According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, the iconic Clermont Motor Hotel is facing foreclosure.
Say it ain’t so, Blondie!
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
Clermont Lounge, originally uploaded by atomicvixens.
The number of homes being foreclosed upon in Metro Atlanta shows no signs of slowing down, according to Equity Depot.
Pending auctions for the 13-county metro area hit a record-high 7,659. Fulton county had the most listings at 1,804. DeKalb and Gwinnett followed with 1,414 and 1,295 respectively.
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
The asylum series: 4, originally uploaded by Otto K..
Standard & Poor’s released the Chase-Shiller Home Price Indices this morning, showing that the decline in home prices in Atlanta seems to be shallowing.
The data, good through March 2009, show that the metropolitan Atlanta area experienced a 1.7 percent drop in home prices versus February.
February’s drop was 2.5 percent versus January. And January’s decline was 3.2 percent from December 2008.
Still, Atlanta’s home prices show a year-to-year decline of 15.7 percent.
While three months of smaller declines is a positive sign for the city, home prices nationwide are still experiencing significant downward pressure. Nine of the cities tracked by Case-Shiller in fact had record declines in March.
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
It just got a little easier to sell homes here in Georgia.
At least some homes, that is.
On Monday, Governor Sonny Perdue just signed a law which gives buyers of qualified single-family residences a tax credit of up to $1,800. Combined with the $8,000 federal tax credit, potential homebuyers have a great incentive to act now.
The credit takes effect immediately, and it’s available for the next six months.
And best of all, it’s available to anyone who buys an eligible home, not just first-time homebuyers. And it’s available for owner-occupied and non-owner occupied properties alike.
Those who do buy an eligible home can look forward to a tax credit of $1,800 or 1.2 percent of the purchase price, whichever is less. The credit must be taken over three years, and is non-refundable. It can also only be taken once.
So what’s the catch? Well, not every home is eligible.
What homes are? Single-family homes that were for sale on or before May 11, owner-occupied residences with an owner who was in default of their mortgage as of March 1, or REO property held by the lender or the lender’s agent.
That will ultimately leave a lot of homes out in the cold, as new listings will be ineligible for the credit. Still, it is a welcome sign that the legislature is committed to stabilizing and jumpstarting Georgia’s real estate market, and to revitalize Georgia’s economy.
And for those homes which are eligible for the credit – a little extra incentive for a potential purchaser can’t hurt!
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
lili skipping, originally uploaded by phitar.
Another quick hit from RealtyTrac and the AJC: Georgia now ranks seventh in the nation in new foreclosures.
Fulton County was first in the state with 1,846 foreclosures, and Gwinnett was second with 1,417. DeKalb was third with 1,081.
Total foreclosures in the state were 11,521.
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
Quick news via the AJC, reporting statistics from the NAR: Atlanta home prices have fallen by 25 percent over the last year.
It’s interesting because the NAR’s figure is way beyond Case-Shiller, which reported a 15.3 percent year-to-year decline.
We’d love to be your Atlanta real estate lawyers. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service to you!
From Case-Shiller’s results for January: Atlanta home prices dropped 3.2 percent for the month and 14.3 percent for the year.
Harlan and Associates performs real estate closings in Georgia. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can be of service to you!
Roller Coaster - Definitely Not A Good Idea, originally uploaded by 10:10 Photography (aka Coroner).
If you haven’t already seen it in your recent closings title insurance premiums have changed.
To make it easier for mortgage lenders and real estate agents to calculate costs, the title insurance companies are standardizing the amounts that agents can charge for title insurance premiums.
To see the new rates, just click here! There’s no more guessing how much title insurance is going to cost anymore!
So what exactly are the big changes?
- Uniform rates. No longer will one agent be able to charge one title premium rate while another charges something different. No more differences between normal sales and REOs. Instead, there’ll be just one rate, consistent from one closing to the next.
- Simultaneous-issue discounts. When both an owner’s and lender’s title policy are being issued in a closing, the premium for the owner’s policy will be set by the rate schedule. The cost of a lender’s policy will be $100.00 as long as the policy amount is less than the owner’s policy.
As a real estate professional, you spend a great deal of time and effort putting each and every deal you handle. Don’t you deserve a closing attorney who treats your closing with the same level of importance? We think you do. And at Harlan and Associates, we strive to make the entire real estate closing process easy for everyone: easy for you and easy for your clients.
Harlan and Associates performs real estate closings in Georgia. Want to know more? Contact us and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can be of service to you!
Time For Change, originally uploaded by David Reece.
Last month, the delinquency rate for mortgages was at an all-time high, with one out of eight homeowners either late or in foreclosure. Across the country, home values have dropped on average anywhere between 8 and 30 percent. And in Atlanta, prices have fallen 12.1 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index.
For some, that paints a pretty bleak picture of the housing market. But for others, it looks like a time of great opportunity.
Why? Because, compared to their recent values, houses are cheap, and investors looking to hold rental properties for the long term are finding better and better deals.
For example, lenders have really started unloading their foreclosure properties at discount prices, which is a good sign for those looking at the long-term hold. Almost half of all deals today are either REO or short sales, and it is real estate investors who are increasingly taking advantage of that market.
In fact, our investor clients are telling us that they’ve never seen more foreclosure homes in better condition than now. Good properties are available, and at good prices.
Still, when looking at buying rental property, real estate investors should bear in mind:
Many personal finance experts have long-believed that real estate is a key component in building long-term wealth, and owning rental property is a fantastic way to earn that wealth slowly over time. With opportunities unseen for years, more and more investors are turning to rental property as a primary focus of an overall successful investment strategy.
Harlan and Associates has years of experience in helping real estate investors be successful, and ee’d love to be your Georgia closing attorneys. Want to know more? Just contact us today and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service
to you!
For Rent, originally uploaded by angi bbyx3.
Earlier this week at county courthouses all across Georgia, thousands of properties were being called for foreclosure.
Metro Atlanta alone had a record number of scheduled foreclosures last month, with almost 8,500 homes slated to be sold on the courthouse steps. And today, those steps just aren’t as crowded as they used to be. Auctions once teemed with real estate investors looking for deals; today it is more common for the number of attorneys calling foreclosures to outnumber potential buyers.
Why? It’s simple: the deals for investors just aren’t there.
You see, if no one buys a property at the steps, it gets taken back by the lender. It becomes a class of property known as Real Estate Owned, or what’s more commonly-called REO. And once that property is classified as an REO, it’s listed on the lender’s books as a non-performing asset. That means the bank needs to sell it as quickly as possible. With record numbers of homes being foreclosed upon, that REO inventory is only expected to increase – and banks become much more motivated to sell.
Here at Harlan and Associates, we’ve handled hundreds of REO closings, and we’re seeing more and more every day.
Why? Well, most of our real estate investor clients are finding that the real deals are in post-foreclosure REOs - They say investing in REOs is the best way to generate instant potential equity in today’s market. It allows them to buy a property at a well-below market price and sell it for more than they paid.
Not only that, but there are more and more financing opportunities for investors buying REO properties. We’ve handled cash closings. There’s private money available. If the numbers are right, hard money lenders are always interested in lending on REOs. And earlier this month, Fannie Mae increased the number of properties an investor may finance, so more conventional non-owner occupant financing is available.
In other words, there are certainly opportunities for investors to profit.
Harlan and Associates has years of experience in helping real estate investors be successful, and ee’d love to be your Georgia closing attorneys. Want to know more? Just contact us today and we’ll be happy to discuss how Harlan and Associates can be of service
to you!
Empty Nest Syndrome, originally uploaded by bitzcelt.