally gets the EM.
  • If the seller misrepresents the property, even after the Due Diligence period, the buyer may have a claim on the EM.

A couple of final thoughts…

There ARE costs for a seller in removing a property from the market.  Seldom are they direct, though.  But, by removing a property from the market for a sale that ultimately fails, the seller may lose out on a buyer that WOULD be able to fulfill the purchase contract.  And, in many cases, the property may be stigmatized from going under contract and then coming back on the market… other buyers may assume that the reason the property was off the market was that there were inspection issues rather than financing issues on the part of the buyer.

As a bottom line, Earnest Money is an important, but often overlooked part of the initial offer, negotiations and the contract to purchase a home.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Copyright © 2009 - 2019 Garage with a Detached Home | Gwinnett County GA. All Rights Reserved. Created by Blog Copyright.