Buckhead

A recent article in Curbed describes describes 30327 as "the Most Expensive, Exclusive Zip Code of Atlanta." The story includes the typical descriptions, "Beverly Hills of the South," "Georgia's most expensive zip code" and factoids such as it being the second wealthiest zip code in the South behind Palm Beach's 33480.

Yes, it's true when Forbes reports the median home price in 30327 is about 1.5M, but is it really "exclusive?"

Exclusive adjective

1. excluding or not admitting other things
2. restricted to the person group or area concerned
3. catering or available to only a few, select people; high class and expensive

The truth is, unlike other other high-priced areas around the country; 30327 actually has affordable housing options, too.  For example, right now there are 2-bedroom, 2-bath condos listed for sale from $135,000. So, for a very reasonable price, one can live in the same "exclusive" zip code as multi-millionaires, and have access to the same highly sought-after public schools in Buckhead. Many of these affordable condos are in Cross Creek, which is a gated community complete with with an 18-hole golf course, three swimming pools and tennis courts. It also has a clubhouse with a health club, restaurant and lounge with both indoor and covered outdoor deck seating, which overlooks the...

Could it be that, along with the increasingly popular trend of living "intown," now sprawl in Atlanta has ended?  That's the conclusion of a report from the School of Business at George Washington University. Report author Christopher Leinberger, a professor of urban real estate and chair of the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at George Washington University told USA Today, "Atlanta has reached peak sprawl. This is the end of that trend."

Walkable intown communities are preferred by young professionals and by high-tech businesses over automobile-dependent suburban neighborhoods. As we've mentioned previously, neighborhoods near downtown Atlanta have seen a 61 percent surge in young professional residents who have at least a four-year degree since 2000. These kind of communities, which comprise less than 1% of the Atlanta region's land area, accounted for 60% of the growth in income-generating real estate (offices, retail spaces, rental apartments and hotels) over the past four years, Leinberger said. This trend has steadily and rapidly increased in each of the last three real estate market cycles. Further, real estate products in established walkable intown communities command rents that are 112% higher than those in drivable suburban areas.

Of course, this doesn't mean that all of the sprawl that has occurred over the last several decades will somehow magically vanish. A drive from Lake Lanier to the airport during a Friday-500 rush-hour will remain an experience you'll want to avoid at all costs, if you wish to retain your sanity. So that won't...

Atlanta has a unique feel compared to similar sized cities owing much to its ample tree canopy and collection of parks. It has earned the nickname of  "the city in the forest"  based on the fact that its tree coverage is the highest of all major US cities. Atlanta also has 343 parks, gardens, nature preserves and public greenspaces, totaling 3,622 acres. This blog post is the first in a series that will profile the various parks and greenspaces around Intown Atlanta and Buckhead. Today's featured space is Tanyard Creek Park

Tanyard Creek Park is located in the southern portion of Buckhead, between the neighborhoods of Collier Hills and Ardmore Park. Tanyard Creek Park  has a little bit of something for everyone. There is a paved path that runs the length of the park from north to south, which is part of the Atlanta Beltline project. This path is stroller-friendly and suitable for running and biking as well. On the east side of this path is a huge, open grassy area. Here you'll often see groups of people playing frisbee or tossing a football around. This area has become sort of an unofficial off-leash dog park, though technically Atlanta's leash law applies, so use your discretion. On the west side of the path is a large playground area with swings, slides and other play equipment. The northern end of the path runs up to southern extremity of Bobby...

As mentioned in a previous blog post, Atlanta has some fine public schools. But, like most other cities, there are also those that are underperforming. This has a predictable effect on people's behavior, both in terms of real estate as well as the attendance of the schools. Home buyers are attracted to the Intown Atlanta and Buckhead neighborhoods that have the best schools in Atlanta. This bolsters home values in those neighborhoods, but also leads to overcrowding in those schools. This overcrowding is exacerbated by the 61% surge of young professionals living in Intown Atlanta. In decades past, most young couples would move to the 'burbs when they settled down. Now many of them are staying intown. Meanwhile, other schools end up under capacity. Simple solution; just move kids from the overcrowded schools to those that are under capacity, right? Not so fast.

A portion of one of the proposed options The Atlanta Public Schools district is in the early stages of studying how to remedy this situation. The demographers have come up with 4 options on...

Of course we all know that neighborhoods are important for many reasons; friendly neighbors, community support, etc. And we all know there are many reasons to choose a particular neighborhood; location, style, affordability, etc. However, from the perspective of your wallet, there's another important benefit the right neighborhood can provide; price stability.

