You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
On February 26, 2008 Dekalb County approved the Inefficient Plumbing Fixtures Replacement Plan. Any home built prior to 1993 must have low flow toilet and plumbing fixtures installed before the homeowner can obtain water from the county.
Effective June 1, 2008, sellers will be required to disclose the Dekalb County Ordinance when selling their homes. Listing agents in Dekalb should add a notice of this ordinance to the seller’s disclosure and/or sales contract. Before the new homeowner can obtain water service, they must provide written proof from a home inspector, licensed plumber, or a Department of Watershed Inspector. This certificate will be required with their application for water service.
Single family homes and condos will need to have the following:
1. Toilets can have a max of 1.6 gallons per flush
2. Shower heads can put out a max of 2.5 gallons per minute
3. Lavatory faucets can put out a max of 2 gallons per minute
4. Kitchen faucets can put out a mac of 2.2 gallons per minute
Based on average home sales statistics, Dekalb County foresees saving 360,000 gallons of water a day by enacting this ordinance and predicts it will take more than 33 years to replace all of the older water guzzling toilets and fixtures.
There are some exemptions to this ordinance and they include the following:
1. Foreclosure sales
2. Family sales > from spouse to spouse or from parents to their children
3. Homes that will be demolished after the sale
4. Circumstances where the cost of the toilet will be over $1,000.00 per toilet change out
If you violate these new laws, you are subject to the following penalties:
1. First violation will be warning
2. Second violation (within 12 months of first violation) will be $250.00
3. Third violation (within 12 months of first violation) will be $500.00
Senior Vice President, Managing Broker
Sandy Springs office
Source: AJC Homefinder By Clare Morris
Designer envisions more European, modern styles
No matter how big the house, it always seems that they crowd winds up in the kitchen. So it’s no wonder that this room gets a lot of attention when it comes to design, styling, decor and function. If you’re looking to give an existing kitchen a face lift or are designing one for a new house, take some inspiration from the Europeans.
They’re on the cutting edge of the most popular kitchen styles these days, said Becky Sue Becker, a certified kitchen designer and president of the Georgia chapter of the National Kitchen and Bath Association. “The market right no is very inspired by what the Europeans are doing,” Becker said. “They’re using clean lines, and Americans have become more accepting of that, because it suits out busy lives. We have less time to maintain the fancier elements.”
The “clean” look means less detail in the cabinetry and sleek, flat-panel door fronts. It also includes simple counter supports and trim work that’s not extremely ornate. Yet adjectives such as “clean,” “sleek” and “contemporary” don’t seem to fit with Atlanta’s penchant for traditional, detailed styling.
“It’s true, Atlanta is predominantly a traditional market, but I’d say, in the last three years, I’ve gone from a business with 10 percent modern projects to doing more than 50 percent,” Becker said. “There’s also been a strong movement toward the mission or arts and crafts designs that are much more streamlined.”
No matter how sleek they’re getting, there’s no question that kitchens are getting better, Becker said.
“Today’s kitchen is easily 30 percent bigger than it was 10 years ago,” she said. “And they’re becoming so much more than just kitchens. Desks are coming back in. We had been taking them out, but, with the kitchen being the hub of the home, a command center there is coming back. It could be a place for the main computer for the home, where the kids can do their homework – a place that can handle more tasks than just holding the phone.”
While command centers are popular, keeping rooms may be on the way out, as families shift back to great rooms.
“People have realized that the keeping room is usually too small for a large family,” Becker said. “Now it’s the space that could be turned into the command center instead.”
$45 million, 90-acre estate features private 18-hole golf course
By JULIE B. HAIRSTON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/19/08The most expensive real estate listing in Georgia has hit the market. Le Reve, a 90-acre estate on Trammel Road near Cumming, is for sale for a cool $45 million. James Simons, a Realtor with Jenny Pruitt & Associates’s Buckhead office, is handling the sale of Le Reve. He said he will use the brokerage’s affiliation with Christie’s Great Estates to market the property globally. “We’re going to throw a wide net to see if we can capture someone from around the world,” Simons said.
Hubert Humphrey is the founder of World Leadership Group, a marketing and mortgage brokerage company.
He also plans to showcase the property locally with a series of events later in the year. Owners Hubert and Norma Humphrey — who are not related to the late vice president — are looking to downsize from the 82-room, 47,000-square-foot home on the property. The couple started building the complex in 2004 after the city of Atlanta denied them a permit to expand their former home on Garman Road. Construction took three years.
Designed by Atlanta architect Norman Askins, the four-floor mansion features a 28-foot foyer, two elevators, a 12-car garage, stables, a home theater modeled after the Fabulous Fox in downtown Atlanta, 17 bathrooms, 62 televisions, 300 miles of high-tech wiring and a collection of antiques, furnishings and custom paintings assembled by Norma Humphrey with her three-decorator team. Le Reve’s 18-hole private golf course was added in 2005.
Targeting elite clients
Finding buyers with deep enough pockets to plunk down $19 million for a house requires far more than a For Sale sign and a run of traditional advertising. Establishing a distinctive personality for the house is an essential goal of the ultra-luxury marketing campaign, agents say.
Most multimillion-dollar houses have names as well as addresses. And their marketing always includes an individual web site like the one now showcasing Le Reve. Pictures of the home for the web site and fat, slick real estate marketing magazines are crucial, which means big bucks for the highest-quality photos.
Barbara Malm, another luxury agent with Jenny Pruitt & Associates, said for the earlier story every part of the marketing campaign has to promote the right mood in the buyer’s mind. “You have to sell the charm, the elegance,” Malm said. “You have to take someone to the place it was created for.” And then you spread the word among the select network.
Finding that right buyer can take a long time. Experts estimate that seven-figure properties require a year or more on the market. And the sale can result from an unexpected encounter. “Sometimes, it’s just sheer luck, ” Malm said.
Fitting up the fence sitters.
With the economy weakening, we’re unlikely to see today’s slow home sales pace pick up in the near future, but the picture isn’t uniformly bleak; sales have appeared to stabilize around a 5 million annualized sales pace, suggesting we might be seeing the formation of a bottom.
What’s more, there continues to be considerable pent-up demand for homes. Although job growth is slowing, with the pace of new jobs sinking to about 83,000 a month in the second half of last year, down from 189m000 a month in 2006, job growth has been vastly outperforming housing, with more than 4 million jobs created since the housing market peak in 2005. Aggregate household wealth is also up during that period, by some $1.4 trillion.
Historically, the housing market sees one new buyer for every two new jobs created, but this time around that hasn’t been the case.
So, although consumers have the wherewithal to buy – particularly since home prices nationally are down and interest rates remain low thanks to the Federal Reserve’s dramatic rate cut in January – many are sitting on the fence. It’s a fair guess that consumers are waiting for home prices and even interest rates to fall even further.
Clearly, housing continues to under perform. But as long as demand keeps growing, it’s just a matter of time before the housing market turns around and becomes an engine for, rather than a drag on, the economy.
Jeanne Linden
Senior Vice President, Managing Broker
Cobb office
Source: Forbes.com
Atlanta recently placed number three in Forbes’ list of America’s Fastest-Growing Large and Small Metros
Projected total GMP growth, 2007-2012: 22.81%
The Atlanta metro area is a job magnet that epitomizes the economic boom of the Southeast. Companies with headquarters there include Coca-Cola, CNN and UPS. It’s also got the country’s busiest airport for passenger traffic. Atlanta’s population has doubled in the last 20 years; by 2012. it’s expected to grow another 11%. Personal income for Atlanta residents is forecast to grow by 6.3% annually during that time, according to Global Insight.
