You’re probably aware that it’s currently a seller’s market here in Atlanta with well under 6 months worth of supply available. Not surprisingly, that’s also true here in the City of Decatur.
Check out the table below for some 1st Quarter 2015 insights specific to the Decatur real estate market compared to the same time period last year.
While the average sales price is up approximately 1% vs. 1st quarter last year, what really stands out is that Days on Market (DOM) has decreased from 55 to 38 days! Also, while the sale of homes under $500,000 declined slightly year over year, the majority of sales remain under the $500,000 price point.
Digging a little deeper, when you break out sales by single-family homes vs. condos and townhomes, some interesting trends emerge.
Interestingly, over ⅓ of sales in Q1 2015 were condos and townhomes vs. ¼ during the same period in 2014. This was accompanied by a 36% increase in the average sales price vs. Q1 last year, while single-family home prices increased just over 1%.
Additionally, two bedroom floor plans remained the most popular choice for condo and townhome buyers, while the most popular number of bedrooms for single-family homes decreased from 4 to 3 bedrooms.
We’ll take another look at what the numbers say at the end of June – 2 months into peak selling season. Let me know if there are any other metrics you’re interested in seeing.
Click over to the 
website to see all homes currently for sale in Decatur.
Wow. So glad we bought in the 90’s. We’d never be able to afford to buy here now. When I run the numbers for a $540,000 detached home with a 30-year fixed, the monthly mortgage, interest and tax outlay is enormous.
Quite a bump in the average condo/town home sale price. Any clear reason for that?
My guess is that, given the supply of new or relatively new condos we had just before the housing bust, a lot of those units went underwater for a while as demand dropped off from a very healthy supply. The various foreclosures and whatnot seem to have worked their way through the system and prices, in response, are starting to better reflect the broader market.
The increase is partially due to the resale of newer 3-4 bedroom townhomes (e.g. Brownstones at Decatur) as well as a few new construction properties (e.g. Oakview Townhomes). There were only a few sales of this type in Q1 2014.
I’d be interested in seeing real estate data sorted by elementary school. It would also be interesting to see sales price and days in the market data on new construction detached homes vs. detached resale homes if possible since you’re open to requests.
We bought our house in CoD a little over a year ago, it will be interesting to see this new data as well as what you’ve provided already. Thanks for this great information!
Thanks for the suggestions!
Here’s a quick look at Q1 2015 # homes sold sorted by elementary school: Glennwood – 10, Westchester – 12, Winnona Park – 15, Clairemont – 17, and Oakhurst – 17. (Note: 2 sales appear to not be categorized by elementary school and are missing from this count.) We’ll dig a bit deeper into this breakdown for 2nd quarter.
New construction vs. resale might be a bit harder since the defining line between a resale that is taken down to the studs and a new construction from the foundation up is often murky in the data.