The New Downtown Alpharetta Georgia!

The council will consider awarding a bid to Glosson Enterprises, LLC to build the sidewalk for $196,436 during its meeting tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Alpharetta City Hall. The meeting was rescheduled due to the Labor Day holiday. 

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Glosson was the lowest of the nine bidders the city received for the project.

The project consist of building the sidewalk on the north side of Marietta Street between South Main Street and Roswell Street.

Along with the sidewalk, the project will include bulb-outs on the northeast and southeast corner of the Roswell and Marietta street intersection.

A new residential community in downtown Alpharetta is seeing success.

A new residential community in downtown Alpharetta is seeing success.

Victoria Square, located along Marietta Street, is selling its three-story, all brick brownstone-style town homes from the mid $300,000s.

Building Seven, which has six homes, has already been pre-sold and new residents will be closing in December. Building 10, which has eight homes, has already pre-sold one leaving only seven.

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Built by Peachtree Residential, the development is located blocks from shopping, dining, entertainment, Wills Park and the proposed 25-acre Alpharetta City Center. The city center, which will include a city hall building, municipal parking deck, Town Square, and a five acre park, is slated to open sometime in 2014.

Located just 1.6 miles west of Georgia 400, the neighborhood is also in the Alpharetta Elementary, Northwestern Middle and Cambridge High school district.

To visit Victoria Square, take GA 400 to Exit 10 (Old Milton Pkwy.).  Travel west 1.6 miles, cross over Highway9/Main Street and turn right on Roswell Street. Then drive a half-block and make a left onto Marietta Street.  Victoria Square is on the right.

Atlanta ABR Market Brief:

ABR Market Brief: July 2013

Single family residential sales in Metro Atlanta totaled 4,443 in July 2013.

• Annually, this is an increase of 3.3% compared to 4,220 total sales in July 2012.
• Monthly, this is an increase of 2.1% compared to 4,351 total sales in June 2013.

The Median sales price for July 2013 was $217,000.

• Annually, this is an increase of 47.1% from the median sales price of $149,000Â in July 2012.
• Monthly, median prices increased 2.3% in comparison to June 2013.

Bank-owned sales in July 2013 remained level at 2%, down from 16% of total sales in July 2012.

HUD Gets One Right with The Changes to FHA Program

HUD Gets One Right with The Changes to FHA Program

Just when I thought the FHA loan program was heading the way of the dinosaur, HUD decides to reduce the waiting period for FHA financing after an adverse credit event to one year.  This gives hope to people who had a recent foreclosure, bankruptcy or short sale and believed they were locked out of the real estate market for as many as two more years.  Of course there are several conditions that must be met for the buyer to qualify for this program, but any move to help those most impacted by the Great Recession is a step in the right direction. 

To qualify for this program a buyer must:  1) demonstrate that the adverse event (bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale) was due to a reduction in income or job loss that was beyond their direct control. 2) That this income loss was at least 20% of their previous income and the loss lasted for a minimum of six months.  Finally, the buyer must demonstrate that they have fully recovered from this adverse financial event through the maintenance of good credit (no late payments) for the last twelve months. 

Obviously this is great news and I would encourage you to have your “sidelined” buyers call me for a complimentary evaluation of whether they would qualify for this novel program.    I am hopeful the relaxing of the FHA loan guidelines will be followed soon after by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac adopting a similar policy for conventional financing programs.