There was a not so flattering article on February 12th in the on line version of USA Today (brief synopsis provided) about the Atlanta housing market.
Mike Wright of the Atlanta Board of Realtors is cited in this article. He states that we have a saturated 11.2 months inventory of homes and condos on the market as compared with 7.2 months of inventory in December. He fails to state the average months of inventory on a yearly basis for 2006. It was predicted that our inventory would grow from approximate 10 months for 2006 to 12 months for 2007.
IMO the full title of this article (Atlanta: Saturated market, mortgage fraud fallout has flattened home prices) gives misleading information to the public. Is it really mortgage "fraud" that has caused a tremendous jolt in our foreclosure rate and hence the number of homes on the market?
Might it have started in the aftermath of 9/11/2001 when the "2nd home" market became flooded? Might it be that the "interest only" mortgage loans that were so popular only a short time ago are a strong contributing factor? Or, might it also be the changes in the rate of transferees into the Metro Atlanta area?
Forsyth County initiated a 90-day (renewable) building moratorium on residential rezoning last month in an effort to help the County keep up services for the growing population and to review its failing infrastructure.
Is our market "saturated" truly because of foreclosures and mortgage fraud, or is the continued over-building of residential properties a very large factor?
Disclaimer: Writer takes no responsibility for random thoughts written before 6:00 a.m. on any given day :)
Just my .02 folks, thoughts???
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