Life & Real Estate In & Around Athens GA. : February 2010

If you purchased and closed on a home in Athens-Clarke County Ga last year, 2009, you may be eligible for a Homestead Exemption. While the state funding for relief under the Homeowner Tax Relief Grant (HTRG) was unfunded last year, and not yet refunded, there is still a portion of the Homestead Exemption left in place that saves Athens-Clarke County Ga property taxpayers an average of $330 on annual property taxes.

While the majority of the state has a deadline of Apr. 1 for filing for the exemption, Athens-Clarke County has a filing deadline of Mar. 1. To make sure you get your credit, file at the Athens-Clarke County courthouse on East Washington St, room 250. Business hours are Monday - Friday, 8 am - 5 pm.

To qualify, a home has to have been your legal residence as of Jan. 1, this year. If you bought previous to 2009, you can still file for this years credit. If you miss the filing deadline, you can still file but you will not receive any relief until next years, 2011, property tax season.

If you are interested in more information about this, or, are considering buying or selling real estate in the Athens, Ga area, including the surrounding communities and counties, please call me at 706-207-5290. For a copy of my 99 Tips for Getting Your Home Ready to Sell, please click here to email me with the request. To search for homes in Athens, Ga. area, as well as NE. Georgia, please visit my website, The Athens Real Estate Page.

In Athens -Clarke County, GA, for the week ending Feb. 21, 2010 the real estate market in Athens, Ga. looks like this:

There are 1556 active listings of which 1294 are residential, 14 are farm and land. This is an increase of 23 listings from the previous week ending 2/14/2010.

There are 131 listings under contract. This number is 3 higher than in the previous week.

There have been 11 closed sales duiring the period of Feb. 15, 2010 - Feb. 21, 2010, all of which were residential. This is 4 more closed transactions than during the previous week.

For more information on Athens, GA or if you are interested in buying or selling your home there, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or you can click here to email me with your inquiries. To search for homes in Athens, please visit my website The Athens Real Estate Page.

Note: All data is taken from the Athens Area Association of Realtors MLS system and accurate as of one day after the reporting period. Athens-Clarke County market data includes the City of Athens, the town of Winterville and the remaining areas of Clarke County.

The following charts show the month to month residential real estate sales volume of the Greater Athens Ga metropolitan area for the months of June 2009 through Jan. 2010.

Chart 1 shows the trends for both the number of residential units sold and the average number of Days on Market (D.O.M.) for those units. January gives us the second straight month of declining sales volume. This is due to both the normal slow down for sales at this time of the year as well as the expected end of the home buyers tax credit (now extended) which accelerated some sales into November of last year.

The total number of residential units sold in January was 82, up 4down 10 units from December. The declining sales volume is not significantly negative, yet. However, it if continues into March and April, that will certainly be negative news. The average days on market decreased significantly from 220 to 175 during this period, which is certainly a postive trend if it continues.

Chart 1:

The second chart is tracking both the average and the median price of residential sales in the greater Athens metropolitan area. The average price showed a significant drop from $180,926.00 to $145,930 while the median also dipped from $135,000 to $128,000. This can be attributed to 2 factors. The first factor is that first time home buyers are making up over 40% of the home purchase. On top of that, nearly half of all sales are foreclosures or short sales. This trend will probably continue at least for the next few months.

Chart 2:

The Greater Athens Metropolitan area, for this report, includes Athens-Clarke County, Oconee County, Oglethorpe County, Jackson County and Madison County. All figures come from the Athens Area Association of Realtors® multiple listing service (MLS).

For more information about real estate in the Athens, GA area, or, if you are looking to buy or sell real estate in the Athens Ga area and surrounding counties, please call me at 706-207-5290, or, you can click here to email me with any questions. To search for homes, land and other real estate in the Athens Ga area please visit my website, The Athens Real Estate Page.

My wife and I record a lot of TV shows on DVR (the AT&T Uverse unit lets us do 4 shows simultaneously). We watch them at our leisure. We had just finished watching something that was recorded last Monday and decided to watch a half hour show before heading to bed for the night.

We decided upon Designed to Sell and watched an episode recorded last December which originally aired in Nov. 2008. It started out and I saw that it was about a home in the Montrose area of Southern California, where I lived from High School until I went into the military. And then it showed the house they were going to give their "$2000" staging project to.

As we were watching I told my  wife "That looks like the house I used to live in". After a couple of more minutes it was "That is the house that I used to live in". What a shock!

Home in 1964

It had been built in 1961 and my parents were the first owners. They bought it for $22,000. We moved there in 1962. My dad made sure I learned how to build fences, do concrete work, paint interior and exterior walls, climb the roof to put up Christmas decorations, do interior remodeling, roto-till a yard, plant a lawn, do planter beds, etc. etc. etc. And all this while doing all of the stuff a high school guy normally does, sports, friends, girls, cars, sports, girls, etc. etc. etc.

The exterior looked much the same, the outside color was a a yellowish instead of a peach color, some trees had been removed, a cinder block fence had been put up on one side of the front. The back looked almost unchanged except for the lemon tree, which was small when I lived there but was now over 40 years old. The inside we only saw the living room, master bedroom and kitchen/dining area. The living room and master bedroom were much the same, only the paint color different. In the living room the carpet had been removed and hardwood or laminate flooring installed.

