MOVING TO ATLANTA - "The City in the Forest"

MOVING TO ATLANTA – “The City in the Forest”

By Mary Anne Walser, Realtor & Attorney, 404-277-3527, maryannesellshomes@gmail.com

Ah, Atlanta, land of opportunity and of trees. Yes, trees! We are known as the “City in the Forest” and Atlanta takes great pride in its green canopy. It’s one of the first things you will notice about the city from the airplane or car – we’re one of the “greenest” cities around. (In the conventional sense, not necessarily in the LEED certified sense).

There are some great books about the city itself – including one I love to give to my relocation clients, Moving to Atlanta by Anne Wainscott-Sargent. And great websites – my favorite is curbed.com. You will also want to subscribe to Atlanta Magazine and to the Atlanta Business Chronicle for great information about the City in the Forest.  But before we begin delving into the specifics and legalities of purchasing property here, I would like to give you just a general view of my favorite city. After all, when you are moving, it’s important to know exactly where you are moving!

When folks say “Atlanta,” they may be referring to any number of cities within the Atlanta Metro Area. Once you live here, everyone knows that “Alpharetta” and “College Park” are on opposite ends of the Metro, but when I talk to relocation clients, they sometimes speak of them almost as if they are twin suburbs of Atlanta. I had a sweet couple relocating from North Carolina. On one of our initial phone calls, they told me that they wanted to live in either Alpharetta or Decatur. As I explained to them then, Alpharetta and Decatur are hours and hours apart during rush hour, traffic wise, and are worlds apart in other ways as well. The couple turned out moving to a city in-between the two, Tucker, and they are very very happy there.

That couple’s experience is instructive in many ways, but particularly in this one: in deciding between their initial two cities, Alpharetta and Decatur, I told them about Atlanta traffic and advised them to carefully consider their commute. The wife could work from home, but the husband’s new job was in Tucker. After considering my advice and seeing Atlanta traffic for themselves, they quickly decided to live as close to the husband’s job as possible. Since he works in Tucker, that’s where they moved. We visited and considered other cities, but the ultimate “win” for them was less time in Atlanta traffic. Traffic is a HUGE “driver” (if you’ll forgive the pun) for many moving into and within the Metro.

For each of us, the primary drivers of our decision about WHERE in Atlanta to move are different and personal. My husband and I love Atlanta’s trees. We love a green, verdant forest and we love to walk.  I spend all day every day in traffic (and as a real estate agent, I always will!), so I like to come home to peace and quiet. My husband is an architect in Midtown and wanted to live as close to work as possible, but in as green a place as possible. So we are inside the Perimeter, but right near the River. We can walk to the Chattahoochee River after work and watch the sunset.  

Many of my clients, however, would rather be closer to where the action is. Walking distance to The Beltline, Piedmont Park or to the restaurants and shops of Virginia Highland, Kirkwood, Edgewood, Oakhurst, Ponce City Market, Glenwood Park, Morningside, or Buckhead. If you like a quaint and charming walkable downtown atmosphere, you may prefer Decatur, or outside the Perimeter: Marietta, Roswell, or Norcross. Old Fourth Ward (O4W in Atlanta parlance) or Little Five Points (L5P) are the edgy and hip walkable neighborhoods and those who work downtown can get to work in minutes.  The downtown and Midtown commutes are walkable from Ansley Park or Brookwood Hills, and those neighborhoods are more established and traditional. Ansley is nestled between the Botanical Gardens, the High Art Museum, and Woodruff Arts Center, so if you love culture, it’s a great place for you.  In short, there are MANY neighborhoods in Atlanta to consider, each of them special and wonderful in their own ways.

I spend every day, including weekends, introducing these areas to my clients. Each is perfect in its own way, and each is perfect for DIFFERENT clients. I cannot give you a list of the “best neighborhoods in Atlanta” without knowing YOU because each neighborhood is “best” for a different client. So find a real estate agent who knows the entire Metro and who will get to know you and what will make you happy.

