How to Play the Real Estate Bounce-Back
Source: CNN.com
Projected median sales price for single family homes:
Q1 2008: $177,750
Q4 2009: $187.640
Growth: 5.6 percent
Half a million dollars probably won’t buy you a home in one of Atlanta’s Martha Stewart-style neighborhoods. And that’s a good thing. The smart money here will move upmarket, in exactly the opposite direction of where it will go in New Orleans. A contrarian by nature, the biggest arbitrage in properties priced at $750,000 in high-end communities northeast of the city - suburbs like Druid Hills, Duluth, Johns Creek, and Suwanee. The construction cost of a home in those pockets is $260 a square foot; right now, you can pick one off for $180.
Boding well for the local economy, “Hotlanta” boasts one of the highest rate of job growth in so-called creative-class occupations in the country. Why? It’s the top destination in America for young professionals, a transportation hub (Atlanta’s airport is the busiest in the world), and a place where most Fortune 500 companies maintain a regional presence. Projections by researchers at the U.S. Census Bureau and Virginia Tech place Atlanta at the center of a “megapolitan” cluster of urban sprawl that will develop over the next quarter-century, encompassing 7 million people.
This points to another niche real estate play: as buildable land around the city disappears, downtown neighborhoods on the brink of transformation are ripe for investment.
Senior Vice President, Managing Broker
Cobb office
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