Atlanta Real Estate Investing 
Atlanta real estate investing advice, market insights, economic evaluation and Atlanta Real Estate for short term speculators and long term "buy and hold" strategies for Atlanta investment Property.
There are currently 36 blog entries related to this category.
FHA Changes the Investment Game
Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 1:08pm. 72 Views, 2 Comments.
In addition to residential sales, my team is heavily involved in helping investors profit by investing in foreclosure properties. Mainly by purchasing small single family homes in Atlanta foreclosure market at 60% to 70% of future value, rehabbing them, and quickly reselling them for a healthy profit. Most of these properties are in blue collar neighborhoods that we resell to first time buyers using FHA insured financing. Most of the foreclosed properties we purchase were also financed by FHA insured mortgages.
The one wrinkle in this buy, rehab, and resell process was the arcane Housing and Urban Development anti-flipping 90 day rule 24CCFR 203.37a(b)(2). This rule "provide that a rehabbed property would not be eligible for another FHA insured loan if…
Move Your Money
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 10:19pm. 112 Views, 0 Comments.
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
I urge you to read, watch and take action.
Timing The Atlanta Market
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 5:06pm. 89 Views, 1 Comments.
The Case-Shiller data for October was released today.
Good news first: seasonally adjusted data shows a 5th consecutive increase for nationwide home prices.
Now the bad news: continued weakness in the Atlanta market with -.2% month over month; -8.1% for the year and a whopping -19.6% since the peak of the market in April of 2007.
The good, the bad and the ugly news: depending on whether you're a buyer/investor (good), seller (bad) or lender (ugly) we have seen prices this low since May of 2001.
| Market | MoM Change | YoY Change | Date of Max | Change from Max | Prices Last at This Level in… | Consec. Mos. of Increase |
| LA Area | 0.7% | -6.3% | Apr-06 | -39.0% | Sep-03 | 5 |
| San Diego Area | 1.1% | -2.4% |
2009 Atlanta Foreclosure Report
Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 5:18pm. 79 Views, 0 Comments.
According to the most recent report from Equity Depot (an Alpharetta based firm), the Atlanta real estate market had a record setting 117,107 foreclosures notices filed in 2009. That's a near 50 percent increase over the previous record in 2008.
The report goes on to disclose a 10 percent increase in foreclosures compared to November (month over month) and ... get this ... a whopping 77 percent increase over December 2008 (year over year).
Gwinnett county led the pack with 2,074 foreclosure notices, close behind sits Fulton county at 2,006 notices. Dekalb county figures came in at 1,568, Cobb at 1,203 and Clayton lagging behind major metro counties with 866.
Fulton county ended the year with 24,609 total foreclosures.
Unbelievable. …
The If and When of Recovery (video)
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 6:31am. 134 Views, 8 Comments.
It's worth taking a look at this recent Wall Street Journal interview with Real Estate expert John L. Burns.
Mr. Burns confirms a lot of what I've been predicting for months now for the 2010-2011 Atlanta real estate market.
In the video he explains why FHA loans and migth contribute to a prolonged recovery.
Here are a few reasons why 2010 will not be the year of recovery:
**We are likely to see what economists refer to as a ‘W’ shaped recovery…recent news and the surrounding economic environment supports us being in the first leg of the "W"… going up (only to come back down in 2010)
**FHA, with it's monstor growth (2% of the market in 2007 to over 23% right now), has become the new ’sub-prime’
**Without continued government intervention…
The Market Is What The Market Does
Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 9:19pm. 99 Views, 0 Comments.
There are a number of ways to analyze exisiting homes sales. Today I'm looking at comparative monthly homes sales not "seasonally adjusted".
So what you're looking at here is a graph that shows monthly existing homes sales from 2005 to 2009. And what you're seeing is that for the 5th straight month, sales are higher in 2009 vs. 2008. And for 2 consecutive months now we've seen sales higher in 2009 vs. 2007.
Why the improvement? It goes without saying many of these sales can be directly attributed to first time home buyers storming the market to take advantage of the $8000 tax credit. Though now extended through April 30th 2010, the original deadline was November 30th. The mad dash to beat the expiration this month certainly played a role in…
Walking Away
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:56am. 96 Views, 0 Comments.
I was talking with one of my top investor clients a couple days ago and he mentioned he "walked away" (aka foreclosed) from two investment properties last month. The two properties - both Atlanta condos - had lost a combined $250,000 in value over the last 18 months. Meanwhile, the bank holding the note refused to entertain 3 bonafied short sale offers, denied application to modify the adjustable rate mortgage and increased his monthly interest payment $600 a month.
Foreclosing on Your Atlanta Home: A Strategic Approach
For a professional real estate investor who makes his living creating profit in the homes he buys and sells, it was a smart decision. A strategic one, really. Either continue to hemhorage massive amounts of money every month paying…
Credit Crisis Explained
Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 8:16pm. 125 Views, 0 Comments.
Ok. So we all have some idea how we got here, right? We've all heard the terms at least. Credit crisis. Subprime mortgages. Foreclosure. Securitized debt. Bernanke. AIG. Leyman Brothers. Wall Street. Main Street. Greenspan. Federal Reserve. Treasury. Under water. Credit Default Swaps. Meltdown. Crisis. National Debt. GDP. Recession. Depression.
But just how did we get here?
And how why exactly has the entire economy suffered so much at the hands of this Credit Crisis?
Check out the Video below where it's all explained in just shy of 11 minutes:
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
Back To The Future
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 12:06pm. 163 Views, 0 Comments.
You may have read my blog post on Forbes ranking Atlanta Real Estate #13 on the list of best cities to buy a home. After reading the article...I did a little poking around other news sites to see what they have to say about the Atlanta housing market. A few google searches later...I found an article over at CNN Money written in 2007 titled "How to Play The Real Estate Bounce Back."
An interesting subject for an article written in 2007, for sure. But it's the "sub heading" that really got me curious. Here's what it said:
The housing market may be melting down, but Business 2.0 worked with Moody's Economy.com to identify 10 cities that have just about hit rock bottom - and offer opportunities for savvy investors to get in while the…In Atlanta, Developers Destroy Hopes of Recovery
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 5:29pm. 177 Views, 3 Comments.
The Wall Street journal recently reported the Atlanta Real Estate market is suffering from that oft-repeated term that has come to define our current ecnonomy: "irrational excuberance".
They site a 1 mile section of Buckhead Real Estate as a prime example of an emerging trend in the United States commercial real estate sector. A trend that stands as an obstacle to economic recovery.
According to the article, several prominent Atlanta developers are in the process of constructing 4 new office buildings in Buckhead. Now, that alone is not a speculative act, but add to this scenario that there is currently little demand for office space and you've got a recipe for disaster. It's this same reckless builder activity perpetuated by the likes of Novaire…
