Tag Archives: lawrenceville

Wayback Wednesday… Zestimate Accuracy in Atlanta

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

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You just have to love Zillow’s Zestimates. Log in and look… poof… there is the Zestmate for your home. Couldn’t be easier. It’s almost too easy. OK, it IS too easy. And while I love the Zestimate just as much as everyone else, I also know that the chances of it being right are pretty slim.

I don’t want to slam Zestimates, though. They actually ARE quite useful. Their usefulness isn’t in their application to individual houses… it has more to do with looking at Zestimates for larger areas… ZIP codes, cities, regions. The statistical variations that are the problem with looking at individual houses start cancelling each other out. what we are left with is a pretty good measure of home values for an area.

Last year I posted up a breakdown of the Zestimate accuracy of individual listings in the Atlanta Metro Statistical Area. The bottom line is that the Zestimate has about a 1 in 5 chance of giving you a value within 5% of the real market value of your house. And the y are just as likely to be high as they are low.

If you are just curious, it is a fun tool. If you REALLY need to know, you should talk with an Appraiser or a Real Estate Agent (depending on WHY you really need to know). And remember, the real estate agent that tells you the highest value is probably wrong… and might even know they are wrong. In the business, we call it “buying a listing”. The strategy there is to promise a high listing price, and then come back after you are in a listing agreement and try to get the price down to where it should have been in the first place. The biggest problem with that strategy is that it completely wastes the prime market time… when the house is first listed. The end result is that the price usually ends up lower than if you had opted for a slightly lower price to begin with.

Change to Local Market Reports (lanebailey.com)
Wayback Wednesday… Absorption Rate, What Is It? (lanebailey.com)
How to Figure Internet Home Values (online.wsj.com)
Wayback Wednesday… Median Home Prices (lanebailey.com)

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, October 2011

Friday, 02 December 2011 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

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This map shows the incorporated and unincorpor...

Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Lawrenceville, GA, October, 2011, indicate that there were 1346 properties on the market. Overall, there was about a 5.2 month supply of properties. In 2010, sales for October were at 154, so 263 sales was a pretty good increase, year over year. Coupled with the decrease in inventory, things are looking great. Normally they start weakening in September, but we are rolling right along… even more than last month… but just slightly.

For Lawrenceville, GA, Homes Under $200k, there are 1133 listings, with about a 4.7 month supply of homes. Sales were way up from October 2010 (228 v 138). This segment is easily the lion’s share of sales for the area. With the 4.69 month A/R, it is solidly in Seller’s Market territory. The big drop in Absorption Rate (AR) is due to strong sales, coupled with slightly lower inventories. Last month I was hoping that October would be a follow up… and it VERY much is what I was looking for.

Between $200k and $400k, there are 184 listings for sale, and about 12.3 months of supply. Oddly, this was one of the weaker segments in the county, again. With as strong as the segment down was, this one was weak, again. The 15 sales for October, 2011 were down from the 16 from last year. Sales should have been closer to 25 units for October. We are still solidly in Buyer’s Market territory here.

From $400k to $600k, there are 22 homes on the market. The absorption rate is around 16.5 months. However, with the level of sales in this segment, a couple of sales added or subtracted can have a HUGE impact. August saw no sales and September only had 3, so even though there were 1 sale for October, the Absorption Rate has dropped from 78 months in June. There were 0 sales in October, 2010. This is acting like a luxury market and the A/R is jumping all over the place… with just a few sales. While the long term trend is looking better, it is still pretty choppy.

In the $600k to $800k arena, there are 6 listings, with about 18 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. This is one of the few segments I track anywhere in the county to have an increase in the number of listings.

Between $800k and $1M, and Above $1M there is 1 home 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 3 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.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Atlanta Metro Home Values – Interactive chart

I have a page dedicated to Lawrenceville Market Data.

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, September 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, August 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, June 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, May 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, March 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, February 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, January 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, December 2010 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, November 2010 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, October 2010 (lanebailey.com)
I’m Always Up For a Good Surprise.. (lanebailey.com)
Gwinnett County Public Schools Making Changes… (lanebailey.com)

Wayback Wednesday… Median Home Prices

Wednesday, 02 November 2011 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

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Three years ago I wrote about a quiet little map that the NAR (National Association of REALTORSS®) had built (and they’re still populating with data) showing the median home prices of various metro areas around the country. It is pretty interesting to see median prices around the country and compare them with the prices here (or where you live).

