You know that home-sales chart from city-data that I’m always resurrecting?  You know, this one!

Well believe it or not, there’s a bit more to Decatur real estate than just a crummy mass-produced slide found in the bowels of the internet.

This evening from 5:30p-7p, Decatur residents and real estate agents, Terry Michel and Sean Dammann, are hosting a Decatur Real Estate Forum of area agents, residents and community leaders at Decatur’s Keller Williams office at 315 West Ponce to give an overview and discuss the health of Decatur’s real estate market.

While once an event geared exclusively to local agents from various realty groups around Atlanta, Dammann and Michel decided to open this quarterly event to the public and focus exclusively on the Decatur market as a service to their community.

According to Dammann, some of the questions to be answered during the forum include…

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Gene Kansas Development tweets…

GKD hired by Pope & Land to sell/lease 542 Church Street in Decatur…anyone wanna buy a building?!

And that would be this property…

I know I’m not the only one that’s dreamed about the revitalization of Church Street between Ponce and Commerce.

If you had a big wad of cash, what would you do with this property?

h/t: The Ginger Fox (a.k.a. Squirrel McBusinessperson)

Hey look, its everyone’s favorite home sales chart, updated through the first quarter!

While Decatur home sales aren’t what they used to be, the median home price in 30030 is still nearly on par with its year-ago average.  Pretty good considering that Atlanta home prices are down 25% from last year.

Also, after a single quarter decline, the average price continues to show an upward trend over the last 5 years.

As always, for comparison here’s 30306, 30307, 30308, 30316 and DeKalb County.  Everyone’s sales counts are at a stand-still, but it seems that Decatur is the only zip around with anything resembling upward momentum anymore.  The trendier zips to the west seem to have topped out in ‘06-’07.

Oh and for the sadists, here’s poor 30032.

Throw this tidbit into the mix, as we try to determine the direction of Decatur’s real estate market.

From an AJC article on the 27% drop in DeKalb home prices since last year…

[Real estate agent Tal] Kramer noted that there were pockets in metro Atlanta that fared much better than average, with one area – the Cobb County school district that includes highly sought-after Walton High School – even seeing a slight gain in price, of 4.4 percent. Some parts of DeKalb also were up for the year as well, such as the city of Decatur, which also has a highly regarded school system and had an increase in average price of 1.4 percent [vs. year-ago].

You may continue to call me overly optimistic, but when your county is down 27% overall and the city manages a slight increase in its real estate prices that’s not a bad sign.

Worried about the real estate market? Well you probably should be.

But if you live in Decatur, you can breathe a little easier.

Despite a 19% drop in new home prices (a very volatile measure in an entirely built out area like Decatur – see orange line in the chart below), the steadier median resale price of existing homes in the city grew 6.57% in 2007 vs. 2006, according to the AJC’s Home Sale Report for 2007.

Only 14 other zip codes in the entire metro area had larger growth than that. (See the second chart on this page for that ranking) In DeKalb, only 30306 (Morningside) and 30324 (LaVista Park area) experienced larger growth.

Not too shabby. We must be doin’ something right.

…and leaves a bunch of trash on the sidewalk. Uh…thanks?

Century 21 purchased local start-up “Dwellings” a year ago in an effort to increase its intown presence. At that time Decatur’s Century 21 office moved from the little house next to Watershed (which is still for lease today), into the Dwellings office in the 335 W. Ponce building. Now they seem to have moved off Ponce all together.

It seems unlikely that they have left Decatur entirely. Perhaps the stagnant real estate market has forced them to move to a new location with lower rent (and leave a heap of trash on the sidewalk).

If you ARE shopping for a home right now and want to keep it local, you might want to check out 9 Mile Trolley across the street (above Little Azio) or Avenue Realty over at East Decatur Station. These aren’t personal recommendations, just known options. Ultimately, its all about the agent not the company.