Metro Atlanta housing market continues to lag - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Home sales in metro Atlanta fellto 11,369 — predominantluy sales of existing homed — in the first an 8.27 percent dip from the previous data shows. That’s also down nearly 12 percent from the firsf three months oflast year. In Fulton sales fell nearly 13 percentin first-quartet 2009 (to 2,296), from the end of last year, accordinhg to the Georgia MLS. Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnet t counties also experienced declinesof 8.28 percent, 14.6 percen t and 12.7 percent, respectively, during the same time period.
Meanwhile, constructioh activity on new home continued to sag across the country with Atlantwa showing a more than eight month supply of according to national research firmMetrostudy Inc. Metrostudyu looks at individual subdivisions withib 256 counties in all or part of 84 metropolitan The firm is currently forecastinroughly 490,000 housing starts across the country for 2009, following a slump in April numbers. “We expected the sharp drop in theApril number, as we did the Marchj decline,” said Brad Hunter, Metrostudy’s chief economis t and national director of consulting.
Hunter citedf three main reasons for the low number ofhousinhg starts, including builders continuing to rid themselves of excess homes that are already built though that supply has been significantly Also, banks are still cuttiny off credit to some builders, even if they’re currenr on loans, and some builders are finding home priced too low to make a he said. At the same time, Metrostudt reports seeing somepositive trends. Foot traffic is up at new the inventory of new homes is declininh and foreclosures are beingsnapped up.
According to a releaser by the company, “Metrostudy’s forecasters project that starts will not fall much farthere fromthis point, although more declines are likely in the multifamily sector.” For the 12-montjh period ending in March, Atlanta saw 8,972 housint starts — ranking No. 5 out of the metro areas trackedby Metrostudy. Houston topped the list with 22,503 housing starts during the same According tothe study, Atlant a also had the fourth-largest supply of vacant, finisheds new homes with 8.
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