A recent study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University showed that higher-priced homes are less susceptible to bubbles than are lower-priced homes. Higher-priced homes don't appreciate as quickly in a run-up, but neither do they fall as quickly in a downturn. According to analysis of Standand & Poor's / Case-Shiller home price data, prices of lower end homes in Atlanta fell by nearly 50% from the 2007 peak to December 2010. The drop for higher-end homes fell by less than half that percentage. Of course, this is a macro look at the entire Atlanta metro area, in which "low tier" homes were qualified as those under about $122k and "high tier" homes were those above approximately $221k. You might extrapolate from this data that even higher-tier homes in desirable neighborhoods may have lost even less value since the 2007 peak. You'd be right. A quick check of the sought-after Intown Atlanta neighborhood of Morningside shows an average sale price of $668,952 in 2007. The average sale price in 2010 was $582,339, a 12.9% decrease from the peak. That's certainly a lot better than the national average. Checking the Buckhead neighborhood of ...

In our experience selling homes, we often find that a person's perception of their home's value often differs from the reality of the marketplace. There are number of reasons for this, from psychological factors to simple misconceptions about market value. In this article we will discuss these issues as well as how best to determine an accurate selling price.

Home Seller's Top 7 Pricing Mistakes:

 
1.) Not being objective

One of the first explanations of the disconnect between real and perceived value is simply human nature. Outside of family, friends and pets, our home is quite possibly the most difficult thing in our lives to be objective about. We likely have more emotional connection to our home than only other inanimate object. Sure, some guys might claim it would be their car, truck, motorcycle, boat or flat-screen HDTV. But when you factor in the monetary investment that the home represents, that usually bumps the home into the number one position in importance. When looking at our own homes we tend to play up the positives and overlook the negatives. When looking at other people's homes, whether they be recently sold comparables, competing homes on the market, or homes one is considering purchasing, we tend to do the opposite. The goal is to try to view your home through the eyes of a prospective buyer. This is very difficult to do, so it's best to just look at the cold hard facts, i.e. the numbers. But what numbers? Where do you get them? How are they derived? We'll get more into that later.

2.) Depending on online home valuations

Previously we wrote about online home valuations, and how misleading they can be. They can be fun to play with, but they're simply not accurate. They can be off 25-30% or more, easily skewing the real value by hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases. They're brain-dead number-crunching computers that don't know the Intown Atlanta market. You can read the full content...

We've received a number of complements on our recent website makeover, and we're flattered to hear that it's been so well received. A number of you have asked about the stylized skyline outline in the website header, and whether it really represents Atlanta. It does, in fact, and it was inspired by the photo below. This spawned questions about this building and that, which got us thinking - maybe we should put together a guide to the buildings of the Atlanta skyline. So here goes!

This month's Buckhead neighborhood profile is Brookwood Hills. Developed in the early 1920s, historic Brookwood Hills is located near the dividing line between Buckhead and Midtown, just north of the "Brookwood Split". Like many of the neighborhoods in this area, The Battle of Peachtree Creek occurred on part of the grounds of Brookwood Hills. The area was later named after the estate of Joseph and Emma Thompson, known as "Brookwood", which was located near where Brookwood Station is today.

The developers hired engineer O.F. Kauffman, who had previously worked with Frederick Law Olmsted in the design of an earlier Intown Atlanta neighborhood; Druid Hills. Olmsted preferred wide, wandering, curvy roads versus the more planned grid layout of some neighborhoods. Olmsted's influence can be seen in other area neighborhoods including Ansley Park, and Morningside in Intown Atlanta as well as Garden Hills and ...

House hunting can be fun and exciting, but it can also be frustrating at times, especially if you're in a strange new city. We love Atlanta, but if you're new to town, you'll have some special annoyances to get used to as you drive around the various Intown Atlanta neighborhoods shopping for homes.

Getting to know Atlanta can be difficult to the newcomer for a number of reasons. One of the first things you'll notice is that it's very common for the street that you're driving on to change names without notice. There are examples of this all over Atlanta; Monroe becomes Boulevard, Briarcliff becomes Moreland and E. Rock Springs becomes N. Decatur.

It can get even more confusing. In Midtown, Spring Street is one-way southbound, but in Downtown, Spring Street is one-way northbound! Don't worry, you don't have people crashing into each other, because Spring Street in Midtown isn't even the same street as Spring Street in Downtown. The southbound Spring Street in Midtown becomes Centennial Olympic Park Drive in Downtown. The northbound Spring Street in Downtown turns into West Peachtree in Midtown.

That segues nicely into our next pet-peeve: multiple roads with variations of the same name. And "Peachtree" is the most common example. According to Wikipedia, there are 71 streets in Atlanta with some version of "Peachtree" in their name. There's Peachtree Street, West Peachtree Street, Peachtree Road, Peachtree Drive, Peachtree Park Drive, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Walk, Peachtree-Dunwoody Road, and ... we'll, you get the idea. Peachtree is guilty of the...