August 14, 2009

Atlanta Business Chronicle – by Maria Saporta Contributing Writer
Joann VItelli
72 Marietta Street: AJC’s current home is “a critical piece of real estate,” says Central Atlanta Progress’ A.J. Robinson.
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The possible move of Atlanta’s largest daily newspaper out of downtown concerns civic leaders and one of the city’s most accomplished journalists.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been laying the groundwork to move from its current downtown home to a location that likely will be outside the city limits. Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported the possible move Aug. 12.

“It would be a very sad day for the community, after so many generations, to physically lose such an important part of the fabric of Atlanta,” said A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group.

Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, said major daily newspapers have played a vital role in helping create the civic, business and cultural life of cities.

“We have seen other major metro newspapers suffer so this is nothing new,” Williams said. “But it strikes to the heart of Atlanta because reporting on the public sector on a daily basis, especially investigative reporting, is crucial to good government.”

The AJC’s roots downtown date back more than a century. Throughout its history, the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Constitution have produced some of the city’s leading citizens, beginning with editor Henry Grady’s vision for the New South in the late 1880s to “Gone With The Wind” author Margaret Mitchell to editor Ralph McGill and columnists Celestine Sibley and Lewis Grizzard.

As a testament to his role in the city, Grady’s statue stands proudly in the middle of Marietta Street just a block away from the newspaper’s building.

If the AJC does move out of the city, “I can see Henry Grady holding a handkerchief to his eyes,” said George Goodwin, 92, who won the Atlanta Journal’s first Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for exposing voter fraud in Telfair County.

AJC executives have been letting community leaders and employees know about the possible move, telling them that decision should be announced later this month. The AJC’s new publisher, Michael Joseph, informed employees in an Aug. 3 e-mail about a possible relocation.

“We have been exploring all the options to lower our cost structure, including real estate,” said Jennifer Morrow, the AJC’s external communications manager. “We are looking at a lot of options related to real estate opportunities.”

She added that a decision likely will be announced within a couple of weeks.

The AJC’s parent, Cox Enterprises Inc., made a similar move in Dayton, Ohio, in 2007, when it moved the headquarters of the Dayton Daily News out of downtown Dayton.

That decision was met with disappointment from Dayton economic development groups, including the Downtown Dayton Partnership.

Cox’s Doug Franklin, who until recently was publisher of the AJC, was formerly publisher of Cox Ohio Publishing, where he was involved in the 2006 decision to move the Dayton Daily News outside of downtown Dayton.

Even though the problems of the newspaper industry are well-known, CAP’s Robinson wondered how moving the AJC from the city would put it in a better position to cover Atlanta, especially “when the major institutions and the leaders who create or shape the news are in the central city.”

But Robinson said that although it would be a great disappointment, the AJC moving would “not be a death knell” for downtown. “It’s not the end of the world for us,” Robinson said. “We will go on about our business of building a great downtown.”

Actually, Robinson said the AJC’s current home at 72 Marietta St. is “a critical piece of real estate.” It is a strategic site for the redevelopment of Marietta Street and the railroad gulch that is part of the proposed “green line” project and a new multimodal train station.

Retired journalist Goodwin remembered the 20 years that he worked for the Atlanta Journal right after World War II.

“I have difficulty imagining our major newspaper being anywhere else but the heart of Atlanta,” said Goodwin, who after leaving the Atlanta Journal became the dean of the city’s public relations professionals. “Atlanta is a particularly large circle. And if you are a circular city, you’ve got to be located in the middle.”

CAP’s Robinson said he knows newspapers are in transition and that the industry is struggling. “When faced with questions of survival, institutions make radical decisions,” said Robinson, who hopes the Atlanta community will try to get the AJC to reconsider its plans before a final decision is announced.

Goodwin still has a hard time believing the AJC could leave the central city. “It’s a very negative thing. Somebody in civic Atlanta needs to say … ‘You can’t do this.’ ”

Reach Saporta at (404) 736-3612 or maria@saporta.biz.

http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2009/08/17/story2.html?b=1250481600^1932931

By Julie Haviv

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An unusually robust rise in home prices from April to May could foreshadow a recovery in many U.S. housing markets, according to a report released on Thursday by Radar Logic, a real estate data and analytics company.

Twenty-two out of 25 metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, displayed month-over-month price increases in May, according to Radar Logic’s RPX Monthly Housing Market Report for May 2009.

The RPX 25-MSA Composite showed a month-over-month increase of 2.1 percent.

“This is in stark contrast to the same period during 2008, when a decrease in the velocity of home price depreciation gave way to the worst loss in housing value in recent history,” the report said.

Prices have fallen 33.5 percent peak-to-trough and 31 percent peak-to-current, according to the RPX 25-MSA Composite.

Radar Logic said the RPX is designed to be a daily indication of the “spot” price for residential real estate, which perhaps provides an early view of trends in the broader economy.

“We have been observing strength in the RPX since April, and it now appears that this improvement in home prices was an early indicator of some strength in the general economy,” the report said.

