Atlanta pending home sales

Pending residential Atlanta homes sales rose strongly in May with all the Metro counties experiencing improvement from 2010. And remember that in 2010 there was a Tax incentive program going on so this is a good sign.  Not only Atlanta homes for sale but Residential home sales in the United States also improved in May with all regions experiencing gains pointing to higher housing activity in the second half of the year, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors.

This is the first time since April 2010 that contract activity was above year-ago levels, and the monthly gain was the strongest increase since last November when the index rose 10.6%. 

Improved home sales have trended up unevenly since bottoming last June, rising in seven of the past 11 months. But it is lack of lending that is holding sales back, according to Yun. ‘Home sales still could be 15 to 20% if banks would simply return to normal sound underwriting standards and begin lending to more creditworthy borrowers and we’d get a much faster recovery in the housing sector,’ he said.

The Pending Home Sales Index, is that forward looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 8.2% to 88.8 in May from an upwardly revised 82.1 in April and is 13.4% higher than the 78.3 reading in May 2010. The data reflects contracts but not closings, which normally occur with a lag time of one or two months.

NAR chief economist, said the improvement bodes well for home prices. ‘Absorption of inventory is the key to price improvement, and this solid gain in contract signings implies that home values in many localities are or will soon be stabilizing as inventories get absorbed at a faster pace,’ he explained.

‘Some markets have made a rapid turnaround, going from soft activity to contract signings rising by more than 30% from a year ago, including areas such as Hartford, Connecticut, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Houston and Seattle are improving their home sales.

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Atlanta Government Jobs decline

Some interesting news in for Atlanta and its economy and how this may impact the sale of Atlanta homes. The government got even bigger in Atlanta over the past decade, but the trend appears to be changing and turning downward.
The state of Georgia added 57,000 government jobs between April 2001 and April 2011 — fifth-most in the United States, according to an On Numbers study of employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Georgia State had 665,900 government jobs as of April 2011.
However, Georgia lost 22,700 government jobs between April 2010 and April 2011, ranking 48th for government jobs in that period.
Government jobs include all jobs at the federal, state and local levels.
Texas posted the largest 10-year upswing in government jobs, adding 286,800 positions last decade.  This is not the best news for Atlanta home owners but it is better than some regions of our country.

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Atlanta Housing Success

Atlanta Housing Source was started in 2005 . In 2010, despite the very slow real estate market, Atlanta Housing Source grew by an amazing 78.5%. According to Gwinnett Chamber President & CEO, Jim Maran, the winners of the Chamber’s 2011 Pinnacle Award are “risk-takers, innovators, and givers.” Atlanta Homes sells residential real estate in Metro Atlanta, including Gwinnett, Forsyth, Fulton, Cobb, Dekalb, and Hall counties, as well as in surrounding counties.

When you ask us why Atlanta homes see such great growth in 2010 during such a down market. Many of Atlanta Housing Source’s clients have suffered from financial hardships over the course of the past two years, including the threat of foreclosure. By structuring their business to actually solve their clients’ financial problems through innovative ways of selling Atlanta houses, such as Atlanta short sales, and high tech real estate marketing.

In addition to helping sellers who are underwater on their mortgages, You’ve really got to  embrace technology to be a great marketer of home. Almost all of the Realtor websites need revamping.

An Atlanta short sale is a real estate transaction where the lender agrees to accept a mortgage pay off that is actually lower than the stated amount owed on the mortgage. Unfortunately, over the past two years, we have seen housing prices drop, not grow. If you bought your house within the past three or so years, there’s no equity to use to solve your financial problem.

Of course, with the housing crisis came rampant job loss. A lot of people who bought houses found themselves with only one income, or even with no income. Yet, the “normal” solution of just selling the house and starting over is often no longer possible. This is where Atlanta Homes Living team steps in.

Between them, they have over 20 years experience working in the real estate industry. Atlanta Homes Living is a full-service, residential real estate team They help both buyers and sellers achieve their personal and financial goals via residential real estate.

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Visiting Charleston

Voted the “best-mannered” city in the U.S and one of the fastest growing central cities in South Carolina is also one of the oldest cities in the entire USA. This city is called Charleston SC. An opportunity in the venerable Charleston SC real estate market has also made it one of the most desirable places to locate a business and to build a dream  home.

What makes Charleston SC real estate so desirable these days? It could be the hometown look as one of America’s cities with tree-lined streets of grand oaks or the pastel homes dotting the waterfront, or maybe the fact it has the 2nd most productive port in the world. It may also be the agreeable weather, with steady seasons and very mild winters that rarely witness snowfall. Of course, the answer could be in the people themselves, with their southern charm and polite manners.

Charleston is Rich in history, The city was originally founded in 1670 as Charles Towne. Early Charleston SC real estate was commissioned for military purposes. The old colonial city was instrumental in the American Revolutionary war as well as the Civil War. Nearby Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter are active tourist spots. The Old Exchange and Customs House in downtown Charleston, finished in 1771, still stands today as a historical reminder of the place where several signers of the Declaration of Independence were held in the basement dungeon. The building also hosted events for President George Washington in 1791, and was the signing of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

The city as a whole attracts a considerable amount of visitors every year and has become a tourist hotspot. In addition to the opportunities in Charleston SC real estate for tourist related businesses, there are quite a few of opportunities for homebuyers wishing to buy Charleston SC real estate and relocate their families. Some of these opportunities exist in the many prime employers that have made Charleston their corporate home and providing jobs to residents.

