Metro Atlanta Average Home Values Increase
by $28,000 Since June 2006

By Steve Palm
Smart Numbers

June had more records broken and more surprises than any other reporting period I can remember.

Total single family had 6,220 closings in June or a large decrease of 30.5% from June 2006. Single family detached had 5,310 closings or a decline of 30.3% from June 2006 and condos and townhomes had 910 closings or a decline of 32% from June 2006.

There has never been a percentage decline reported over 30% for either single family detached or condos and townhomes. Even after lags are reported, June will probably replace May 2007 as the greatest percentage decline on record for all single family closings for a given year-to-year reporting period.

The average sale price for single family detached was broken in June and it was not even close. We had broken the record for the highest average price for a given period last period, May 2007, but after lags were reported the average dropped a bit, so June 2007 broke August 2006’s average of $264,526 by $28,000!

Locally, Forsyth County has seen average homes values increase by 7% from June 2006 while North Fulton average homes values have experienced a slight decrease in value of 1% from June 2006.

Forsyth County currently has 9.31 months of inventory of pre-owned homes with an average selling time of 132.3 days. North Fulton has 7.96 months of inventory of pre-owned home with an average selling time of 107.5 days.

The average price in June for single family metro Atlanta detached homes was $292,245. I went through the numbers seeing if there was/were an “outlier/s”, but there were none. I needed to show again, like I did last reporting period, how there can be a large drop in closings, while at the same time a large increase in average price.

As you can see, million dollar plus closings have not nearly slowed like the rest of the market. More than one out of fifty homes closed in June was a million dollar plus closing. Over eleven percent of all closings came from million-dollar plus closed homes.

Expired Listings, withdrawn listings, and months-supply just keep rising and breaking records. Below is chart of months-supply for detached and attached (condos & townhomes). 2007’s slowing, combined with increased inventories, has really pushed up the months-supply. As can be reviewed, we are closing in on a “years” months supply of homes on the market.

As a review, if no more homes were added to the market and the current inventory of homes did not expire or withdraw, it would statistically take 11.6 months to sell-off our single family detached inventory!

There were 3,430 withdrawn listings in June. This easily broke the old record from, of course, May 2007 with 2,974. There have now been more withdrawn listings though the first half of 2007 for all single family than there were for all of 2005.

We are very close to a bottom. However, when we “turn around” it will be a gradual turn.

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