What’s So Hot About Atlanta? #MerrickKnows
Why is Metro Atlanta such a hot real estate market? One reason is that fewer homes are being sold, which has driven up prices on the ones being listed. Real estate works like other markets: The more homes for sale, the greater the tendency to drive prices down. (This is what’s called a buyer’s market.) When Atlanta has too few homes for sale, prices go up.
In July 2017, the Atlanta Realtors Association reported the most dramatic impact of this disparity in supply and demand has been in Fulton County, where the median sales price was $400,000—63 percent higher than the national average.
The second-highest prices were in DeKalb, where the median was $287,000. Clayton County had the least expensive homes at a median price of $130,000. According to the Atlanta Realtors Association, overall prices in Metro Atlanta were up nearly 7 percent over the past year, while the number of sales dropped just over 2 percent.
In addition, according to the Atlanta Realtors Market Brief for residential housing statistics, in 11 Metro Atlanta area counties, the average and median sales prices beat 016’s numbers, with the median sales price in July increasing 4.9 percent from the previous year, and the average sales price jumping by 5.3 percent from last July.
Metro Atlanta’s housing inventory totaled just over 15,700 units in July, a decrease of 4.9 percent from last year. New listings reached 5,165, down 0.7 percent from July 2016 and down nearly 10 percent from the previous month.
WalletHub, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer credit company, recently ranked the nation’s metro areas and their attractiveness to first-time homebuyers.* Among the items factored in were affordability, quality of life in the region, and the vibrancy of the market. The metrics included costs for homeowner’s insurance, rate of home price appreciation, foreclosure rate, and home value per square foot.
Atlanta ranked 14th most attractive for first-time buyers among metro areas with more than 300,000 people.
*WalletHub Report
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