Recent corporate moves to the area include Blackbaud, Modulant, CSS, Benefitfocus, and Google in the technology field as well as aerospace industry companies ‘Vought’ and ‘Alenia Aeronautica’, an assembly and fabrication plant for the Boeing 787. These companies have invested heavily in the area and have helped the area economy with higher wages, further making Charleston homes affordable for the working class.

Charleston also is a city of fine art, annually hosting one of the largest art festivals, the Spoleto Festival USA, a 17-day festival featuring over 100 performances by individual artists in a variety of disciplines. Another art festival is the two week MOJA festival celebrating African-American and Caribbean arts, music, and culture.

Artists from around the USA come to exhibit and sell their works at the annual Fine Art weekend held every November, attracting hundreds of art collectors and dealers to the city. Many of these artists have invested in the Charleston SC real estate market to be close to this city of culture.

History, culture, economic opportunity are all reasons to further examine the Charleston SC real estate market. If you are looking for fresh opportunities in a city as old as the nation itself, yet young and forward-looking, give the Charleston homes a serious look.

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King Family squabbles in Atlanta

Looks like in Atlanta homes families do not always see eye-t0-eye, especially when it comes to money and settling the affairs of an an estate.

The children of Atlanta’s own Martin Luther King, Jr are entering into a court battle. Dexter King has asked a judge to force Bernice King to turn over their mother’s personal papers, including love letters central to a now-defunct $1.4 million book deal.

Martin Luther King, III and Bernice King complained that their brother Dexter King was derelict in not holding a shareholders meeting, which they said was another example of his lack of openness in handling their father’s Atlanta Homes estate.

There had been no shareholders’ meeting of the corporation since 2004, something that Dexter King blamed on the distraction caused by the deaths of his mother and sister. Judge Ural D. Glanville ordered a meeting, which was held sometime last week in the Atlanta homes of the siblings..

There was a September court hearing, Judge Glanville, who will preside over the trial in Fulton County Superior Court, also expressed some concern about Dexter’s management of Dr. King’s estate.

The Atlanta judge issued an order saying “the court is extremely troubled” in regards to what he was seeing in the initial filing by the siblings.

Dexter is the majority shareholder, and carries significant power in the corporation because he holds 80 percent of  all its shares. The judge warned all three of the siblings that any failure to comply with the Georgia Corporation Code could result in the dissolution of the corporation and that would cause some serious problems in Atlanta for the King siblings. More Atlanta homes news in each of the weekly blog posts.

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Atlanta Homes and Clayton Homes soon?

I’ve been researching the Clayton Homes concept which is one of those Berkshire Hathaway companies. These homes are green concept homes that are built around comfort and quality in a new home for less money. I’m hoping to see some Clayton homes in the Atlanta area soon.


They offer you the ability to customize your new home and choose a floor plan from hundreds of modular home specs and manufactured homes. These Clayton homes and manufactured homes that are precision built in state of the art facilities throughout the U.S. This allows for on time delivery of your Atlanta Home and eliminates weather delays and construction costs due to wastefulness. Clayton Homes has a highly engineered building system that is almost a science and certainly the future of home building. As the nation’s largest home builder, the modular home and manufactured home industry offer a very unique value for every pricepoint imaginable.

Seeking to domino the success of this trend Clayton homes just announced a partnership with a big homes contractor to create a new green, multi-family housing design. This concept will be tested and applied to the construction of six housing building at Raintree Apartments in Knoxville near the U.T. campus.  The construction estimate for completion is set for December 2009. I’m hoping to see this green concept take off and be apart of the Atlanta homes community.

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Atlanta Housewives

Atlanta is known for many things but sadly also for crime. Atlanta homicide detectives recently arrested a suspect in the from reality television show The Real Housewives of Atlanta. The suspect was the former fiancee.


Ashley “A.J.” Jewell, who was engaged to Kandi Burruss until last August, died of massive head injuries he suffered in a “one-on-one” fight in the parking lot of an Atlanta club.

Richardson was also hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the fight and is at Grady Memorial Hospital, but will be jailed once released by this Atlanta hospital.

Atlanta police spokesman James Polite said detectives were still “trying to figure out [what happened].But felt like they had a pretty good number of witnesses that are being cooperative.”


Detective Polite said Jewell worked at the club but he did not know in what capacity.It appears that Jewell had bought an interest in an Atlanta club but she did not identify the business.

Kandi Burruss thanked friends for their condolences and asked for prayers for Jewell’s six children.

She also asked to be left alone. “im just in one of those moods where i dont wanna talk, i dont wanna b held & told its gonna b ok. Burruss is an award-winning singer-songwriter and was a member of the now-disbanded R&B group Xscape.

According to an interview last month with the entertainment Web site Essence.com, Burruss and Jewell had taken a “hiatus” from their relationship but remained friends while they worked on their issues.


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Great deals in Buckhead

Buckhead Coalition has taken out ads in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming that the dipping economy has left the Buckhead area of Atlanta with a lot of real estate at “fire sale” prices.

“We decided to be pro-active in reminding the wider business community that there are now great deals to be had here in Buckhead,” said former Atlanta Mayor Sam Massell, who is the president of the Buckhead coalition.

The Buckhead community is among the country’s most affluent, but that hasn’t kept it from a decline in demand that has left over Two million square feet of available office space unleased.



Mr. Sprouse said his organization targets its promotions more narrowly to site-selection consultants in New York, New Jersey, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta. Plus, he and his team travel often to Dallas and Phoenix to meet prospects face to face.

There are so many properties and deals available in the whole Metro Atlanta area for those who know how to do value investing in Real Estate.

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