The $7.5 million sale of a Buckhead home is a good illustration of why Fulton County continues to lead the region in home prices.
While other counties have more sales, the typical price of a home sold in Fulton is far higher.
And the house at 421 Blackland Road was the highest-priced home sale during the first quarter of the year, according to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, whose agent Debra Johnston, made the sale.
The buyer is a real estate developer, she said.
According to Johnston's listing, the home has seven bedrooms, nine full baths and five half-bathrooms.
According to a report from the Atlanta Realtors Association, the average price of a home sold during March in Fulton was $347,000 – far ahead of Cobb and DeKalb, which were tied for second-place. But the high end in Fulton is really high – so the median price of a home sold is even more impressive: $434,000.
And while Fulton has highest prices, it is only leading the overall trend, according to the Realtors group.
The number of sales was up 41 percent in March from the month before, with the median price of a home sold hitting $250,000, according to the association's monthly report, recently released.
That median price was up 9.6 percent from February.
But prices typically dip during the winter. Compared to a year ago, the median price for the metro area was up a solid 8.7 percent.
The strong start to the spring means there is momentum to the market, according to Bill Rawlings, president of the association. “We feel we are poised for a very strong spring market despite the shortage of inventory in many local areas.”
Among core counties, Gwinnett continued to be the hottest for transactions, even if Fulton was priciest.
Of the 4,896 homes sold during March, Gwinnett had 957 units sold. The median sales price for the Gwinnett sales was $230,000, according to the Realtors report.
Fulton was second in transactions with 889 completed during the month.
Inventory – that is, the supply of homes listed for sales – has been a longstanding problem in the Atlanta market. When there is a relative scarcity of homes for sale, that imbalance means an advantage to sellers as buyers sometimes find themselves bidding against each other for desirable homes.
And for several years in metro Atlanta – with jobs and paychecks growing -- a group of buyers has been jostling each other as they work their way through the slim pickings of homes for sale.
That did not dramatically improve in March. Although inventory last month was modestly higher than it was during the same month a year ago, it still represented just 3.3 months of sales, slightly less than half the ratio of a healthy market.
A comparison of the largest core counties in March on sales price:
Median Average
Cobb $266,000 $302,000
DeKalb $266,000 $322,000
Fulton $347,000 $434,000
Gwinnett $230,000 $257,000
Source: Atlanta Realtors Association
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