The Fulton County tax assessor's office says Martha Fletcher's northwest Atlanta home lost 56 percent of its value last year, plummeting to $29,200.
That's far less than what she spent, during her 50 years living there, expanding what was once a shack with plank floors into the two-level home where she raised two sons and is living out her retirement.
But Fletcher doesn't doubt she's taken a hit. She points with her cane to an abandoned bungalow across Stratford Drive, with trash and fallen limbs scattered on the overgrown yard, ivy overtaking the driveway and a city condemnation notice from 2008 posted near the front door. Vagrants and drug addicts go in and out, as do the rats that often sniff their way over to her place, Fletcher says.
"It brings the property value down for the people who try to take care of their homes," she said. "I'm just praying and leaving it in the hands of the good Lord, because I'm not getting any service from the city."
In a landscape beset by sinking home values, Fletcher lives at ground zero. Last year south Fulton's and Atlanta's county-appraised values plunged at more than double the rate of the affluent cities of north Fulton, according to an analysis of tax records and sales data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Fletcher's zip code, 30311, suffered the worst drops in the county, with a median decline of 46.7 percent. Property decreases on her street ranged from 33 to 59 percent.
In a strange twist, she's partly responsible.
Her end of Stratford is full of eyesores, but what's driving down values on paper are low-dollar sales, particularly bank sales resulting from foreclosures, according to Fulton Chief Assessor Burt Manning. His data shows that of 52 sales in her neighborhood in 2009, 36 were by financial institutions. One on her street was for $20,250, another for $22,000.
In June, Fletcher herself took advantage of falling prices, snatching up a rotting, boarded-up house next door to keep it out of slumlord hands. The $25,000 recorded price lowered her own value. She finds that insulting, but it beats having a drug house so close.
"What can you do about it when you've got all this stuff going on around you?" she said. "At 72 years old, I need to be comfortable and live peacefully."
A great divide
Declining assessments may mean lower tax bills, but they also bring home the harsh reality that the most reliable investment in most people's lives -- a home -- is no longer so reliable. In Fulton, that reality is harsher to the south.
The entire county's median appraisal decrease was 20.6 percent last year.The AJC's data shows a median notice of $225,200 for homes in north Fulton's 13 ZIP codes, with a median decrease of 10.6 percent. (Three of those ZIP codes straddle Sandy Springs and north Atlanta.)
In the remainder of the county, the median notice was $91,100, with a median decrease of 26 percent. Real estate experts agreed the divide can be chalked up to several factors:
- Higher unemployment in south Fulton, which is driving a higher foreclosure rate and resulting in bank sales that drive down values. North Fulton zip codes had 4,461 foreclosures in 2009, compared to 18,859 in Atlanta and south Fulton zip codes, according to Equity Depot.
- Intown values that shot up in the Olympics boom and gentrification trend of the late 1990s and early 2000s are now falling just as quickly. The market is saturated with townhomes and condos, and both banks and individuals are clamoring to unload them.
- North Fulton, perceived as having superior schools, less crime and a higher standard of living, remains a more desirable destination for homebuyers.
Out-of-town transplants to Fulton are likely to locate in the northern suburbs, so real estate there remains in demand, said Dan Forsman, CEO of Prudential Georgia Realty.
Fletcher, the former president of the Stratford/Oakcliff neighborhood association, said she would gladly take a tax increase if her neighborhood would turn around. Instead, investors buy houses for rock-bottom prices and patch them up just enough to rent, then the tenants run them into the ground and leave, she said. That's why she made an offer on the house next door when a sign went up, then spent another $2,500 razing it.
A way out
These dark times for homeowners could subside, Forsman said, once foreclosures are flushed out of the market. Using Trendgraphix, a Web-based real estate analysis tool, he broke down the county's non-foreclosure, non-bank sales and found a north Fulton average price of $453,000 in October, compared to $388,000 in October 2009.
South Fulton's average non-foreclosure, non-bank sale price was $199,000 last month, compared to $200,000 in October 2009. Sales in the south dropped to $153,000 in January and have been coming up in fits and starts ever since, according to the data.
"North Fulton is appreciating, believe it or not," Forsman said. "South Fulton is appreciating, too, but just not as much."
That's hard for Monica Callier to fathom. She fears it will take about 10 years for the market to turn around and for her to be able to get out of the East Point townhouse she bought new for $193,900 in 2006, back when a redevelopment at nearby Fort McPherson was being billed as the next Atlantic Station.
Callier was featured in last year's AJC story about Fulton County property appraisals, expressing frustration that she asked the county to lower her townhouse's value to $149,900, but it only went down to $180,400. The developer of her complex had gone under, the bank had started selling units for at least $70,000 less than what she paid, and an identical unit next door went into foreclosure and sold for $83,900.
This year the assessor's office lowered her value to $177,800, a 1 percent decrease. She doesn't understand how other townhomes in her complex, Bayberry at the Villages of East Point, that have nearly identical floor plans and square footage can have values ranging from $135,000 to $182,800.
Her only silver lining, Callier said, is that young professionals have taken advantage of the low prices and she has neighbors again. But she's ready for a detached, single-family home, and to break even on the townhouse she would have to sell for around $175,000, which seems unlikely. She figures her unit would move if she marked it down to about $150,000.
"Do I want to stay here for 10 years?" Callier said. "I don't think so."
Database specialist John Perry contributed to this article.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
