Atlanta Deceleration in Appreciation and Cooling Economic Cond.

[J. Martin]

Atlanta real estate prices, jobs, and economic conditions are simultaneously decelerating / cooling / growing at a slower rate, although this has happened later than most other geographical areas, and doesn't show signs of grinding to a halt any time soon. Just a smooth deceleration for now.. Although I was surprised to see Atlanta area residential prices back near the peak of the last bubble.. I believe I owed @Brian Burkesome of this data, so I decided to share it with all..

Here's a graph style I am copying from Brian Burke, which I saw yesterday at the Guild Summit in Sacramento, put on by @Al Williamson. . You can see when the (annualized) quarterly appreciation rate is falling below or above the annual appreciation rate, although you can also see some seasonality for low Q4 numbers..

And like most areas, there is a correlation between the rate of job growth and the rate of home price appreciation..

And changes in economic conditions slightly precede changes in jobs..

Nothing scary on the horizon, but again, it looks like we are past peak appreciation and in the deceleration phase..

[James Park]

@J. Martin,

The leading indicators for me for the Atlanta housing market is inventory levels and population growth. The current median home price in Atlanta is $182,100 and median household income is $55,733 making our HI ratio at 3.26.  

Atlanta metro's population net inflow has grown 327,595 between 2010 (5,286,728) to 2014 (5,614,323). I estimate that Atlanta metro net inflow population will to grow to 6,269,513 by 2020 census data. As of end of 2015, we are currently 7.9% below the July 2007 peak. I believe that Atlanta's housing market should be making new highs by next year, surpassing July 2007 levels like Dallas and Denver is doing today.

@J. Martin, I would like to ask you this question. If the bay area corrects by 15% in the next two years, do you also see Atlanta housing market correcting 10-15% or do you see the Atlanta housing market continuing to appreciate 5-6% / year in the next two years? I would love to get your opinion.