Oconee (West) County Homes Sales and Market Trends

As hard as I try, the homes that I see selling in the Athens area are not the $300,000 McMansions or even the cottages decked out in all the refinements of life, but all too often homes that sell are for the most part homes that are priced below $200,000.

In Oconee this seems to be slightly different due to the building up of the county during years of economic boom. There is not that much new for less than $200,000 and many buyers I work with still seems to gravitate toward new(er) homes.

For example, let's pick on West Oconee for a moment, based upon the year ending July '09, we saw 57 percent of all home sales over $200,000. Now if you bumped your price point to $250,000+, these home sales accounted for 38 percent of homes sold, and $300,000+ accounted for 26 percent of homes sold in the West end of the county.

How does this compare to the same time frame through July '08? A year ago sales at $200,000+ accounted for 68 percent of all homes sold in West Oconee. At $300,000+ we saw 36 percent of all homes sold in West Oconee.

Average sales figures are down. We see a reduction of the numbers of homes sold by 55 percent over the same period a year ago. This means of course that average Days on Market are up considerably (256 from 219).

If you break down Days on Market and price range of homes sold you find the following;

$200,000 230 DOM
$250,000 193 DOM
$300,000 356 DOM
$400,000 393 DOM
$500,000 530 DOM

What was the easiest sale in West Oconee in the past year? A four bedroom home priced between $250,000-$299,900 sold in "just" 193 days. The hardest sale would be a three bedroom home priced between $300,000-$399,900. None sold.

All in all, if you are a home seller, have patience because "if priced right" your home will sell. It is just a matter of when.

Athens GA Home Sales; Peak Season

One thing I have noticed is that it seems that in the last two weeks the market has exploded. Homes are falling under contract with more regularity. Still, one constant seems to remain. The lack of "step up" buyers in the market. Below you will find a chart of homes sold in the Athens MLS in the last two weeks. There were only four homes out of 36, or 11 percent, which were over $250,000.

Statistics (36 listings)
	Low	High	Average	Median	Total
List Price	$12,000	$525,000	$168,450	$138,000	$6,064,200
Selling Price	$8,000	$452,000	$159,069	$136,750	$5,726,500
List/Sold(%)	66.67%	100.00%	94.72%	95.65%	--
Days on Market	26	999	166	105.5	--

Contrary to the national media attention to the mythological "national real estate market," we are seeing a strong 95 percent List/Sold ratio for home sellers in the Greater Athens area and a reasonable DOM (days on market) in the past couple of weeks of 166 days on properties sold.

Athens, GA Homes for Sale and More Market Trends

Posted on June 7, 2009 by hankbailey

According to the Athens MLS, if we look at a previous 12 months of residential home sales from June 1, 2007-June 1, 2008 and compare to the most recent 12 months from June 1, 2008-June 1, 2009, we find that home sales in our area have gone down from 1426 to 910 respectively. This is roughly a 36% decrease in home sales year over year.

What is interesting is that average home sales price went up from $170,058 to $172,049 during these two periods. I also found out from an associate that “days on market” for home listings has increased in the past year to more than 200 days for the average residential Athens listing, so if you get a quick sale thank the good Lord above! I also found that in terms of numbers of sales from a month to month and year over year basis that we see no slow down yet in decreases. The only so-called silver lining is that it appears that as far as pricing is concerned in the Classic City, home prices have leveled. This opinion rather is rather academic when you consider multiple increases not just in the past year, but also monthly when considering a rolling 12 month average. I would be happy to furnish this data directly from the Athens MLS upon request!

It seems that due to the fact that Athens, according to real estate search engine Trulia, is benefiting due to having a much lower percentage of foreclosures than in other areas of the state and nation.

If you are a buyer in our market, these are probably the best buying conditions in 30 years! If you would like to search the Athens MLS with MapTracks please take a look at listings in our “Classic City” today! On this web MLS search solution you can search every listing on the Georgia MLS for the Greater Athens area or in your Georgia town!

Athens GA Homes and Market Trends; Foreclosure Segment

Posted on July 2, 2009 by hankbailey

As of June 24, 2009, there were 2,128 homes in Athens, GA on Trulia.com, including 239 homes (11.2 percent) in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. Median list price for homes for sale in the Greater Athens, GA area was $223,587, down $2,455 from the previous week.

Other segments of the Greater Athens MSA of homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process.

• Watkinsville 7.2 percent
• Bogart 7.9 percent
• Jefferson 17 percent
• Winder 52 percent
• Bishop 5.2 percent
• Danielsville 16.2 percent
• Statham 30.5 percent

If you are a buyer in our market, these are probably the best buying conditions in 30 years! If you would like to search the Athens MLS with MapTracks please take a look at listings in our “Classic City” today! On this web MLS search solution you can search every listing on the Georgia MLS for the Greater Athens area or in your Georgia town!

Athens GA Homes and Market Trends; June ‘09

Posted on July 7, 2009 by hankbailey

According to powerhouse Trulia.com, there are 2,086 homes in Athens for sale on Trulia. This includes 187 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. Good news in the recent week is that distressed properties for sale as a percentage of total inventory fell to 8.9 percent. On inventory listed through Trulia, they report an average list price in Athens of $223,644 for the week ending Jul 01, unchanged from the previous week.

The Athens MLS shows for the past month that average and median sales prices are $155,576 and $140,500 respectively while the average DOM (days on market) was at 188 days which is up more than 10 percent as compared to June of 2008. Average and median sales prices in June of 2008 were $182,017 and $156,000 respectively. This does not mean that prices have fallen per se. It does mean that what’s selling are homes that are priced most attractively. Add to this the high volume of first time home buyers and the absence of “step up” buyers from this year’s market, and it is no wonder that homes in the $100k’s are moving. In June of 2008 roughly 33 percent of all homes sold in Athens were over $200,000. In June of this year, only 14 percent.

If you are a buyer in our market, these are probably the best buying conditions in 30 years! If you would like to search the Athens MLS with MapTracks please take a look at listings in our “Classic City” today! On this web MLS search solution you can search every listing on the Georgia MLS for the Greater Athens area or in your Georgia town!

Photo courtesy Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau.