Buckhead-area dollar sales of all homes priced $1 million and above are up 62.4% in the first eight months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, reports exclusive Affiliate Harry Norman, Realtors in Atlanta, Georgia. And unit sales of those luxury properties are up 41.2% for the period, according to TrendGraphix, the real estate industry’s data tracking resource.
Total sales of such Buckhead homes totaled nearly $486 million from January through August 2011 vs. $299 million in 2010.
In the six-county metro Atlanta area (Cherokee, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton and Gwinnett counties combined), 2011 sales of $1 million-plus homes are up 19.4% over January through August 2010 and unit sales are up 9.2%.
Moreover, inventory rates of luxury properties are down 34.2% in Buckhead and 29.8% in the six-county area for January through August 2011 vs. 2010. In August, there were 177 $1 million-plus homes for sale in Buckhead vs. 273 last August. The six-county metro area had 243 such homes listed this August vs. 346 a year earlier.
“The increase in luxury home sales in Atlanta and especially in Buckhead, reflects a global strengthening of the high-end market,” states Harry Norman Realtors CEO Dan Parmer, who weighed in on the Atlanta market for Christie’s International Real Estate’s new “State of the International Luxury Real Estate Market” report issued in London in September.
In the report, based on a survey of 129 Christie’s-affiliated brokerages worldwide, 67% of the luxury-property brokers reported an increase in buyer activity for the first eight months of 2011 compared to 2010.
“The improvement in Atlanta’s luxury real estate market is substantial,” states Parmer. As sellers increasingly realize that their home will not command 2007 prices, home prices are adjusting and sales are increasing. The price adjustments are spurring buyers to act, with many seizing the opportunity to buy up. And in this market, building a new luxury home isn’t a viable option for most people. “You can’t build an estate at the price you can acquire one today,” says Parmer.
“The decrease in Atlanta high-end inventory signals pricing stabilization,” explains Parmer. In Buckhead, the August 2011 inventory of closed sales of $1 million-plus properties stood at 12.5 months, compared to 36.6 months in August 2010. In the six-county area, that luxury inventory has dropped to 31.5 months compared to 45.6 months a year earlier.
The high-end market is coming back faster than the low or middle end,” states Parmer. In Buckhead and North Fulton-Forsyth, for example, “we’re finding pockets where a particular price point is doing so well that we’re running out of inventory.”
Through August 2011, the average price of a Buckhead-area luxury home was $1.84 million vs. $1.59 million in 2010, January through August. The most expensive home sale in Buckhead in the past two years closed in August for $9 million. The home listed for $12 million in 2009 and then for $10 million.
Worldwide, Christie’s reported that the largest upticks in high-end sales were in London, Paris, Hong Kong, New York City and Beverly Hills, CA. One surprise is the continuing strong recovery of Florida.
“Our market is edging close to normalcy,” says Michael Saunders of Michael Saunders & Company in Sarasota, Florida. “Ours was among the first to feel the downturn, the first to take the corrective measure of lowering prices and now is among the first to enjoy a sustained recovery. Buyers who arrive today expecting to find a glut of properties to choose from will be shocked to discover a growing shortage of well-priced, well-maintained properties that are in move-in condition.”
"I honestly don’t know how an international buyer in Florida can’t be optimistic,” says Ron Shuffield of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell in Miami. “Prices are the lowest they’ve been in four years; then, on top of that, they are essentially being awarded an extra 30 percent-off coupon with the currency exchange rate.”
The State of Luxury Market report examines the prevailing mood of buyers and sellers, how market activity is trending worldwide, and how transactions are handled in the upper levels of the market. For example, when it comes to buying, the preferred means of payment is cash, said 87 percent of brokers. In Atlanta, most high-end real estate purchases are financed, but the use of cash is increasing.
“High-end buyers have the cash and with interest rates at historic lows and mortgages more difficult to obtain, many are opting to put their own assets into real estate,” says Parmer. At his firm, the percentage of buyers using cash has jumped from 10.5% in 2007 to 25% this year.
Harry Norman, Atlanta's oldest real estate firm, continues to lead Buckhead and metropolitan Atlanta in sales of homes priced $1 million and above, with 26.3% of the Buckhead luxury home market sales through August in 2011 and 24.8% of metro Atlanta sales.
Spanning more than 40 countries with a combined estimated annual sales volume of $100 billion, Christie’s International Real Estate focuses exclusively on properties valued above $1 million.
