|
Housing Sales Are
Up!
brought to you
by Chrissy
Neumann
Spalding
Woods
7195 Northgreen
Drive
$265,500
- Lowest priced home in popular Spalding Woods
community! This is a
steal!
- Five full bedrooms and three full baths gives
you plenty of room to
grow!
- Kitchen boasts gorgeous maple cabinets, stone
countertops, new black appliances, ceramic
tile
- Tons of cabinet space, with a center island and
built in desk!
- Kitchen overlooks Family Room which opens up to
a bright and sunny screened
porch
- Hardwood floors throughout Family Room and
Dining Room and Living
Room
- French doors invite you into the Living
Room
- Ideal location and top notch schools - this
home won't be on the market long at this
price!!
- View This
Home at CastlesByChrissy.com
****If you know a friend, family member,
or coworker who would like their home featured
as the "Tuesday
Tour" email the details to chrissy@castlesbychrissy.com****
Tuesday's
Tip
Housing sales
set hot pace
Market hits record high, countering caution over slowdown
in economy
Sales of existing homes blew
through expectations in May, revving up the pace of residential real
estate to a record 8 million homes a year.
Friday's
report from the National Association of Realtors showed housing resales
running at a pace of 6.8 million a year. Combined with a report on new
home sales Thursday, the overall sector has reached a new high.
"You can thank
the last gasp of cheap rates, and people are trying to lock them in," said
Rajeev Dhawan, director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia
State University. "You will see this activity go on throughout the
summer."
The nationwide
median sale price for an existing home in May was $198,000, 10.3 percent
above the level of a year earlier.
The euphoric
chorus in housing drowned out a note of caution from a government report
showing that the economy grew less quickly than thought during the first
three months of 2004.
Gross domestic
product during the quarter was 3.9 percent, instead of the 4.4 percent
reported earlier, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
That result
remains solid but is slightly below the fourth quarter of 2003 and less
than half the growth rate during the third quarter.
GDP is a
measure of the value of all goods and services produced in the United
States.
Friday's
report also showed that the pace of inflation at the start of this year
was higher than earlier thought.
A main culprit
in the downward revision was the yawning trade deficit. That shaved 0.7
percentage points off the first-quarter GDP, which was twice as much as
estimated a month ago. Consumers also spent more modestly, and businesses
didn't increase spending to buy equipment and build inventories as heavily
as previously thought.
On Thursday,
the government reported a second straight decline in orders for durable
goods, a volatile but critical reading on manufacturing.
But orders are
up for the year -- and they are booming at Purafil Inc., an Atlanta-based
maker of air purification systems. "I have seen very nice growth -- close
to 20 percent over the past year and a half," said owner and Chief
Executive Bill Weiller.
Foreign
customers, especially China, are the lion's share of expansion, he
said.
The job market
nationally is also improving. The economy in the last three months has
started churning out a healthy number of jobs, an average of 316,000 a
month.
A monthly
University of Michigan survey showed household confidence at its highest
level in four months.
The survey
showed a rosier view of both current economic conditions and expectations.
The view of current conditions is the brightest since January.
That kind of
optimism may fuel the drive to buy a home, but low mortgage rates act as a
supercharger.
Sales have
remained fairly strong, partly because a large share of buyers are using
adjustable rate mortgages, which offer a lower starting rate. As rates
have started to climb, mortgage applications have slipped, a sign of
weaker sales down the road.
Still, experts
have repeatedly predicted a fade, only to see homebuying soar
again.
The Federal
Reserve is expected to raise short-term interest rates next week for the
first time since 2000, but it will be a while before they are high enough
to choke off purchases, said D.C. Aiken, senior vice president of HomeBanc
Mortgage Corp. "I don't think we'll see 8 percent mortgages any time
soon," Aiken said. "There is nothing on the horizon to make it seem that
we'll see much higher interest rates."
BYLINE: MICHAEL E. KANELL
DATE: June 26, 2004
PUBLICATION: Atlanta
Journal-Constitution, The (GA)
EDITION: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
SECTION: News
PAGE: A1The Associated Press contributed to
this article.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE PROPERTY LISTED
ABOVE OR THE TIP PROVIDED
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL CHRISSY@CASTLESBYCHRISSY.COM OR CALL ME AT
404.925.5335
|
|
 |
|
Do you know someone that would like to be kept
abreast of the latest information in the real estate industry and
learn of the hottest listings for sale in the Atlanta metropolitan
area? Sign Them Up so they
can ...
|
FIRST ATLANTA
| 
