Looking Out From the Garage

Normally, each week I pull a post from the past to highlight again. This week, I'm pulling three of them. They were all part of a series I did on Cheap Tips...  

• Cheap Tips #1… Getting Ready to Sell
• Cheap Tips #2… Tip-Top Shape in 5 Steps
• Cheap Tips #3… Making a First Impression in 6 Steps

It has never been more important to make sure your house shows as well as possible. And for most sellers that I deal with (spelled n-o-t b-a-n-k-s), they don't have a bottomless pit of cash to spend while getting ready to sell their home. Finding efficient and inexpensive ways to make their home look WAY better than the foreclosure up the street are priorities. It doesn't matter if you are hiring an agent selling unrepresented (FSBO or For Sale By Owner), these tips will help out. Check out the posts from last year and feel free to drop some of your own tips in the comments.

I ask myself all of the time... 

• How good are my market reports? 
• Are they compelling? 
• Why should a buyer or seller read MY market report instead of one of the hundreds of other reports out there?  
• Am I providing value? 
• What do consumers want in a market report? 

I am specifically NOT leaving a link to one of my market reports in order for everyone to grade it.  Rather, I would love to hear about what YOU think makes a great market report... whether you are an agent, broker, consumer or vendor. 

What makes a great market report?

Those of us that live in the Atlanta Metro area are all pretty familiar with Buckhead.  And I have lived here for a little over 22 years... but I have a connection that goes back WAY before that. 

I lost my father in 1997, and he never lived here... but he did visit Buckhead... LONG ago.  He visited me several times after I moved to Atlanta in 1989, but when he was still a kid, he was passing through Buckhead with a few teammates.  He was a student at the Columbia Military Academy in Columbia, TN, and on the Rifle Team.  They had just completed a competition in South GA, and were passing through on the way back to school.  It would have been around 1946... and my father would have been around the tender age of 14. 

The driver of the car stopped in Buckhead for a short break.  While he was out of the car, my father made a quick run into one of the local bars (yes, there were bars there then, too...) and bought a beer.  He was in his Military Academy uniform, and the bartender probably assumed that he was a soldier...

So my dad had his first beer in Buckhead. 

True to his nature, we drove down to Buckhead one day... probably around 1995 or so... and he was able to show me the exact place that they were parked, as well as the bar where he got the beer.  It wasn't a bar then, and now it doesn't even exist as a building, but we found an old picture... and he was right on point. 

Oddly, my dad was never really a beer drinker.  He joked that if he'd bought a 6-pack at that time, it might have been a lifetime supply. 

It is NO secret around here that I am a Car Guy.  I guess that would be why I am THE Garage Guy, too.  For the last 4+ years one thing I have had NO problem being transparent about is my love of things automotive.  Here on this blog, as well as my blog, LaneBailey.com, and my website, GarageHomesUSA.com, I have written numerous posts about cars, garages and cool tools. 

Recently, I started a blog solely targeted to other car lovers.  It is called CoolCaroftheDay.com.  And because I seem to be a glutton for punishment, I also created a network of supporting sites:

• Cool Car of the Day on FaceBook
• Cool Car of the Day on YouTube
• Cool Car of the Day on Twitter
• CoolCaroftheDay.mobi on Posterous

Blogging here on Active Rain and meeting so many influential and successful bloggers has taught me a LOT about creating content and delivering it. I've tried to take some of that knowledge in a new direction. 

I still enjoy blogging about real estate... but I have also written around 2000 posts.  I have 1780 posts here in the Rain, and there are around 1600 on LaneBailey.com... there is certainly a lot of crossover between my blogs.  I am slowing down a bit on real estate.  I have trimmed back from 7 days a week on LaneBailey.com down to 3 days a week. 

The new blog has been up around a month.  There have already been some really cool cars... and there are more coming. 

Road Atlanta preview

I'd love for you to check it out...

Image by lane.bailey via Flickr

I have been pulling Gwinnett County Real Estate Market Data, and I'm not done with it yet.  But, I have been seeing a few things.

• Listings are down markedly from where they would normally be.  This can be either a positive or negative, depending on your outlook.
  • On the Plus Side, fewer listings means that Absorption Rates are better.  There is less inventory to get sold... it tilts the table back toward sellers.  It has been largely tilted toward buyers for quite a while.
  • On the Minus Side, it shows that there is pessimism in the market on the side of sellers.  They aren't confident about the market.  That lack of confidence has carried over to buyers... sales are also slowing.
• Sales are down... like I just mentioned.  Even though Absorption Rates make the market look better... the sales just aren't there.
• Results are mixed.  There are a few cities that are doing well... and there are a few price segments that are doing quite well.  Others are VERY weak.

Related articles

• Norcross, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Buford, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Lawrenceville, GA Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Sugar Hill, GA, Market Report, April 2011 (lanebailey.com)
• Let's take a break from Market Reports in Gwinnett County, GA (lanebailey.com)

Image by lane.bailey via Flickr

Kind of odd that for a "Wayback" post I would talk about an upcoming car show...  But the show happens around the first Saturday in May each year... and so THIS Saturday is the day.

Smokerise Baptist Church is having their 11th Annual Smokerise Car Show on Saturday from 9am until 3pm.  Registration runs from 9am until Noon... so there might be a few cars that don't show up until late.  Judging runs from Noon until 3pm.

And check out this link for pictures from last year's show.  There were some pretty cool rides on hand... and that was with showers threatening all day.