Here are some of the major considerations for most clients, as a guide to you in what to consider. After traffic, first, of course, is price range. Ansley Park may be perfect for you in theory, but if you want a house (as opposed to a condo) and you can’t afford a $700,000 or more mortgage, it’s NOT perfect price wise. So that’s one of the first things we figure out – how much a buyer can and wants to pay for a house. In addition, if you have children or WILL have children and want to put them into public school, you will want to consider the school districts. East Cobb has long been the bastion of close-in good schools with affordable housing. Those who work farther out or who don’t mind a commute may consider Roswell, Johns Creek, or even farther out Forsyth County.

In sum: price range, traffic, school districts, walkability, safety, proximity to golf, swim tennis neighborhoods, playgrounds, proximity to the Chattahoochee, proximity to The Beltline, historical vs. newer neighborhoods are all things you may or may not wish to consider in your hunt for a home.  Let’s get started in the search!

Mary Anne Walser is a licensed attorney and full-time REALTOR, serving buyers and sellers in all areas of Metro Atlanta. Her knowledge of residential real estate and her legal expertise allow her to offer great value to her clients. Mary Anne is a member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors, the Georgia Association of Realtors, the State Bar of Georgia and the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. Contact Mary Anne at 404-277-3527, or via email:  maryannesellshomes@gmail.com.

CHANNELING DON DRAPER – POSITIONING YOUR ATLANTA HOME IN THE HOMEBUYING MARKETPLACE

If you are a Mad Men fan, then you know Don Draper went in for the product pitch fully prepared. He learned as much as he could about the product he was being interviewed to market, and he researched how to best appeal to the most likely buyers. Don’t forget that your home is also a product. You need to identify the strength of the market, the target buyer, and the best way to approach and appeal to that buyer. Much can be learned by utilizing some simple tools Mad Men style to position your home correctly in the marketplace. So here we go!

Like bringing any other product to the market, first we do a market analysis. We price your home right by looking at the comparables that have sold recently in a close radius – that’s looking at what has already SOLD. We also determine how much inventory is currently in your price range, how long it may take to sell, and what our competition looks like. We must keep in mind, of course, that there are many buyers who will look beyond a “close radius” of your home. For instance, a buyer may be looking in Decatur AND in Dunwoody – in Inman Park AND in Sandy Springs. While a prequalified buyer will know what they can afford, they may NOT have decided exactly where they want to live. But we do not let that overwhelm us. We start with what’s closest, since that is most immediately relevant. And we keep in mind that pricing and marketing homes is as much an ART as it is a SCIENCE.

One of the key indicators we look at is the ABSORPTION RATE in your particular market. Many sellers make the mistake of pricing their home relative to other homes that are CURRENTLY presented for sale. The problem with that is that the other homes currently on the market HAVE NOT SOLD (by definition). So if you price relative to current listings, and those homes aren’t moving, you may be overpricing, even IF you are priced less than the others.

So the absorption rate is one tool that allows us to look back at the homes that HAVE sold and how quickly they have sold. Here is what you need in order to calculate absorption rate:

1. The market you wish to analyze. This can be one specific neighborhood or a larger area.
2. The time period you want to analyze (typically we’ll take six months, sometimes longer).
3. The number of homes SOLD within that time frame.
4. The number of homes currently under contract or PENDING sale.
5. The number of homes currently on the market.

So, by way of example, let’s take Chastain Park as of June 2016. First, know that to truly get an accurate absorption rate you sometimes need to do a specific map search. There are several reasons for this. For instance, Chastain Park is a prestigious area so some listings may claim to be in Chastain Park when they really are not. Also, there are neighborhoods within Chastain Park that are named differently – so the neighborhood name might be used in the listing instead of “Chastain Park.” So using a map search will give us the most accurate information.  And using a map search, we find that 134 homes have sold in Chastain Park in the last year. There are 27 homes that are “pending sale” or “under contract.” And there are 99 current active listings.  So what does this tell us?  Here are the calculations:

• What is the rate of home sales in Chastain Park? We take the number of sold homes and pending homes added together, (134 plus 27 = 161), divided by the number of months in our chosen past time frame (here we will use a year, or 12 months). This calculation results in 13.41 (161 divided by 12), meaning that 13 (and almost a half) homes are sold every month in Chastain Park.
• We can figure out the absorption rate by taking the active listings and dividing that by the average number of listings which sell per month. Thus, we get active listings = 99, divided by the average home sales per month (13.41), which equals 7.38 months. That means that if no other homes came on the market, it would take 7.38 months to sell the inventory that we have.

