I have just completed the first Phenomenal Deals and Steals Report. Please click on the link below to find out about some of the best steals and deals in real estate. If you know someone who would be interested in receiving this, please let me know.

Phenomenal%20Deals%20and%20Steals%201.pdf

5.5%, 30 year fixed rate on a conforming mortgage loan with a down payment and credit scores higher than 679! Email me if you would like more information.

Unfortunately, Atlanta was not immune to the housing woes of 2007. The Metro Atlanta area saw record foreclosures and a 16.2% decline in the total number of single family homes sold. Since 1996, we have never seen a decline in the number of homes sold! The average sales price, however, increased 2%. Economists and real estate analysts are predicting a stronger 2008 for metro areas such as Atlanta due to pent up demand and strong job and income growth. For the last two years, job and income gains have risen solidly while home sales have been falling. According to Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, these gains should have translated into approximately 2 million new homes. Instead, there were only about 600,000. Additionally, housing affordability has increased. Prices are dropping, jobs are growing, and mortgage rates are low. Personally, I have been encouraged by the increase in buyers in my new home community as well as increased traffic and interest in second home markets.

The Florida Panhandle, specifically the area along the "Emerald Coast" from Destin to Panama City Beach and including Miramar, Grayton Beach, Blue Mountain, Dune Allen, and Santa Rosa Beach has seen a challenging real estate market for the last two years. After record high appreciations in 2005, many properties are currently selling at pre-2004 prices. Talk about a great time to buy!! With prices in this range, selling prices averaging 30% less than asking prices, interest rates low, and short sales (when the bank will agree to take less than the mortgage amount on a property) plentiful, now is the time to buy! It's important, however, to think of a second home purchase, or any real estate purchase for that matter, as a long term investment. When purchased this way, real estate really can be a great investment. Consider this: If you took $10,000 and invested it in the stock market for ten years, a 10% rate of return would yield $23,600. If you took the same $10,000 investment and used it for a down payment on a $200,000 home, with a 5% rate of appreciation, your return would be $110,300, nearly five times the stock market return! So, what are you waiting for? See you at the beach!

Western North Carolina which includes Asheville, Black Mountain, Maggie Valley, Waynesville, Sylva, Clyde, Canton, and their surrounding areas saw a stronger real estate market in 2007 than many other areas. Although the number of homes sold in Western North Carolina in 2007 declined 14%, the average price of a home sold rose 18%! In Buncombe county, which includes Asheville, Black Mountain, and the surrounding areas, the number of homes sold decreased 4% while the average sales price increased 6%. Haywood county, which inlcudes Maggie Valley, historic Waynesville, and surrounding areas, saw a larger drop in the number of homes sold (24%) but also saw an increase in price (4%) even through the fourth quarter. These markets never experienced the huge price increases that other areas around the country saw, and therefore, are more likely to remain stable through the year ahead. Be sure to check back for my first quarter report of the market in early April.