Category Archives: sugar hill

Sugar Hill, GA, Market Report, April 2013

Monday, 20 May 2013 10:27

Written by Lane Bailey

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This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Sugar Hill, GA , April, 2013 indicates that there were 96 homes on the market. down 1 from last month. Overall, there is about an 3.4 month supply (4.5 last month). There were 26 sales, compared to 33 last month and 32 last April. Of course, then there were 152 listings on the market.

For Sugar Hill homes priced under $200k, there were 56 listings, with about 2.9 months supply. There were 18 sales this April, a little below last year for the same time (25). There were 24 sales last month. Inventories have been fluid, rising and falling. This time of year we often see a slight increase in listings… but we are very low. In fact, sales may be stifled by lack of inventory. Things have been a little choppy, though… up one month, down the next, then back up.

Sugar Hill Listings between $200k and $400k, there are 36 listings for sale, and about 4.3 months of supply. Last April there was a 12.3 month supply. There were 7 sales then, this year there were 8. Last month had 9 sales. That makes four of the last five months look pretty strong. We are back in Seller’s Market territory here.

For listings in the $400k to $600k range, there were 2 homes on the market. The absorption rate was around 6.0 months, but with 0 sales this month, it is tough to calculate accurately. Obviously, a sale or two could make a BIG difference. I’ve finally started to see some consistency here. Hopefully we’ll have a little more action during the rest of the Spring selling season.

In the $600k to $800k, $800k to $1m and Above $1m (combined), the sales are too inconsistent to have a solid read on, but there were 2 homes listed for sale in these price ranges. No sales have been recorded in the last 2+ years.

Sugar Hill, GA is a suburb of Atlanta in Gwinnett County. The population is 2000 was 11,399, but that only included the area inside the city limits. The name comes from a bag of Sugar that spilled on a hill while in transit between Cumming and the railroad in Buford. And while it is actually a big market, it is in the shadows of Lawrenceville, Duluth and Suwanee… which all are nearby. That also makes it a great location, as it is close to everything that Gwinnett County, GA has to offer.

I have a page dedicated to Sugar Hill Market Data.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Atlanta Metro Home Values – Interactive chart

Garbage In… Garbage Out…

Wednesday, 01 May 2013 09:05

Written by Lane Bailey

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Garbage Only (Photo credit: Peter Kaminski)

It is an axiom among data types… Garbage in = garbage out. you can’t derive good data from bad. If you put garbage into the system, you are destined to get garbage back out.

MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data is the same way. Real Estate Agents have to use strange and unique search patterns to overcome the bad data put in by other real estate agents… in some cases because the inputting agents are lazy, in others because they are incompetent… or a combination. Mix in some “over-confidence” because they “have been doing this forever and don’t you dare think you can tell them what’s what” for good measure.

In this case, I’m talking about school district data.

Some of Butte’s School Buildings (1915) (Photo credit: Butte-Silver Bow Public Library)

One of the main motivators people have in looking at a certain area will revolve around picking the best schools they can find. In fact, the last areas to go down in value and the first to begin to rise are those with solid schools. And the areas with solid schools had less of a slide to begin with.

Getting the schools right is a BASIC part of our jobs.

Unfortunately, we can’t rely on the seller (home owner) to know which schools serve their area. Unless they currently have children in all of the schools, their data may be out of date. Sometimes, even when they DO have kids in school.

In the case of one local area, there was a re-districting that went into effect in June, 2010. A new High School, Middle School and Elementary School were added in the area. But, we are almost 3 years into this change.

You’d think that agents would have a handle on it…

Wheelwright’s tools (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, you’d be wrong. In fact, you’d be wrong 30% of the time. Yep, out of 210 listings in this High School cluster, 64 of them had bad school data. Usually one wrong school out of three… sometimes two. I didn’t look to see if they were in the wrong cluster totally… The one area that really surprised me was that 2 of them were new construction.

One of the tools that EVERY agent needs to use is the online data from school systems. Granted, some school systems are a decade behind the times on getting districting maps online, but that is NOT the case here in Gwinnett.

But often, agent think they know the schools (since they have been an agent in this area since it was farmland) or the look to see what other agents have put in for the neighborhood… or worse yet, they look at the schools listed by Trulia (which can even be in the wrong county). So, they don’t spend 10 minutes checking online.

I expected that with the agents listing bank-owned properties over the last few years. They were churning their listings, not caring about serving the needs of buyers. But as we have moved back into an era of private sellers again, I’m a little surprised at how few agents have the right info…

And Where Does This Go?

WRONG WAY (Photo credit: CarbonNYC)

First… as a seller, how many buyer searches are you missing out on because your agent doesn’t have basic information like schools entered properly? Buyer search by school… And they BUY based on schools they search.

Second… if they aren’t paying attention to things like schools, what other details are they not noticing? I run across poor descriptions, bad pictures and other faulty data all of the time.

Third… how much actual money or time are YOU wasting, as a seller, while buyers skip past your home because the data isn’t correct? The average days on market for homes listed in this cluster over the last year with the RIGHT info is 86. The average for homes listed with the WRONG data is 108. Do YOU want to spend an extra 22 days on the market… almost an extra full house payment?

