Joshua Jarvis - Georgia Realtor's Blog

You might think that Hamilton Mill would be a great place to find a deal.  Surely with over 2,000 homes there might be some pretty great steals in there.   
If you thought that, you'd be right.

However, it goes to illustrate the paradox that is the Atlanta Buyer's Market.  There are great deals to be had, to be sure.  They move quickly and you've got to jump when you see them.

Of course everyone knows by now that Short Sales are by far the best deal out there, they just require patience.

So you might ask, how many short sales are in Hamilton Mill - an area that based on the demographics should have very many -  ... drumroll ... .4.

That's right only 4 Short Sale Listings. Of course, it may be that someone is in a short sale situation and doesn't know it and it might be that their agent doesn't know what they are doing, but I only see 4 short sales for sale in Hamilton Mill. 

If you have questions about short sales please contact us.  

As I show homes for sale in georgia I often come across various commissions on the homes. To be honest I notice them and always hope that the homes that have high commissions are the ones my clients want. Inevitably, they are not.

What does strike me is the number of homes on the markwt with low commissions. This practice tells me a few things:

1. The home has no equity and this should be tough to negotiate
2. The owner does not value a real estate agent's job and thus is ok underpaying.
3. The owner is uneducated on the world of real estate
4. No matter the cause, it all screams "unmotivated."

This is a buyer's market and the buyer's usually have an agent.

Conversly, homes with above average commission are a joy to work with and there are many agents who will admit behind the scenes that they will push these homes.

The sellers appear motivated because:

1. They have equity
2. They seem to value the agent's time or at least the ability to find a buyer. 

Don't believe me.  Think about the Atlanta Falcons.  Every player wants to play in Atlanta?  Why? Because it's a better life than any other city?  There's some truth to that, but they can always retire here.  Is it because Atlanta is known as a winning football team?  Certainly not until recently?  Nope, it's because the owner Aurthur Blank has been known to pay the players very well and wine and dine them.  There are tough negotiations that go on, but at the end of the day the player always feels like a winner.  Compare that to other towns like Cleveland where they don't pay their players at all.  No one wants to play there and the teams is ALWAYS a loser.

Back to the homes.  Would you rather work with a seller that pays your agent well and is motivated to work things out or one that is greedy from the "get-go?"

I recently wrote a blog post about Walmart Pricing and why it's an outdated and poor strategy.   You can read about it there, but I wanted to go into more depth here.  As Trulia and other websites expand their capabilities, this will be less of an issue.  In particular, when a user uses SNAPSHOT, they don't have the same limitations that the traditional search engines do.