A BALANCED absorption rate is generally between 5 and 7 months. By balanced, we mean a market that’s balanced between buyers and sellers; neither holds a particular advantage in a “balanced market.” Less than five months is a seller’s market (meaning better for sellers), more than seven is a buyer’s market. So we’re in a little bit of a buyer’s market in Chastain Park at this particular moment in time. This is an important piece of information which tells us in part that it’s important to price competitively.

Once we have figured out the absorption rate and how quickly homes are moving, we ask: who is the likely buyer for your home? First time homebuyer? Move up executive who is now making a lot more money and ready for a showcase home to entertain clients? A downsizing widow? A couple planning to have children? You get the idea. To figure this out, we look at the types of buyers who have purchased homes like yours in the same general area. While we want to have as broad an appeal as possible (at least as to those homebuyers who can afford homes in your price range), it doesn’t hurt to also have a good idea of who the “most likely” buyer might be, and to develop a plan to target them in our marketing efforts.

Keeping the likely buyer in mind, we stage carefully. Many of our staging rules apply no matter who the audience, but we also tailor our staging to the likely buyer, the style of the house, the neighborhood and the season. The marketing plan extends to photography as well. If our target buyer is one likely to enjoy the outdoors, we play that up in photographs. If our buyer is likely to entertain in the evenings, we may take some of our photographs at night. Nowadays we often also use drone photography to showcase a particularly large lot or extensive home, a pool, or outdoor area.

After years in the business, I have become expert in marketing homes, but I always also get the input of other agents. We invite other agents into your home to get feedback on our planned approach to appeal to buyers. We often make adjustments based on that feedback.  These agent previews provide a sort of “focus group” intelligence that helps us make your home most appealing to the buyers who come through.

Once we are in the marketplace as a live listing, the adjustments never stop until your home is sold. If buyers aren’t seeing the home, we want to know why. If buyers see the home and aren’t making an offer, we also want to know why. It’s important to have continual and honest feedback until your home is sold. As a seller, you must have a tough skin and take all feedback in stride. As your agent, I will gather the feedback and let you know what I believe is valid and what is not. It’s difficult to have strangers “critiquing” your home. But know the critique is really a critique of the marketing of the home, and not of the way you live. Put on your Don Draper hat and think of it as simply more market intelligence. Together we can determine the best marketing plan and get your home sold!

Mary Anne Walser is a licensed attorney and full-time REALTOR, serving buyers and sellers in all areas of Metro Atlanta. Her knowledge of residential real estate and her legal expertise allow her to offer great value to her clients. Mary Anne is a member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors, the Georgia Association of Realtors, the State Bar of Georgia and the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. Contact Mary Anne at 404-277-3527, or via email:  maryannesellshomes@gmail.com.

Hey, Atlanta Home Seller: How to Ace the Home Listing Interview!

What, you say?  When you sell your home, YOU are interviewing the Realtor, not the other way around.  But we don’t accept every listing that is offered to us.  If you are determined to overprice, and can’t/won’t do the work needed to get your home ready to sell, a great agent may just pass on your listing.  And you WANT a great agent – that’s how you’re going to get the most money for your home.  The key to a successful listing relationship starts at the listing appointment – or even before.  SO – here’s how to ace the home listing interview.

What do you need to know?  FIRST, it is okay to call an agent even if you are only “thinking” about selling.  Making an appointment does not obligate you to list or to sell anytime in the near or far future.  Of course, if you are in a hurry to sell then you will be top priority.  So let us know your urgency when you make the appointment, and it is totally fine to consult with us even months prior to the time you actually plan to list.   Realtors are in the business of connection.  Even if you decide never to list, if you are impressed with us we trust that you will tell your friends about us.  If you are planning to list, but have some time, we can help you get your home positioned to maximize your return when you DO sell.

