Overall, the housing market in the greater Atlanta area has recovered smoothly. If you want a better deal on prices, you'll probably want to avoid the busy months of April, May and June. If you choose to wait until later in the summer, you'll get a slightly better deal. As you can see from this tip for Atlanta sellers, homes sell faster and for the highest prices in the spring.
January to March are usually the best months to buy a home in Atlanta. The peak shopping season is in spring and summer. However, you can also find good deals during the holidays. People tend to be busy with Christmas activities and family gatherings.
This means that there is less competition in the market, so you have a better chance of finding an offer. Black also said investors are buying single-family homes to eventually rent them out, compounding the problem of supply and demand. You can't use the things that are supposed to be there to help you get in, and you don't have the capital of another house that sells for an inflated price, he says. Laurie McGowan, 32He searched for more than a year, focusing on a wide swath of neighborhoods in the south of the city from East Atlanta to Westview.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's homeownership affordability monitor rates the metropolitan area as affordable for households earning the area's median income, but that's changing rapidly. When it comes to thriving metropolitan areas with relatively reasonable housing prices, Atlanta is a serious contender. Each month, Freddie Mac publishes a House Price Index (FMHPI) report that updates short- and long-term trends in home prices in major U.S. markets.
Once you've chosen your dream home in Atlanta, it's time to negotiate for the best possible price. Building rental communities in Atlanta are all the rage, especially in a metropolitan area like Atlanta, where 50% of homes rent instead of owning. Atlanta real estate agent Sherri Fortson Bailey says that in the decade she's been selling homes in the city, she's never seen anything like it. The reason for the skyrocketing price increase is due to overwhelming demand for homes in the state and across the country, according to Roy Black, professor of finance at Emory University's business school.
But, West adds, the house is on nearly an acre of land, and he was surprised to realize that he actually preferred the area. Most people who have tried to buy a home in the past year have horror stories of bidding wars, homes that have closed contracts on the day they are listed (or before), and trying to take on other buyers who can throw cash like Monopoly money. And while home prices have been rising in an upward trend for the past five years, this year-on-year increase is one of the highest the Atlanta market has seen. Compared to this time last year, according to Redfin, the median sale price of a home in Atlanta increased by nearly 25 percent, while the number of homes selling above the list price increased by 120 percent.
Meanwhile, listing agents often didn't even respond to West's offers in some cases, she found that her offer had been declined only after seeing the house marked “pending on Zillow”. Black also believes that homeownership remains a good option in early adulthood, although he warns first-time homeowners to be conservative.
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