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Lilburn, GA Market Report, September 2011

Monday, 17 October 2011 08:00
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This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

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Market stats for Lilburn, GA, September, 2011, indicates that there were 427 properties on the market (as of September 30th). Overall, there was about an 8.7 month supply of properties and 44 properties that closed (sold) in September.  It was an increase from last year’s sales (35) and a decrease from August, 2011 (48 sales).  The Absorption Rate notched up slightly, again.  Unfortunately, Lilburn is among the weakest of Gwinnett County, GA, cities I track.  But, at 8.66 months of inventory, it isn’t nearly as bad as it had been just a few months ago (14.35 months of inventory in Feb, 2011, for example).

In the sub-$200k arena, there were 309 listings, with about an 7.7 month supply with 35 sales.  This represents most of the sales in the market area.  Sales decreased slightly from last month (37), and were up  slightly from last year (32).  We are sitting almost exactly where we were last year at this time.  That isn’t a terribly bad thing, although this segment needs to play catch up a little with some other areas of Gwinnett County.

Between $200k and $400k, there are 108 listings for sale, and about 12.5 months of supply.  This segment had been quite weak for months, and has stalled a little.  There were 9 sales compared to just 2 last year.  While it isn’t strong compared to some other areas, it is WAY better than last year at this time.  This segment really needs to get back into single digits… but, Lilburn has never been seen as a luxury market.

From $400k to $600k, there are just 4 homes on the market. The absorption rate is 6.0 months. There were no sales in this segment from December through February, but there were 2 in March, which really turned the segment around, followed by 1 sale for April.  May posted 2 sales, 1 sale in June, 2 in July and none in August or September.

From $600k to $800k, $800k to $1M and Above $1M, there are 6 listings (combined), but too few sales to have any sort of reliable number of months of inventory.  March posted the first sale since August, 2010.  It was in the $600-$800k range. One of the listings is above $1M and one between $800k and $1M, and there is no market activity in the last 12 months for those ranges…

Lilburn is in Gwinnett County, GA, just outside of Atlanta. As of the 2000 Census, there were 11,307 people in Lilburn, but that is only including people in the city limits, and there has been a lot of growth since 2000 in Gwinnett County. It was incorporated in 1910. Lilburn is home to Parkview High School, and also has students that the Brookwood, Berkmar and Meadowcreek clusters. It is also home to Killian Hill Christian School, Providence Chrisian Academy, St. John Neumann Catholic School and Parkview Christian School. Possibly the most famous resident of Lilburn is General Beauregard Lee, a groundhog with a better winter prediction record that Puxatawnee Phil up in PA. Dominique Wilkins, formerly of the Atlanta Hawks also lives in Lilburn.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

I have a page dedicated to Lilburn Market Data.

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The Case For Home Ownership

Friday, 14 October 2011 08:00
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I believe in an ownership society.  And while I will easily concede that owning a home isn’t for everyone, I would argue that home ownership SHOULD be encouraged… and is a cornerstone of America’s society.

There are a few things in particular that make home ownership valuable…

  • Personal Stability
  • Community Stability
  • Long-Term Financial Planning

There are a variety of ways that home ownership fosters Personal Responsibility.  To begin with, it is easier to put down roots in a community when you know that the lease isn’t coming up in a year or two, leading to a possible move.  Part of putting down those roots may include making friends with the neighbors, volunteering at school, getting involved with a local church or other community organization.

That leads directly into how home ownership increases Community Stability.  The very essence of community stability is personal involvement.  The community will naturally be more stable if the people that live there volunteer for local organizations and get to know each other.  Neighbors looking out for each other and helping each other are a community. And people that have decided to stay in a community for the long term worry about things like school quality, taxes and parks… quality of life issues.

A side benefit is Long-Term Financial Planning.  I won’t get into things like comparative tax benefits… those could change… but one thing that is less likely to change is the payment.  With a fixed rate loan, the payments are almost set for the duration.  There will be minor changes due to fluctuations in tax rates or insurance, but the larger portion of the payment, the principle and interest, won’t change over the duration.

 

The downside of owning a home is liquidity…  If job or life changes require a move, it may be difficult to quickly react during some phases of the market.  And there have been a LOT of people that experienced that during the recent (and possibly continuing) housing bust.

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Wayback Wednesday… How ’bout Those Housing Starts

Wednesday, 12 October 2011 08:00
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Old photo of the estate Hollander Höfe (Höben)...

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Three years ago I published a little article about how housing starts were at their lowest level since 1991…  There were 820,000 starts in September of 2008.  And to me, that was a good thing.  If there is too much inventory, making more inventory isn’t the best idea.

Well… that was three years ago.  In August of 2011 (the last month with available numbers that I could find) there were 571,000 starts.  And furthermore, aside from a couple of bumps, starts have been bouncing along under 600,000 starts since December of 2008.  And I STILL say that it is a good thing.

Inventory is WAY more balanced than it was, even compared to just a year ago.  However, values are still well below where they should be. And there are still the persistent rumors that “the banks” are going to release millions of foreclosed homes that are “in the pipeline”.  Personally, I have been discounting those rumors for a few years… because the same rumors have been around for several years.  For a couple of years now, there have been rumors alluding to “shadow inventory” that was 3-6 months from the market.

So, if inventory is balancing, and starts have been down for years, how could I think that they need to stay low longer?  Well, it comes down to a few factors…

  • Pricing…  It still doesn’t pay for builders to put up houses in many markets.  Basically, pricing almost has to be below the cost of materials plus land in order to get the house sold.
  • Vacant Inventory…  Even in the depths of the crash, I didn’t see as many vacant homes as I do now.  I don’t have stats to back it up, but it seems like vacant inventory is surging.  (BTW, I think that is actually a sign of a recovery forming…)
  • Buyer Fear…  Despite incredibly low interest rates on mortgages and very low prices on homes (even Clark Howard is saying it might be time to move back into real estate), most buyers are still nervous.

