Atlanta foreclosures.  I was reading an CNN Money article today about foreclosures in the sun-belt and rust belt, and thought I would share some insights!  Most Atlantan's do not realize how much foreclosures are impacting our real estate market.  Declining sales, falling home prices are just the beginning. Vacant homes are also what we call an "Attractive nuisance!"  There unoccupied status invite mischief, crime, and vandalism. No neighborhood is exempt from this blight!

In Atlanta foreclosures are exceeding sales 2 to 1!  We sell about 3000 homes a month, and there are over 7500 new foreclosure filings every month!  Since Atlanta and Georgia led the nation in the last few years with sub-prime mortgages (over 52% of all loans in Georgia were no money down)!  Well those home buyers could not afford the first re-set of their mortgage payments, and their homes have fallen into foreclosure, or they are being sold on a short sale (at a deficit to the mortgage holder.)  This will shortly start to impact appraisals by driving down home prices.  Appraisers must now stay within the one subdivision for comparable sales, and will be using only the last 3 months for most recent sales.  In the past, the appraisers would not count the most expensive or the distress sale.  Not any more.  There are too many foreclosures in Atlanta, they cannot ignore the sales any longer.

Foreclosures are now up nationally 75%, and Atlanta is now # 11 instead of # 1 or 2.  Check out his latest report on CNN.   We are up 52.25% over last year, and expect it to get a lot worse.  Sub prime resets last year that have caused all this heartache were a result of 50 Billion Dollars in sub-prime mortgage resets,  This year, it will be over 10 times worse with over 550 Billion in sub-prime mortgage resets due.   Thse numbers are so big it will impact all markets across the nation.

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