San Francisco ranked No. 1 in May, in terms of price gains, prices surging 7.3 percent versus April. Minneapolis and Milwaukee ranked second and third, with prices climbing 5.5 percent and 4.9 percent, respectively, in May versus April, the data showed.

“Prices in most of these MSAs increased more than would be expected, given historical seasonal patterns,” the report said. “This contrasts starkly to the month-over-month price changes in May 2008, when the seasonal strength typically observable in spring and summer was largely absent.”

Radar Logic said the larger-than-average increase in home prices from April to May 2009 could indicate that seasonal price fluctuations do not fully account for the strength seen in many areas and that seasonal gains are being augmented by a more general recovery in the housing market.

“Unusually mild price declines in the coming autumn and winter would provide further evidence that some markets have started to recover,” the report said.

BIG CITY BLUES

Atlanta, Las Vegas and New York — in contrast to the price growth displayed by most of the MSAs tracked — declined on a month-over-month basis in May, dropping 0.2 percent, 0.6 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively, the data showed.

Radar Logic said the price declines in New York and Las Vegas were not surprising, due to their economies’ reliance on industries that have been hit hard during the recession.

The company also said the absence of seasonal strength in Atlanta was not unusual, either, as seasonal factors do not have a particularly strong influence on the Atlanta RPX relative to the influence of seasonality on other MSAs.

The RPX 25-MSA Composite has increased 3.7 percent since March 30, when it hit its lowest point since the beginning of the housing crisis. Home prices in the western region of the United States have performed particularly well recently, increasing by 6.9 percent since hitting their low on January 22, the report said.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

By ALAN ZIBEL

The Associated Press

7:31 a.m. Thursday, August 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes rose 7 percent from June to July, as the escalating foreclosure crisis continued to outpace government efforts to limit the damage.

Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, or one in every 355 homes, received a foreclosure-related notice, such as a notice of default or trustee’s sale. That’s the highest monthly level since the foreclosure-listing firm began publishing the data more than four years ago.

Banks repossessed more than 87,000 homes in July, up from about 79,000 homes a month earlier.

Nevada had the nation’s highest foreclosure rate for the 31st-straight month, followed by California, Arizona, Florida and Utah. Rounding out the top 10 were Idaho, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and Oregon. Among cities, Las Vegas had the highest rate, followed by the California cities of Stockton and Modesto.

While there have been numerous recent signs that the ailing U.S. housing market is finally stabilizing after three years of plunging prices, foreclosures remain a big concern. Foreclosures are typically sold at a deep discount, hurting neighbors’ home values.

The mortgage industry has been slow to adapt to the surge in foreclosures. Many lenders have needed government prodding to get up to speed with the Obama administration’s plan to stem foreclosures.

The Treasury Department said last week that banks have extended only 400,000 offers to 2.7 million eligible borrowers who are more than two months behind on their payments. More than 235,000, or 9 percent, those borrowers have enrolledin three-month trials in which their monthly payments are reduced.

“The volume of loans that are in distress simply overwhelms” those efforts, said Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president for marketing.

___

August 13, 2009 07:31 AM EDT

By Michelle E. Shaw

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

9:32 p.m. Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The median sale price of a single-family home in metro Atlanta rose from the first quarter to second quarter of the year but remained well below year-ago levels, the National Association of Realtors says.

The median price was $121,400 in the three months that ended June 30, up 5 percent from $115,600 in the three months ended March 31. The current median price is 23 percent lower than it was this time last year, $158,300, according to figures released Wednesday by the association.

The median is the mid-point for all sales; half of homes sold were priced higher, and half were priced lower. A rise in foreclosures and other distress sales, coupled with a slow market for mid- and upper-price sales, depresses the median.

Though the price is still down year-over-year, quarterly improvement is progress in the right direction, housing analysts say.

“The real key will be year-over-year increases, but the quarterly movement shows things are moderating,” said Steve Palm, president of the Marietta real estate research firm SmartNumbers. “The numbers have been edging up since February, and quarterly progress is good to see.”

Nationally, 129 out of 155 metropolitan statistical areas saw second-quarter declines in median existing single-family home prices, compared to same period the year before. Twenty-six areas had price gains.

Median sale prices are lower than typical home valuations in many parts of the metro area because of market conditions.

“Recently sold homes are concentrated in lower price ranges,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors’ association. “The median price may not be representative of overall values in a given area because many middle priced homes are not on the market.”

Foreclosures and sales for less than the loan value accounted for 36 percent of transactions across the country in the second quarter, according to the association. The national median existing single-family price was $174,100, down 16 percent from the second quarter of 2008, the release said.

Sales volume, declined 4 percent in Georgia in the second quarter from the first, and 5 percent year over year, according to the report. But 39 states had sales increases from the first quarter, and nine had year-over-year improvements, the association said.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) was established to stabilize communities that suffer from foreclosures and abandonment. Under the program, HUD has distributed nearly $4 billion to state and local housing authorities for the purchase and redevelopment of foreclosed and abandoned homes.
Fannie Mae supports the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and is working with public entities and nonprofits to match their interests with Fannie Mae’s REO inventory.
Call your experts at Prime Real Estate to learn more about how this can help you make smart investments today. 404-685-3774 or visit www.atlprime.com and click ‘search foreclosures’ for the best deals in the city.