BTW, the other car show mentioned in that post, Mud4Blood, will be on May 28th.  That one promises to rock, too...

Image via Wikipedia

Dear Builder,

I've NEVER had a buyer client tell me that they thought the garage was too big.  Granted, most of my buyers are "car people", so the deck is a bit stacked, but not all of them are.  In fact, I've had clients with little interest in cars... and they still wanted a garage that was just a little bigger.

You see, lots of people use their garages for a lot of different things.  Many of my clients like to build cars or weld something back together in their garage, but others just want to be able to fit two cars and their riding lawnmower.  Some people might want to move the cars out and build a nice piece of furniture.  Others need a place to store their camping equipment while they are back in civilization.

Of course, square footage is valuable, especially as margins are squeezed, but homes with more generous garages might also sell a bit quicker.  And that helps the margin, too.  Turning over inventory faster lowers carrying costs.  And while we're at it, can we have a couple more outlets in the garage?  I've seen too many garages lately that only had one outlet (aside from the one for the garage door opener).  One.  Even my 40 year old house has four outlets...

Related articles

• Photo Friday... What are YOUR Garage Needs? (lanebailey.com)
• Wayback Wednesday... The Builder Forgot to Add ___ (lanebailey.com)
• Wayback Wednesday... Make YOUR Garage Cool... (lanebailey.com)
• Some Cool Garage Homes in Gwinnett County, GA (lanebailey.com)

Cover of Royal Wedding

Are you "Royal Wedding"ed out yet?  Honestly, I was a bit over it a week ago.  I appreciate the historic significance of the event, but knowing what type of diapers Kate and William wore as infants and interviews with people that saw them in the hallways at grade school is a little much.

And then I heard that the estimated cost of the event was between $34M and $60M (British Tax Payers shelled out about $30M for security in addition to the cost of the nuptials...).  And I got to wondering...

What kind of Real Estate would $34M buy in Gwinnett County, GA?

Honestly, that would be a REALLY generous budget around here.  The most expensive house listed in the county right now is "only" $6,750,000.  It is lovely 8 bedroom, 10 full/2 half bathroom home in the Sugarloaf Country Club (and it you want to buy it, I would be GLAD to help you out... Proof of Funds are required for showings).

There would even be a nice chunk of change left over to buy a warehouse to keep the toys in... and there would be a pretty nice toy budget in there, as well.

What about a nice lake house on Lake Lanier?

Well... I happen to know of one.  it is a mere $4,500,000 and has 5 bedrooms, 5 full baths and 2 half baths.  There is also a 6 car garage and just over 6 acres of grounds... with 750 feet of lake frontage.  Lake Lanier is just north of the Atlanta Metro area, between Gainesville and Cumming, GA.  It borders Gwinnett, Hall and Dawson Counties.

There are some homes in Buckhead and a few other areas around here where there are homes between $10M and $20M... but these are pretty interesting homes.  And $34,000,000 is a LOT of money.  In fact, ALL of the homes sold in Lilburn, GA, during the 1st Quarter of 2011 totaled up to about $16,800,000.  That is a lot of coin...

I have been busy over on my other blog, plugging away writing 6 posts a week... And I have been working on this series for about a year. There are only 3 more to go (L = Roman Numeral 50).  Come on over and see what I'm up to over there...

Image via Wikipedia

I previously wrote about a diesel-electric RV... and the natural extension from that would be a diesel-electric semi.  After all, it is the power supply of trains.

Yep... diesel powered trains are actually hybrids, and they always have been.  The diesel engine powers a generator producing electricity.  At the axles, there are electric motors that provide the actual motive power.  The advantage is that the diesel engine can be tuned to run under a more specific RPM range... basically tuned for maximum efficiency.  Instead of the engine speeding up and slowing down with the speed of the truck, it only needs to react to the needs of the generator.

In the case of a semi, they already weigh a lot.  So, the addition of some battery packs wouldn't have as much of an impact.  And since the size (and weight) of the engine could be reduced, the generator package shouldn't add that much weight either.

It sure would be an interesting hybrid.  And since tractor-trailers spend all of their time on the road, often running well over a million miles, they should be able to actually pay back the increased cost of the hybrid system.  (Just guessing about that...)

It would be pretty cool, though.

Related articles

• 53 Cool Concepts... Part IL (lanebailey.com)

Image by epSos.de via Flickr

It's that time again.  Last week we got our tax valuation reassessed.  For us, it wasn't a bad thing and honestly, it hasn't been for the folks I have talked with.  Let me qualify that... for the amount of tax we pay, it wasn't a bad thing.

Two years ago, Gwinnett County re-assessed our home.  The jacked us up by about 12%, even though there was NO justification in the comps.  They got away with it because it wasn't worth the fight for us to carry on.  We disputed it a couple of levels, but eventually dropped it.

Oddly, this was almost exactly two months after the State of Georgia passed a law requiring the counties to consider foreclosures and short sales in the valuation process.  I think it might have been their "last hurrah" before having the valuations that were based in reality.

As mentioned, we got our valuation last week.  And it went down... way down.  in fact, it dropped by more than twice as much as it went up... we were down over 25%.  Good news for the house payment.  Bad news for the value of our house.  Bad news for Gwinnett county... the budget is not going to be happy with all of these lower valuations.

Related articles

• Wayback Wednesday... The Lilburn CID (lanebailey.com)
• Wayback Wednesday... Let's Freak Out Some Counties! (gwinnettgarageguy.com)