Heery Brothers is delighted to present a beautiful new home on a quiet cul-de-sac in the heart of Vinings.

5 bedroom, 5 and one half bathrooms Earth-Craft home built by LEED-certified builder, Donnelly Residential. Professional-grade kitchen opens to fireside family room. Spacious master suite with garden tub and walk-in closet. Finished basement with guest suite, exercise room, and rec room. 3-bay garage. Many other high-end appointments. Will be ready for occupancy May 1, 2012.

This time lapse video shows the construction process.

The below photos are of 1001 Dawn View (See www.1001DawnView.com.)  The brick was painted yesterday.

765 East Northway in North Buckhead (close to Windsor Parkway and Highpoint) will be listed next week. That too will have painted brick.  We think this is part of a softened and more discrete aesthetic that market has moved towards – even on very high end housing.  Today customer often wants a combination of a clear architectural genre (such as the American Revivalism shown on Dawn View), modern conveniences, clean lines and discretion.

More information on 1001 Dawn View, 765 East Northway and other homes under construction, please visit www.HeeryNewHomes.com.

“Housing will come back – you can be sure of that. Over time, the number of housing units necessarily matches the number of households (after allowing for a normal level of vacancies). For a period of years prior to 2008, however, America added more housing units than households. Inevitably, we ended up with far too many units and the bubble popped with a violence that shook the entire economy. That created still another problem for housing: Early in a recession, household formations slow, and in 2009 the decrease was dramatic. That devastating supply/demand equation is now reversed: Every day we are creating more households than housing units. People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over. And while “doubling-up” may be the initial reaction of some during a recession, living with in-laws can quickly lose its allure.

At our current annual pace of 600,000 housing starts – considerably less than the number of new households being formed – buyers and renters are sopping up what’s left of the old oversupply. (This process will run its course at different rates around the country; the supply-demand situation varies widely by locale.) … Fortunately, demographics and our market system will restore the needed balance – probably before long. When that day comes, we will again build one million or more residential units annually. I believe pundits will be surprised at how far unemployment drops once that happens. They will then reawake to what has been true since 1776: America’s best days lie ahead.”

This is taken from Page 3 of Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Letter to Shareholders. The above link refers to http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf.

Fresh off the success at 518 Argonne Road, Thad Roepke and Kevin Cotter of Crestar Properties have started a project encompassing three houses at the corner of West Wesley Road and Dawn View Lane.

One of the three houses site is under contract. Only 1001 Dawn View Lane is available now.

Recent progress photos taken February 8, 2012.

Also added to our ranking is the average sold price for closed sales of 3-5 bedroom, 2-4 bath houses in 2011 in that district. If you want a great elementary school and livable inexpensive house, looks like Grant Park’s Benteen Elementary is the best deal going. We did not look to see what sold for $107.  It probably needed a little work.

Typically we track Brandon, Jackson, Smith, Morningside, E. Rivers and Garden Hills. We included the two first place winners because of the noted high scores.  Both E. Rivers and Garden Hills have made tremendous improvement in the past 10 years. Although scores where down a bit this year we suspect there will be continued improvement. Sarah Smith is back  in 6^th place after several years of falling scores which had it below the top ten for a while. Morningside being above Brandon in test scores this this year is not surprising given that school’s improvement over the years. However, Sprindale and Benteen’s stellar performance was surprising.

One last little point, schools such as Sarah Smith and Warren Jackson are winners in the great recession. These are excellent schools that have attracted families that might have otherwise sent kids to private school in more flush times. It is funny how austerity and resourcefulness breads its own competition.

We think it is important to point out that test scores don’t make the school. There are other important considerations such as IB programs, student teacher ratio, etc.  The above table is more of a convenience. Also, we did not consider every elementary school. 

For more than 15 years, Heery Brothers has ranked in the top 1% to 2% of residential Realtors nationwide. Here is a summary of team performance since George joined in 2004:

 For more information, please visit “About Us”. The “Performance Page” has additional information.

The average single family house in Buckhead sold at about 89% to 93% of last asking price in 2011. The average short sale for single family house traded at 94% of asking price in 2011. Here is a summary:

 The above chart is from FMLS. It shows the conventional Buckhead market area (FMLS market area 21). All sales between January 2011 thru December 2011 that have “Potential Short Sales” as Special Circumstance attribute in FMLS.  We think the fact that short sales have slightly better “price performance” is partially attributable to the fact that short sale sellers are more aggressive with price reductions. Nevertheless, this is the opposite of what most people would anticipate.

To further drive this point home, short sales sell pretty fast.  The days on market metric for the above set of 37 properties is 109. This is a marketing period indicative of the overall market. Of course, this might simply be proof that when property is priced right it sells in a reasonable period of time.

The message for Buyers – Short Sales can yield a great deal. Use an agent that knows the ropes. Realize the best deals are often with Seller’s who can afford to sell.

The message for Sellers – Short Sales are perhaps more of a mainstream option than even you knew. They often do damage your credit. It is almost always better than foreclosure.

Heery Brothers works closely with a great short sale resource. Our client can act either as an investor or advisor. As an investor, they buy short sales up to $350,000. They typically remodel with the objective of a 20% return on investment within 6 months. As an advisor, they also provide assistance in working with the bank to get the short sale approved at no cost to you or your agent.

Please let Heery Brothers know how we can be of service.

• The number of active listings have dropped 28% across the city (Dec ’11 vs Dec ’10).
• The number of pending sales as of year’s end is up 20% from the prior year.
• The number of closed sales for the year was higher than any of the prior 3 years.

In the upper tier (over $750,000):

• Available inventory is down by 24%
• There were 17 more sales in this price bracket in 2011 than in 2010.
• The average sales price during 2011 was $35,000 higher than it was in 2010, at $1,166,000 (for 2011).
• The sales price to list price ratio was 5 percentage points higher at the end of 2011 than it was in December of 2010.
• The days on market dropped by 12.7% during 2011.

Source: FMLS and Natalie Gilmore, Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty

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