I hope you had a fun weekend in the snow. We had some fun at our house. Every time it snows Scott makes us a snowman and dresses him up funny. Some weather forecasts say it could snow again next week so if you missed your snowman build or sledding you will get another chance Atlanta.
Last week the jobs report came back very positive and optimistic. This sent our mortgage interest rates to the highest point in 7 months however those rates simmered down a bit and they are back down to 7%. My prayer for 2025 was for World Peace and lower interest rates. Its only January, there is still time.
If you glanced at the real estate stats above you will notice one number that is larger than all the other numbers and that is the withdrawn and expired listings. When a realtor prices a home we use historic data to help us come up with a market value, we look at the comparable homes in the area. If the market is shifting or stalling its not easy to spot that trend while you are in it. You usually can look back a few months and see it once the period of time has passed. When we shift a bit you always see the withdrawn and expired listings number increase. I don’t think we are in a period of decline but I definitely feel a little bit of a stall. I think the stall has affected these numbers. The Atlanta real estate market has had year over year improvement in price in almost every suburb and community. The place you notice the stall is the percentage of growth. Its in the low single digits this year and that is sometimes hard to accept when the last few years we have seen 25% increases in value some years. In my opinion when we are at the boring 3-9% increase in value annually is when the prices are affordable and our real estate values are still growing nicely. Spring is coming and we always see a nice uptick in sales and demand in the spring and summer. There are no indications that this year will be any different. We had these feral interest rates last year and a ton of real estate was bought and sold.
I go into 2025 with optimism and gratitude for being able to do a job I love.
Thanks for your trust and your referrals it means the world to me!