ATLANTA – While overall residential real estate sales in metro Atlanta for the first seven months of 2007 were off 10.5 percent from last year, sales of $1 million-plus single family homes increased a robust seven percent.
A total of 560 single family homes sold for more than $1 million from January to July of this year compared to 523 homes for the same period in 2006. Sales of condos and townhomes priced $1 million-plus were up nearly two percent, from 16 to 19.
The increase in $1 million-plus home sales occurred despite all-time highs in housing inventory and overall price increases in the neighborhood of three percent. However, the average sales price of $1 million-plus single family homes fell from $1,547,255 to $1,507,310, or a decline of 2.6 percent.
According to Dac Carver, Executive Vice President and Managing Broker of Beacham & Company, REALTORS®, a local residential real estate firm that specializes in luxury properties, the statistics reveal a “tale of two real estate markets.”
“What you begin to realize is that buyers in the $1 million-plus market aren’t affected by the same factors as buyers in lower price points,” Carver said. “For instance, many $1 million-plus home buyers apply the same principles they use in stock market investing when buying a home. They buy in a buyer’s market and sell in a seller’s market to maximize their investment potential.”
Carver said many of the people who bought $1 million-plus homes this year were waiting on the sidelines for just such an occasion.
“One of the first things you learn in luxury real estate sales is that the purchase of a luxury home is not an impulse buy. Many buyers in this price point will delay a purchase until the conditions are most favorable to them. For buyers in lower price points, the purchase of a house fulfills a basic need – shelter. The question for them is not when to buy, it’s what to buy.”
Beacham & Company, REALTORS® is a full-service real estate company specializing in luxury real estate. The company was founded in 2006 by Glennis Beacham, one of Atlanta’s most prolific real estate agents over the last 15 years. Over the first six months of 2007, the company has achieved the highest average sales price in metro Atlanta real estate at $1,464,937 and has closed more homes priced $2.5 million-plus than any other Atlanta real estate company in Buckhead and north Atlanta.
For more information about Beacham & Company, REALTORS® or go to beacham.com or call 404.261.6300.
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