In fact, it is crucial that you call if you are thinking now about making home improvements in order to sell your home in the future.  Consult us first!  What you think is going to make you a lot of money may NOT be what buyers are looking for.  We agents are in the market every day with buyers in our car.  So we know what impresses buyers – what is worth spending money on and what is not worth spending money on.  We can help you choose your upgrades carefully with the future buyer in mind.  After all, if you are renovating TO sell, that is key.  If you are renovating for yourself and plan to stay, that’s a whole different ballgame.

When you call, we will ask you a series of questions over the phone to gauge your motivation and urgency, and to find out what we can about your home prior to our appointment.  We will pull your tax record and then pull comparable homes that have sold around you over the past 3-6 months.  We will send you our Seller’s Guide prior to meeting with you so you will know what to expect and can ask any questions that arise from it – but don’t feel as if you HAVE to read the Seller’s Guide prior to our appointment.  We are always available to answer questions and I will talk you through the process when we meet.

Our meeting will last between half an hour to an hour and a half, depending upon how large your home is and how many questions we have for one another.  Here is a typical itinerary:

• I will give you disclosure forms to review while I tour your home.  The disclosure forms ask you questions about your house – the age of systems, that sort of thing – and you will likely have questions about how to answer.
• While you review those forms, I like to tour the home by myself rather than have you take me through the home.  Here is the reasoning:

 o    I want to view the home objectively, as a home buyer would.  The best way to do that  is if I simply walk through the home the way I typically walk through a home with a  buyer. 

 o    I will take notes and take pictures.  The pictures I take are NOT the ones we will use  in listing your home – we use a professional photographer for the listing pictures. The  pictures I take are only for my review in advising you on staging and  marketing   

• After I walk through your home, I will sit with you and talk through the process - our marketing plan and what we do to sell your home.
• Then we will look at the homes that are comparable to yours that I have pulled from our phone discussion.  The ones that are most pertinent are the homes that have SOLD, but we will also review the homes that are pending sales and those that are active listings.
• Together we will discuss what needs to be done to your house to get it ready to sell, the “right” list price, and the timing of the sale.
• Most of my sellers sign a listing agreement during the appointment and we list right away (after a weekend for clearing out and staging the home).  Or I can send you the listing agreement and disclosures electronically.
• After the appointment I will send you a recap email setting forth the repairs and staging notes we discussed during our visit. 

While most sellers list right away, many consult me six months before they are really ready, and then of course there are sellers in every time frame in between.  My goal in meeting with you is to develop a relationship with you and determine how to best serve your needs.

There is no preparation required on your part prior to our meeting, however, if you are able and willing to do the following it will help streamline the process:

•  Pull your most recent mortgage statement with balance information.  If you have a second mortgage (home equity line of credit) pull that statement also.  The tax records I have pulled show the mortgage amount when you purchased the home, but you have likely paid some of that off.  These statements will help us determine your anticipated net from the sale.

• Have a survey of your property handy if you have one. Similarly, if you have ever had architectural plans prepared (either for a renovation or addition that was finished, or one that was considered but not done) have those ready for us.

• Have an extra key ready.

• Have a list of key features of your home; details of any renovations and upgrades are very helpful.

• Put together a list of what you love about your home, your neighbors, and your neighborhood.  Be as specific and inclusive as possible.

• Have any neighborhood newsletters, invitations, or flyers ready.

• If you know of any property boundary disputes or potential liens (by contractors or creditors) let’s discuss at our meeting.  We can have a pre-emptive title search done to be sure your title will be clear when we offer your home for sale.

So gather information, but remember to meet with us before you take action on anything.   Let’s get your home ready, price it right – and get ready to SELL!

Mary Anne Walser is a licensed attorney and full-time REALTOR, serving buyers and sellers in all areas of Metro Atlanta. Her knowledge of residential real estate and her legal expertise allow her to offer great value to her clients. Mary Anne is a member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors, the Georgia Association of Realtors, the State Bar of Georgia and the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. Contact Mary Anne at 404-277-3527, or via email:  maryannesellshomes@gmail.com.