There has never been a better time to invest in real estate.  With so much trepedation in the stock market and real estate prices at bargain levels there has never been a better time to get in.  Buy low and sell high has never been a more valid approach.  Interest rates are fantastic too.  With this combination, smart investors are moving to investments they can see, feel and touch. 

Everyone needs a place to live, so many are buying rental properties at bargain basement prices and look for great appreciation and equity builds for their weakened portfolios.  We are already seeing prices stabilize in the Atlanta real estate market, while there is still incredible uncertainty in most other investment venues.  Call on your top producers and experts at Prime Real Estate in Atlanta’s midtown for all your real estate needs.

In this market more than ever, you need an expert to help you get your home sold too.  Maximizing your vaue and positioning is critical to moving property in today’s marketplace.  Smart sellers are calling on their Prime Real Estate selling agents to get their homes sold at the best possible prices.  Positioning, presentation and follow through are critical. No one knows this better that your ally at Prime Real Estate.

Contact us today at (404) 685-3774, or visit our web site at www.atlrpime.com.

There are a lot of INCREDIBLE deals out there right now for buyers and investors in the foreclosure market.  Many are taking advantage of nearly 50% discounts on these great properties.  Prime Real Estate is a foreclosure selling specialist and your best ally in getting the right property.  Contact your Prime Real Estate sales associate to get directed toward the right homes in Atlanta that are incredible deals for investors, homeowners and all other buyers alike.

You can see out current inventory at www.atlprime.com.  However, we have access to mant great properties before they hit the market, so calling a specialist for a sneak preview of what is coming gets you ahead of the game.  Of course we can also research many other great deals that are out there undetected to the typical eye.

Call our office at 404-685-3774 or email your Prime Real Estate associate today!  There has never been a better time to buy than today.  Atlanta is one of the top 10 markets in the United States and is poised for explosive growth going forward.  Get your slice of success today.

Today, April 27th, 2008 is the last day to see the nearly 700 homes up for auction in Atlanta.  The auction will be on May 4, 5 & 6th at The Georgia World Congress Center.   You can pick up information on the properties at the PRIME REAL ESTATE office located in Ponce Spring Lofts at 620 Glen Iris Drive, Suite 102, Atlanta, GA 30308.  Or contact a PRIME REAL ESTATE sales specialist to get the information.

These homes muse sell and many start bids at only $1000.  The Prime team also has many resale homes ready for move in.  Contact any of the Prime specialists for the perfect property in Atlanta and beyond.  Also, keep a look out for our developer projects in Darien, Coastal Georgia, Buckhead and Sandy Springs.  There are a lot of great deals out there and now is the time to buy.  All market indicators tell us the housing market has hit the bottom and the time to buy is today.  Interest rates have never been better, nor have prices.  Get your PRIME REAL ESTATE today!

Call any PRIME agent for information on Auction properties in Atlanta.  These are foreclosures from Countrywide, Bank of New York, Bear Stearns and more.  Call or stop by.  620 Glen Iris Drive, Suite 102, Atlanta, GA 30308, (404) 685-3774, www.atlprime.com.

The end is approaching on the opportunity to  an end soon.  The final open houses will be this weekend April 26 & 27, 2008.  Over 600 homes are for sale startig at $1000.  Be sure you also have a PRIME agent to help you with your contract.  we are familiar with the process and it is at no cost to you.  Contact a PRIME agent today to get an information book and register. 

Some examples of homes for sale are:

1330 Nash Street, Atlanta, GA 30314 – a 3 Bedroom 2.5 Bath Home with approximately 1776 square feet which was previously valued at $213,000: the starting bid is $1000!

3777 Peachtree Road #1013, Atlanta, GA 30319 – 1 Bedroom 1 Bath Condo with approximately 903 square feet which was previously valued at $192,300: the starting bid is $49,000.

1536 Westwood Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30310 – 3 Bedroom 2.5 Bath home with approximately 2200 square feet which was previously valued at $320,000: the starting bid is ONLY $1000!

6269 Southland Drive Ridge, Stone Mountain, GA 30087 – 4 Bedroom 4 Bath with approximately 3900 square feet which was previously valued at $317,000: the starting bid is $99,000.

PRIME REAL ESTATE is excited to be working with REDC on the foreclosure close outs.  Call us today at (404) 685-3774 or visit our web site at www.atlprime.com.

The Auction will be held May 4,5,6 & 10 at The Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.  Liquidation deals are here!!!

PRIME REAL ESTATE is working with REDC, a national auction company, to  help liquidate many foreclosures in the Atlanta area.  In addition to out normal foreclosure listings, many of these properties will start bidding at $1000.  You can contact bru@atlprime.com for a list of properties in the auction.  Or you can visit www.ushomeauction.com for more information. 

Many of the homes are in good condition and will sell for pennies on the dollar.  Homes are available across the state at great prices.  We also have many listed foreclosures through Countrywide Home Loans and get new ones all the time.  Contact a PRIME agent for more information.