Fourth… and this is the one I don’t have the ability to find data for… how many times were homes put under contract, only to fall out of contract when the buyers discovered that they weren’t in the school system they thought? How much missed market time was there?

Want to know more? Give Lane a call…

Sugar Hill, GA, Market Report, March 2013

Monday, 22 April 2013 11:19

Written by Lane Bailey

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Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Sugar Hill, GA , March, 2013 indicates that there were 110 homes on the market. down 1 from last month. Overall, there is about an 4.5 month supply (4.8 last month). There were 33 sales, compared to 25 last month and 26 last March. Of course, then there were 153 listings on the market.

For Sugar Hill homes priced under $200k, there were 63 listings, with about 3.6 months supply. There were 24 sales this March, a little below last year for the same time (25). There were 16 sales last month. Inventories have been fluid, rising and falling. This time of year we often see a slight increase in listings… but we are very low. In fact, sales may be stifled by lack of inventory. Christmas slowed things down, as usual, but it’s time to pick up again.

Sugar Hill Listings between $200k and $400k, there are 43 listings for sale, and about 6.8 months of supply. Last March there was a 30 month supply. There was 1 sale then, this year there were 9. Last month had 8 sales. That makes two of the last three months look pretty strong. We are almost in a Balanced Market here.

For listings in the $400k to $600k range, there were 4 homes on the market. The absorption rate was around 6.0 months, but with 0 sales this month, it is tough to calculate accurately. Obviously, a sale or two could make a BIG difference. I’ve finally started to see some consistency here. Hopefully we’ll have a little more action during the rest of the Spring selling season.

In the $600k to $800k, $800k to $1m and Above $1m (combined), the sales are too inconsistent to have a solid read on, but there were 0 homes listed for sale in these price ranges. No sales have been recorded in the last 2+ years.

I have a page dedicated to Sugar Hill Market Data.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Atlanta Metro Home Values – Interactive chart

It’s Even In the BAD School Districts Now…

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 08:01

Written by Lane Bailey

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And no, I am NOT going to volunteer which ones those are…

Gwinnett County, Georgia (Photo credit: Dougtone)

Today during our weekly brokerage meeting, my broker was talking about builder activity. South Forsyth County has been going nuts for a few months now. And since inventory has been so low and demand so high, he mentioned that it’s even spilling over into bad school clusters…

Frankly, I got a kick out of that.

But, it is also VERY true. We’ve been seeing inventories drop like a rock in a lot of pockets. Interest rates are trolling along at unbelievably low levels and prices are still suppressed by short sale and foreclosure activity. Gwinnett is moving in a strong direction… Forsyth has been there for a while and we have watched as the builders moved further up-market… now it seems like there is a LOT of activity in the $500k range. A year ago, it would have been suicidal for a builder to put up anything at that price… now they are pre-selling half of their lots before getting a model built.

In fact, one community opened in the last few days and had people CAMPING out over night to be first in line to reserve houses… Real estate is such a deal right now that it is getting BLACK FRIDAY attention.

Rural public high school, Walkertown, Forsyth County, NC (Photo credit: Government & Heritage Library, State Library of NC)

I need to be quick to point out that Gwinnett isn’t quite as far along as Forsyth in that regard… GREAT if you are a buyer, and not too bad if you are a seller. Forsyth had a little advantage in that there weren’t as many foreclosures as in Gwinnett. Gwinnett is also a much larger market, so it takes more to turn it. But we are seeing dramatic decreases in “wholesale” activity (foreclosures) as well as distressed properties like short sales. At the same time, “retail” sales are surging and inventories are dropping.

So, while prices are still struggling a little, they are much stronger than the last few years, and often, well prices homes are pulling in multiple offers… even over listed price.

If you want to have a conversation about YOUR Gwinnett County home, give me a call.

Sugar Hill, GA, Market Report, February 2013

Friday, 29 March 2013 10:28

Written by Lane Bailey

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Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Sugar Hill, GA , Febuary, 2013 indicates that there were 111 homes on the market. Flat from last month. Overall, there is about an 4.8 month supply (4.3 last month). There were 25 sales, compared to 16 last month and 19 last February. Of course, then there were 150 listings on the market.

For Sugar Hill homes priced under $200k, there were 69 listings, with about 4.4 months supply. There were 16 sales this February, a little below last year for the same time (18). There were 13 sales last month. Inventories have been fluid, rising and falling. This time of year we often see a slight decrease in listings… but we are already very low. In fact, sales may be stifled by lack of inventory. Christmas slowed things down, as usual, but it’s about time to pick up again.

Sugar Hill Listings between $200k and $400k, there are 37 listings for sale, and about 5.6 months of supply. Last February there was a 12.3 month supply. There was 1 sale then, this year there were also 8. Last month had 2 sales. That makes two of the last three months look pretty strong. We are in a slight Seller’s Market here again when the Holiday slowdown is over.

For listings in the $400k to $600k range, there were 5 homes on the market. The absorption rate was around 5.0 months, but with 1 sale this month, it is tough to calculate accurately. Obviously, a sale or two could make a BIG difference. I’ve finally started to see some consistency here. Hopefully we’ll have a little more action during the Spring selling season.