Oddly, if you look over my market reports, I specifically refer to a couple of segments as being WELL into Seller’s Market territory.  And it is hard to square these two points…. that there is an active Seller’s Markets (in some segments) AND that starts need to stay low because the market is still weak.  But it comes down to averages…  One city might be rocking the sales, while just up the road everything is stagnant.

Location…

 

Housing Start Source.

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How to Read a Market Report…

Monday, 10 October 2011 08:00
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A lot of real estate agents write them.  Some have a lot of information, others… not so much.  Some are well laid out and go past the numbers into interpretation.  Others have plenty of numbers, but they don’t even give any sort of scale to use for reference.

I try to give mine a sense of scale, as well as interpret what the numbers mean.  I also wait to post them… until the numbers are fairly solid (and even a few weeks later, the numbers might change a little bit…), but not so long as to make the report outdated as it is published.  Below is an excerpt from one of my market reports:

Market stats for Suwanee, GA, August, 2011 indicate that there are 593 properties on the market (down from 612 last month). Overall, there is about an 7.3 month supply of properties (down from 7.4 last month). August had 83 sales. Compared to 2010 (55), that was VERY strong. Inventory was down, as well, compared to 2010 (636).  The last two months have been very strong, but that comes on a very weak June and just average sales for a couple of prior months.  Obviously, I’d like to see continued strength here.

So, let’s break it down.

  • 593 Properties… also showing the number of properties on the market the previous month.  Is it going up or down?  Which way SHOULD it be moving?
  • 7.3 month supply…  This is the Absorption Rate.  Here is a whole post explaining absorption rates, what they are and what they mean.  Balanced, in most real estate segments, is about 6.  Higher is a buyer’s market, lower is a seller’s market.  I also generally show the level of the previous month.
  • 83 sales…  and to put it in perspective, we also want to know how many sales there were last month AND how many for the same month last year.  Sometimes, in slower segments, we might look at the last three months of sales (combined) and compare those with the previous year.  For low volume segments, that will be a number that doesn’t jump all over as much and will give a better idea of market direction and strength.
  • Interpretation & Prediction…  I try to do a little of this for most segments of the market.  I track 7 different postal cities (not the city limits, but the mailing addresses) and each in 6 different price ranges.  That makes for a LOT of predictions and interpretation…  But I try to give what I think of each one… assuming there is enough data to get an idea of what is going on.
  • Something graphical…  My newest tool is a graphical representation (from Zillow) showing a history of the region.  Even more than the pinpoint data of the report, the simple graph gives the aerial view of what is happening.  However, it needs to be kept in perspective…  The beginnings of trend are pretty hard to spot on a long-term graph.

Hopefully this will help you get the most from my market reports…

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

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Norcross, GA, Market Report, August 2011

Friday, 07 October 2011 08:00
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This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

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Market stats for Norcross GA, August, 2011 indicate that there were 334 properties on the market.  Overall, there is about a 5.0 month supply of properties.  This year has been very strong so far… although April and May weren’t that strong (April was below last year)… it hasn’t slowed much.  June saw 69 sales, well above the 47 for July and the 52 for last August, and with the decrease in listing inventory the Absorption Rate (AR) built more strength.  This is one of the few market areas in Gwinnett to post five strong months in a row.

In the sub-$200k arena, there were 191 listings, with about 4.0 month supply.  Sales are up markedly from a year ago in this segment, which is the main driver of sales in this area (53 v 39).  For the last three months, the AR has been tilted in favor of sellers… it got a little more so, this month.  This looks like the strongest price/area segment in Gwinnett County, GA.

Between $200k and $400k, there were 104 listings for sale, and about 9.5 months of supply.  This segment isn’t as weak as it had been over the last several months, but it is surprisingly weak compared to the rest of the segments in the area, as well as the price level in other areas.  The 12 sales were a bump from last year’s 9 sales, as well as a good bump from last month’s 6 sales.  Of course, this segment has always seemed to lag.

From $400k to $600k, there were 31 homes on the market.  The Absorption Rate is around 13.3 months.  The AR had been dropping for months, then shot WAY up in June.  It has been working down slowly since.  August’s 4 sales are up from 2 the month before and last year’s 3 sales… but the inventory decrease really helped.

In the $600k to $800k arena, there were 4 listings on the market.  Inventories had decreased compared to last year.  The Absorption Rate is at 12 months of inventory… but with only 4 sales last year and then the sale in March and another each in May and June, obviously it is easy to bump one way or the other.  The ONLY reason for the strong looking Absorption Rate last month was that there were so few listings.

The range from $800k to $1m, there was 1 homes listed on the market and no sales… seemingly forever.

Above $1m, there were 3 properties listed.  But because of the smaller numbers of sales, the absorption rate could be significantly impacted by just a couple of sales.  The single sale in January (first since October) has pushed the Absorption Rate down to 16.5 months of inventory.

Norcross, GA is a suburb of Atlanta in Gwinnett County.  The population is 2000 was 8,410 but that only included the area inside the city limits, and it has seen tremendous growth since that census.  The City of Norcross revamped their old town a long time ago, and it has served as a model for other towns in the area.  It is also home to Meadow Creek and Norcross High Schools.  One of the things that Norcross is known for locally is the beautiful older homes in the downtown area.  They have maintained their historic flair quite successfully.

I have a page dedicated to Norcross Market Data.

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