Atlanta area housing market crumbles

Posted by
Chris Bridges
in Top Stories & Breaking News, Winder Archives
Wednesday, August 18. 2010
Comments (5)
John Hunt keeps a close eye on the housing market.

As founder of Via Search, Hunt deals in market research for real estate companies and spoke of how since 2003 the bottom has fallen completely out of the market. A big part of the problem, Hunt told the Walton-Barrow Board of Realtors Tuesday, is in the Atlanta area. From 2003-2007 lot prices doubled in the Atlanta area and Hunt said under normal circumstances it would have taken 20 years for that to happen.

“New homes are so far higher than retail property that people stopped buying homes,” Hunt said.

In 2009, four of the top 10 area builders were banks.

“One of our every five homes in Atlanta was a bank sale,” Hunt said.

Hunt, who provides data for Smart Number, has helped survey more than a quarter million home buyers across the country. He provides real estate information, analysis and forecast for brokers, builders and mortgage and banking companies.
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#1 DuWayne R. Anderson on 08/18/10 at 05:57 AM [Reply]
Mr. Hunt fails to mention tha fact that greed in the market place also contributed to the housing market decline. The sub-prime mortgage industry is where most of the blame lies. Playing with income numbers to make it appear that a person or family could afford more house than they really could, set the tone for disaster. Holding that deceptive carrot up in front of a perspective buyer gives us the result we have today.

DuWayne Anderson
Winder, GA
#2 Anonymous on 08/18/10 at 06:39 AM [Reply]
We sold a house back in 2002. The person buying the house, just HAD to have the house. Only problem, they didn't have the money.

So the lender and/or realtor came up with this finance option call NIA-MIA (sp?) Basically, they upped the sale price of the house to include the down that we "gifted" back to the buyer or something like that.

The sale price of the house went from $145,000 to almost $165,000. Of course that increased the monthly payment, but again they came up with a variable loan, lower interest and inflated the buyers income.

We knew all this, our realtor keep us up to date, after all her commission was riding on this.

The house closed, but out of curiosity, we keep up with the house and the buyer. We figured it would go into foreclosure within a year or two. It took nine months!

The buyer couldn't afford the payment, we knew, he knew, the realtor(s) knew it, the lender knew it. But what the hell, we got our money, the realtor(s) got their money and the bank - well it was greed on their part too.

This is the reason, the housing market is in the mess it is.

People want(ed) more than they can afford.
Realtors want(ed) their commission at all cost
Lenders want(ed) their share of the pie and came up with "creative" financing.

Seller - we moved on and laughed all the way to the bank!
#2.1 Annie Omus on 08/18/10 at 11:34 AM [Reply]
I sold my old home on the same type of loan. FYI... it was a government backed loan like HUD or FHA and not some fancy financing created by the Banks... you can thank the government for allowing people to purchase a home and be $5k+ upside down from the get go. The buyer had to pay full asking price for the home and the seller had to gift back the $5k for a downpayment. Very true... the Realtors became rich off that scenario and they pushed those buyers on you.
#2.1.1 Anonymous on 08/19/10 at 05:39 AM [Reply]
It seems to me that the sellers in situations such as these are equally liable.

I would never agree to sell my property for $x and then change the sales price to $x + y while only receiving $x at the closing.

Why would leave $y on the table?
#3 TickedOff on 08/18/10 at 05:17 PM [Reply]
This isn't even newsworthy. The only thing that crumbled is the "dream" of owning a home. No one to blame here but banks,lenders, and government for allowing those that could not afford a house they "wanted" to get financing they could never pay back in reality or on paper. Mr. Hunt is right, developers doubled lot prices, didn't pay property taxes( in BarrowCo.) and rode off leaving everyone holding the bag. Now who suffers for it? I and many others like me who live in our means and need to get a loan and have decent credit. We are treated like scum at banks and get turned down because "we can't risk loans because of the economic climate right now". Heard that before? SOOO, I have purposed that if I can't buy it I don't need it. Its hard but, it'll change your life. Just think if everyone did this, there'd be no need for credit. I do realize the need for a mortgage and car loan. But other than that we'd be so much more in control of ourselves. Henry Ford hated credit.So did Mr. Belk. They were some of the last ones to extend crdit in the modern era, but did so because the American public demanded it. Sorry for that rant, I just hate excuses and somehow trying to make sense of the housing market crumbling explaining why we're in the mess we are, well it just don't add up.
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