Thursday, February 2, 2012
Bummer / Wonk Metro Atlanta is still a vast sea of foreclosures where real estate investors are looking at what could be former brothels
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 3:16 PM
If you didn't read yesterday's excellent New York Times piece that says metro Atlanta is home to the world's hottest royal since Prince Albert trails the rest of the country when it comes to home sale prices, we strongly urge you to do so. And yes, you read that second paragraph right. We're actually faring worse than Phoenix and Miami.
Motoko Rich's piece is filled with delicious, depressing data, but the following lines truly caught my eye (I've been spending the last few weeks researching the topic of growth — or the lack thereof — in Southeastern cities and metro regions):
Atlanta has suffered greatly from a contracting pool of home buyers. The number of people moving from within the United States to [metro] Atlanta peaked at 100,000 in 2006 and plunged to just 17,000 by 2009, the latest census figures available.“Most of the housing activity that we experienced in the past 10 years was people moving to Atlanta from other markets,” said Domonic Purviance, real estate market analyst for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
“If you lose 80,000 people a year coming to your market,” Mr. Purviance added, “that’s the whole issue.”
And nearly a quarter of job losses between February 2008 and August 2011 were in the construction and real estate sectors. I know it's been said time and time again, but damn, what geniuses decided in the 2000s that growth for growth's sake should be metro Atlanta's main industry?
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* Why use "brothel" in the title? Read the NYT story, my friends!
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
"I know it's been said time and time again, but damn, what geniuses decided in the 2000s that growth for growth's sake should be metro Atlanta's main industry?"
it was just kind of a thing that happened. one has to admit that an inherent weakness of an industry composed mainly of small-time contractors is lack of forecasting. we were building for projected growth without doing proper and well-informed projections
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Not to mention: we have crappy infrastructure; Very poor city, county, & state government coordination and relations; and a lot of cheaply built homes.
growth for growth's sake, yep breaking an addiction can be very painful in the short term, but once we get through this detoxing, if we learn from our mistakes, we will ultimately be stronger.
Wait did I say learn from our mistakes...Ahhhh F*ck it.
One thing I do wonder about though, Phoenix and Miami went into the downturn quicker and faster than metro ATL. Do comparisons get skewed because Miami and Phoenix merely bottomed out before us?
Btw I don't think starving out or getting the hispanic folks here to self deport themselves and/or stop coming here and/or pulling a Cobb/Gwinnett round em up haul them out routine has helped things. They were creating some of the real estate demand and a part of the population growth numbers.
TW: What makes you think the "growth for growth's sake" mantra began in the 2000s? Wasn't it way before then?
Andy Heller is an idiot. So are NY Times losers.
Screw them and the criminals that looted the US (ie that cum swiller Barney Frank)
Zedsmith are you a retard? You must be. Either that or a worthless Wigger.
Get a job loser.
To InAtl's comment, go to the NYT article and look at the sidebar chart of Case-Shiller date. I'm not a real estate analyst, but I think this chart illustrates two distinct dynamics: 1) some markets had crazy boom-crash from asset price speculation, i.e. bidding up what's available on the assumption that someone will buy it higher...that would be the big hump 04-08; 2) some markets have ongoing capacity overhang, i.e. taking higher prices as a signal to build much more...those would be the lines drifting downward 09-12
You can see that the two aren't necessarily linked with NY or DC, for example...big pricing boom, but relatively constrained building so less ongoing capacity overhang. Atlanta has been the opposite: relatively not bad on asset price speculation boom, but as Wheatley and the NYT article point out we have a big problem with capacity overhang; I'd guess that's because we don't have the natural barriers to expansion and do (or at least did) have a big and adaptable construction industry that for years kept finding something to keep it busy (commercial high rise vs. MDU high rise, for example) until it just ran out of things to build
BTW I think there are some other interesting stories on this chart: 1) wow, Detroit is f*cked...no boom, only continued decline, I feel bad for them; 2) Texas dealt with one collapse in the early 80s with oil prices + S&L crisis, but day-amn look at how Dallas just skated past the whole thing this time (I don't know at what cost...discriminatory lending laws? anyone know?); and 3) what the h*ll is going on with Charlotte?
Thanks for listening. Probably not the ideal forum for this rambling, but, hey, it was fun
A lot of the people who moved to Atlanta from the Northeast during 2003-2007 overpaid for their houses, sometimes by quite a lot.
These were professionals who were so used to the crazy Massachusetts/New Yor/D.C. area prices that when they came to Atlanta to househunt, they considered $350,000 for an unremodeled bungalow in Little Five to be cheap....and the realtor never let on that they could have bargained down the price another thirty thousand.
Now all these folks are looking hard for bargains. It has to make a difference in the sales numbers when the open-wallet types disappear.
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