View Metropolitan Sales Areas Q1 2011 in a larger map

There is a dark side, though. That would be looking at the numbers in historical perspective. Here is a quote from 3 years ago:

For the 2nd Quarter, the Atlanta area was at $158,300, which was down 9.8% from the 1st Quarter.

Now, the Median Home Price here is a little more challenging. For the 1st Quarter this year the Median Home Price was $99,800, and that was down 9.4% from a year ago. More importantly, it is down about 37% from three years ago. I don’t have a complete set of data, but I suspect that the median price has dropped around 50% in Metro Atlanta.

One important note here is that this does NOT mean that the value of any particular house has dropped 50%, or that the average value of homes have dropped 50%. There is NO mistaking that home prices have crashed and burned… then crashed some more. But there has also been a shift in the last couple of years towards less expensive homes.

Be sure to keep an eye my local market reports for more specific data about individual areas of Gwinnett County.

White House Quote of the Day (bokertov.typepad.com)

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, September 2011

Friday, 21 October 2011 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

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Image via Wikipedia

Market stats for Lawrenceville, GA, September, 2011, indicate that there were 1412 properties on the market. Overall, there was about a 5.5 month supply of properties. In 2010, sales for September were at 163, so 243 sales was a pretty good increase, year over year. Coupled with the solid decrease in inventory, things are looking great. Normally they start weakening in September, but we are rolling right along… slightly less than last month… but just slightly.

For Lawrenceville, GA, Homes Under $200k, there are 1194 listings, with about an 5.0 month supply of homes. Sales were way up from September 2010 (228 v 151). This segment is easily the lion’s share of sales for the area. With the 5.02 month A/R, it is solidly in Seller’s Market territory. The big drop in Absorption Rate (AR) is due to strong sales, coupled with slightly lower inventories. I got one strong follow up… if we can keep it up for October, I will be a happy guy.

Between $200k and $400k, there are 188 listings for sale, and about 12.8 months of supply. Oddly, this was one of the weaker segments in the county, again. With an strong at the segment down was, this one was weak, again. The 11 sales for September, 2011 were down from the 12 from last year. Sales should have been closer to 25 units for September. We are still solidly in Buyer’s Market territory here.

From $400k to $600k, there are 24 homes on the market. The absorption rate is around 9 months. However, with the level of sales in this segment, a couple of sales added or subtracted can have a HUGE impact. July saw 5 sales and August saw none, so even though there were 3 sales for September, the Absorption Rate has dropped from 78 months in June. There were 0 sales in September, 2010.

In the $600k to $800k arena, there are 5 listings, with about 7.5 months of supply. As with the next lower priced segment, a couple of sales makes a big difference and there were only 2 sales in the last three months. The only saving grace is low inventory.

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Atlanta Metro Home Values – Interactive chart

I have a page dedicated to Lawrenceville Market Data.

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, August 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, June 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, May 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, March 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, February 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, January 2011 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, December 2010 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, November 2010 (lanebailey.com)
Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, October 2010 (lanebailey.com)
I’m Always Up For a Good Surprise.. (lanebailey.com)
Gwinnett County Public Schools Making Changes… (lanebailey.com)

Wayback Wednesday… How ’bout Those Housing Starts

Wednesday, 12 October 2011 08:00

Written by Lane Bailey

0 Comments

Old photo of the estate Hollander Höfe (Höben)...

Image via Wikipedia

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.

Wayback Wednesday… From the Meltdown. (lanebailey.com)
Chart of the Day: Housing Starts vs. Unemployed (craigkamman.wordpress.com)
Wayback Wednesday… Bankrupt Subdivisions… Good Deal? (lanebailey.com)
Time to be bullish US Home Builders? (part 2) (tradingfloor.com)

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Tag Archives: lawrenceville

Wayback Wednesday… Zestimate Accuracy in Atlanta

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, October 2011

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Wayback Wednesday… Median Home Prices

Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, September 2011

Atlanta Metro Zillow Home Value Index

Wayback Wednesday… How ’bout Those Housing Starts

What's YOUR Home Worth?

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Tag Archives: lawrenceville

Wayback Wednesday… Zestimate Accuracy in Atlanta

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Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, October 2011

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