Snapshot of Atlanta Housing in August
Change from August, 2013
Number of sales: DOWN 7.1 percent
Median price: UP 10.9 percent
Average price: UP 8.2 percent
Source: Atlanta Board of Realtors
The balance in the metro housing market has continued to give sellers the advantage as buyers compete for a limited number of homes for sale.
The result has been a decline in the number of sales over the past year along with a rise in prices, according to a report released Monday by the Atlanta Board of Realtors: Compared to August of a year ago, sales were down 7 percent, while the median sale price was up a solid 11 percent, the board reported.
With the ebbing of the wave of buying in spring and early summer, August saw 4,062 homes sold, a drop of 14 percent from July.
However, August saw at least a temporary pause in the price increases. The median price in August slipped just slightly from July, from $225,000 to $223,000.
Nationally, single-family home sales dipped 1.8 percent during August, while the median price for a single-family home was up 4.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The inventory of homes for sales in the United States represented about 5.5 months of sales, the NAR said.
Housing has struggled to recover from a nearly unprecedented crash that triggered a painful recession in late 2007. Atlanta, hit much harder than most places, lost tens of thousands of jobs connected to housing and construction. After the recession ended in 2009, Atlanta struggled harder than most to recover.
This year will see roughly 17,000 new, single-family homes built – compared to nearly 60,000 a year in the years of the housing boom. With many Atlantans unable to buy a home – or skittish about the idea – about 9,500 apartments and condos are being built this year, according to Norcross-based Reed Construction Data.
Many economists say the region’s sluggish hiring and lackluster growth are linked to the damage done in the bust of housing.
But even if housing is no longer the roaring engine of growth, the market has vastly improved and is generally healthy, said Todd Emerson, president of the Atlanta Board of Realtors. “Despite the minimal softening of sales in August, market conditions remain positive in general, and therefore represent no real need for concern.”
There were 16,490 homes listed for sale in August, equivalent to 4.4 months in sales. That is a formula for higher prices when there is a reasonable amount of demand, since inventory in a healthy, more balanced market should equal about six months of sales.
But the market is gradually inching in that direction, Emerson said.
Meanwhile, the hunt for housing can be frenetic.
Stacy Schott, for example, closed on a new home in Atlanta last month as she prepared to move to Atlanta.
She’d come to work for a technology staffing company. A hot market back in Nashville, where she had been, meant she sold her place up there in three days to a buyer who paid cash. Ten days later she had put an offer on an Atlanta condo.
She put down 20 percent of the price and didn’t have trouble getting a loan for the rest – a good thing, because she didn’t have that many choices.
“I was really lucky to find what I found, lucky to get what I wanted,” she said. “The inventory is pretty slim in Atlanta.”
Lack of inventory is part economics, part psychology, said Alex Carrick, chief economist for Reed Construction Data.
Since hitting bottom in 2012, Atlanta prices are up 34 percent, but many neighborhoods are still priced far below the peaks they hit before the housing bubble burst. That means that many homeowners are still “underwater” – unable to sell because their home value is still less than they owe on their mortgages, Carrick said. “But the housing market also depends on a sense of excitement. There’s a take-off point where there’s excitement and a buzz, and it’s not quite there.”
When that point is reached, the market should boom, he said. “There’s a huge pent-up demand. There is almost 10 years where housing starts haven’t been progressing normally.”
According to the Realtors report: the average sale price slipped from $289,000 in July to $276,000 in August. That was 8.2 percent above the average sale price of $255,000 for August of 2013.
Next year, metro Atlanta homebuilding is likely to pick up, Carrick said. “I think there will be about 21,000 single-family homes built and about 12,000 multifamily.”
Mortgage rates rose in the past week to an average of 4.23 percent for a 30-year mortgage, according to mortgage company Freddie Mac.
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