A Few Years Later

The kitchen had been completely remodeled. All of the cabinets had been replaced and a side door enclosed. There was still the double slider off of the dining area. The flooring was also replaced with hardwood or laminate.

Needless to say, I rewound and watched several scenes multiple times and I put it on do not erase until I manually erase the episode. After it was over, I dug out some old pictures that I got after my mother passed but have never really organized, just one big box. We dug through them a looked at faded 40 year old pictures of the house, my family, my friends.

During the show my wife pointed out the lemon tree and asked if it was there when we lived there. I said yes, and there was even a picture of it when it was about 3 feet tall. With some lemons on it. I called my sister to tell her about this and her first question was if the lemon tree was still there.

The Lemon Tree's Early Childhood

It was great to see something like that on television. I am still exited about it. How many people can find one of their old homes featured on a tv show? Now I have to go and sort out a bunch of old pictures.

My parents sold it in 1972 for about $34,000. It sold in 2008 for $699,000.

I woke up this morning with the increasing aches and pains of getting a bit older. I winced, grumbled, moaned and groaned and loudly commisserated about no longer being young and spry. About how nature is mistreating us in our prime years.

And then I remembered a video clip that a friend of mine, a good golfing buddy, sent me the other day. We go out every couple of weeks a flail away at a little white ball for 18 holes, certainly getting our moneys worth of strokes, and fun. We bitch and moan about the unfairness of the greens, bad bounces. We make excuses for our play, arthritis kicking in, a squirrel passed gas just as I was in the middle of mine down-swing. And then I realize, I don't have it so bad, all things considered.

Meet Butch Lumpkin. If there ever was a person that had a right to complain, had the right to feel that life treated him unfairly, the right to feel sorry for himself, that person is Butch Lumpkin. He took what life handed him and made it work. I wish I could hit the ball as far as he does. I wish that I could score as well as he does. I hope that I can face those trials coming to me in the future as well as he does.

So, the next time you are feeling beat down by life, that you have too many things working against you, that life is unfair, go ahead and visit Butch again. The next time you see someone complaining about their state in life, introduce them to Butch. Most of you, most of us, will realize that maybe we don't have too much to complain about.

Whether you are a golfer or not, you might develop a new appreciation for life after viewing this. Be patiend with the very short commercial at the beginning.

In Oconee County, GA, for the week ending Jan. 31, 2010 the real estate market looks like this:

There are 732 active listings of which 391 are residential, 18 are farm and land. The total number of listings is 17 fewer than in the previous week.

There were 62 listings under contract at the end of the reporting period, that is the same number of listings under contract as in the previous week.

During the week of Jan. 25 - Jan. 31 2010, there was 1 closed residential sale in Oconee County, Ga,  and 1 closed farm and land sale. This is an decrease of 1 closed transaction from the previous week.

For more information on Oconee County, GA or if you are interested in buying or selling your home there, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or you can click here to email me with your inquiries. To search for homes in Oconee County please visit my website www.theathensrealestatepage.com.

Note: All data is taken from the Athens Area Association of Realtors MLS system and accurate as of one day after the reporting period.

The Oconee County Ga economy was the best performing in the state of Georgia during 2009. It was one of only 7 counties in Georgia that showed improving economic conditions according to the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA).

The DCA takes into consideration several factors to determine the economic performance of the various counties. These factors include unemployment rates, per capita income and the number of people living under the poverty level, among other things. Oconee county has an unemployment rate of 5.5% compared to the state rate of over 10%

There are several reasons for Oconee County's positive economic performance. One of the major reasons is the presence of the University of Georgia, just a few miles away in Athens. Another factor is the presence of several other government agencies as well as a strong medical community.

Oconee County, like almost every other county in the country, has been affected by the real estate market downturn, with significantly reduced new construction as well as a lower sale rate of existing homes. However, because of its demonstrated resilience in a very tough economy, Oconee County Ga is expected to be leading the pack as the economy of the state improves.

For more information on Oconee County, GA or if you are interested in buying or selling your home there, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or you can click here to email me with your inquiries. To search for homes in Oconee County, Watkinsville and the surrounding areas, please visit my website The Athens Real Estate Page.

In Athens -Clarke County, GA, for the week ending Jan. 31, 2010 the real estate market in Athens, Ga. looks like this:

There are 1460 active listings of which 1205 are residential, 13 are farm and land. This is an increase of 5 listings from the previous week ending 1/24/2010.

There are 127 listings under contract. This number is the same as the previous week.

There have been 7 closed sales duiring the period of Jan. 24, 2010 - Jan. 31, 2010, all of which were residential. This is 1 more closed transaction than during the previous week.

For more information on Athens, GA or if you are interested in buying or selling your home there, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or you can click here to email me with your inquiries. To search for homes in Athens, please visit my website The Athens Real Estate Page.

Note: All data is taken from the Athens Area Association of Realtors MLS system and accurate as of one day after the reporting period. Athens-Clarke County market data includes the City of Athens, the town of Winterville and the remaining areas of Clarke County.