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

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 May 2010. Sales volume of residential real estate has now shown an increase for the last 4 months from February throuug May, with May showing the second highest montly volume in the past 12 months.

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. May shows another increase in the sales volume, after increases in February March and April. This is probably due to buyers coming back into the market to take advantage of the extended First Time Home Buyers Tax Credit extension as well as the Repeat Home Buyers Tax Credit.

Chart 1

The total number of residential units sold in May 2010 was 181 units, up 21 units and more than 13%, from April. While down from the highs of last July it is a very strong showing and well over 200% of the low volume in January. The average days on market had its second consecutive decline to 165 days, down over 27% since the highs in March.

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 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.

AmericanStyle magazine has named Athens, Ga as one of the top 25 mid-sized city art destinations for the 9th straight year in a row. Rating cities on their visual and performance arts, Athens was rated #18 in the mid-sized city category this year.

While most people might know about Athens because of its contributions to the music scene with bands like R.E.M., Widespread Panic and The B-52's, there is also a strong visual arts environment here.

One the widest spread and easily recognized art displays is the Athens-Oconee Junior Woman's Club project "We Let the Dogs Out!". It is 36 bull dogs distributed all over Athens, each one whimsically painted by a different artist. You can find them scattered about downtown, in front of banks, fire stations, parks, etc. As you wander around town you might run into this handsome fellow out in front of St. Mary's hospital.

Or you may run into Dawg House, by artist Charlotte House out in front of the Athens Visitor Center.

So come spend some time, find all 36 of these pieces of art. And tour the galleries and museums. Take a tour of the classical southern architecture homes which are works of art in themselves. Stop in a some of the clubs and listen to the local music. And, of course, try some of the local cousine which is another form of art that satifies the body.

You can see the entire list of cities, large, small and in-between in the May 2010 issue of AmericanStyle magazine. To find out more about what's going on in Athens, Ga, including visual and performing arts, you can checkout Athens Life Unleashed.

For information on buying or sellingreal estate in the Athens Ga area, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or, you can click here to email me with your request for information. To search for homes and real estate in the Athens Ga area, please visit my website: The Athens Real Estate Page.

The unemployment rate in Athens - Clarke County Ga has dropped for the second straight month in April. It is now at 7.4%, down from 7.9% in March and 8.4% in February. This is well below the national unemployment average of 9.7% and the Georgia unemployment rate of 10.4%, down from a March rate of 10.5%.

While this is excellent news for the Athens area, it remains to be seen whether this is an organic job growth in the private sector or temporary decreases due to hiring of temporary census workers. The Athens area, for BlS employment statistics includes: Athens-Clarke County Ga, Oconee County Ga and Madison County Ga.

For information on buying or selling a home or property in the Athens Ga area, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or, you can click here to email me with your request for information. To search for homes and real estate in the Athens Ga area, please visit my website: The Athens Real Estate Page.