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Atlanta Real Estate Investing News and Facts

Atlanta real estate investing is definitely getting worldwide attention. Atlanta is on the top 5 US cities showing uptrend movement. The “Uptrend” phenomena happens when there is a steady flow of people moving in, because of available jobs. According to the Georgia Deparment of Labor, the Atlanta area has seen an increase of 2.4% of new job positions over the last year. Construction and finance jobs have seen a dramatic increase and these are obviously positions tied to the real estate arena.

Atlanta Real Estate Investing

The market is shifting from a Buyers’ Market to a Sellers’ market. New homes construction has increased almost 60% (according to the Metrostudy Report) and this high jump in construction is mainly due to inventory of existing homes being very low. A lot of foreclosures over the past few years are still being held back by the banks, in an effort not to flood the market and push prices down. This back log of foreclosures or “shadow inventory” will be released in the market over the next few years (estimate is that the average shadow inventory in the US market due to be released will go on for the next 4 to 5 years, according to the National Association of Realtors.)

Some other big changes affecting the Atlanta real estate investing arena are:

• Foreign investments – although Atlanta is not on the top tier as far as US cities attracting foreign investments, it is definitely gaining ground as other more popular cities for investments are getting saturated (New York, Washington DC and San Francisco, for example.) At this time, most foreign capital is coming from Europe.

• Hedge Funds – these are investments that are privately held. Activity from these investors has increased by 50% over the last year.
• Foreclosure Auctions – with the option of bidding online and from anywhere, a lot of these auctions have been driven by private out-of-town investors or hedge funds. Foreclosure auctions starting bids are reaching higher and higher levels.
• MLS Sales – it is not a good source of properties for investors or wholesalers. Competition is driving prices up and properties are being sold in record time.

So what is a real estate investor to do?

If you want to excel in real estate investing in Atlanta, you have to become creative and do things differently than other investors. Carve a niche and become really good at it. Some options would be:

• Don’t go against the big investors (hedge funds,) but work with or for them – find the properties they are looking for, the “tapes” from local banks with a foreclosure portfolio, locate several properties in the neighborhood they want to buy.
• Think globally – investors, large or small, are located worldwide. Connect with investors in foreign countries as well like Europe, Middle East, China and India. There are plenty of individual investors there, not entities, with funds who are looking to connect with people in the US who can find properties for them. Social media, especially Facebook and Linkedin, are ideal platforms to locate these investors.
• Find properties then no one else knows of – MLS and foreclosure auctions are saturated with buyers right now. Go out there in the field, network, drive around, read the legal paper. Find those “golden nuggets” that no one else spends time to look for.

This is definitely the time that real estate investing can become very lucrative, because during a recovery phase, like we are seeing now, prices of property will still be low, but rapidly increasing and therefore investors can sell their property at much higher prices in a short amount of time. Bottom line, exponential growth.

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