Life in North Georgia, Real Estate in the Mountains

Pickens County Home Sales Through October 31, 2008

Sales continued to plod along at a less than spectacular rate; never-the-less they are plodding along and homes are still selling, banks are still financing and, despite what you read in the newspaper and hear on the television every day, homes in this market are still selling, on average, at over 90% of their current listing price. 

Here are the Pickens County Numbers:

                                        Sales                Average Price           # Days on Market      Sales Price / Listing Price

October 2007                   25                   $289,523                     119                               93.44%

October 2008                   14                   $187,827                       63                               92.37%

Year to Date 2007           341                  $216,246                     116                               95.83%

Year to Date 2008          224                 $190,557                      120                               94.40%

These statistics are from the FMLS, First Multiple Listing Service and include residential sales only.

Torrey Mountain Properties, Inc. , the brokerage firm where I am a sales associate, had a booth at the Marble Festival and one of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area residents, from East Cobb I believe, called me ” a bald faced liar” when I presented him with similar statistics.  So I can understand your being surprised that prices are holding up so well.  There are a lot of factors at play, but among them is the fact that in this county we have a ratio of REATORS to real estate agents and the members of your local Board of Realtors have all worked really hard to price our listing appropriately for this challenging market.  Another key factor is the relatively low number of foreclosures in this county compared to others - yes we have a higher number than normal - but we do not have entire blocks or neighborhoods in foreclosure like some parts of Atlanta and many places in Florida or California.

So all in all, the market is slow but steady and we look forward to lower interest rates, lower inventory of new homes and a stabilized political environment ( no matter who wins) to bring us a 2009 a little stronger than 2008.  Some analyst are predicting that by 2010 and 2011 could be back to something we can call normal.

I just posted an update on Bent Tree Real Estate on my Bent Tree Blog so please visit that site for more information on activity specific to Bent Tree.

See you ’round the mountains,

Don