Home prices in Alpharetta/Lake Windward (Duluth, Suwanee: for sale, real estate, foreclosures)

[heymama3]

We are looking for a 4 bed 2.5 bath home within the Alpharetta elementary or Lake Windward elementary district boundaries. We are hoping to pay in the low $300s, which should be achievable, but there aren't many houses on the market in our price range. The recently sold comps are easily $50-100k cheaper in many of the subdivisions, so what gives?

Is it a sellers market in Alpharetta these days and are the comps from a year ago irrelevant?
Alternately, do homes usually sell well under asking?
Or, are we still pretty early in the season, and inventory will build in the next few months?

Thank you! I'm a bit of a real estate newbie so I appreciate any help I can get!

[bUU]

We found that there was about 4% wiggle room in the pricing.

[ATLTJL]

Same thing is happening in my neighborhood (Duluth).

I think it took the suburbs a little longer to recover real estate prices than the city, and the rise is really just starting. Also, I think last year was when the last round of foreclosures were unloaded, so you're unlikely to see those low prices return in the near future. It's just timing.

[tamlym]

Some of the Lake Windward ES zone ends up going to Chattahoochee HS vs Alpharetta HS and some of those subdivisions may be older or smaller and skewing your comps?

Homes that don't need work and priced right are selling easily and appraise higher. So lowball days are over.......for now.

BTW, Fulton County was fiddling with possibly shuffling some Webb Bridge MS/CHS students to Taylor Road MS/CHS but I haven't seen a decision yet (due this month).

[jaybird45]

We recently moved from Johns Creek (last summer). We sold our house in the Chattahoochee school district in less than one day and got 98% of asking price (we did have to reduce it some to cover a few inspection items but not much). We had a backup offer within 48 hour of that and had people looking at the house even after they knew it was under contract but not yet binding. The first day we had 8 people look at the house. I remember someone driving through our neighborhood and saw our for sale sign. They stopped and got the flyer and then I told them that it was already under contract, they said they they could not find anything in the Upper $200-low 300's that was nice in the area. We lived in a nice but not upscale subdivision. The house was 22 years old but in good condition.

I say all this to let you know that the market is very tight. It has been this way for the past 2 years in the Alpharetta -Johns Creek area. It is due to the schools. All four HS's on the west side of SR 400 are highly rated and very sought after. There is a lot of folks from Gwinnett County that want to get their kids into the HS's so there is a lot of demand.

The cheapest homes will probably be in the Chattahoochee school district but you will be getting older and smaller homes if you go much under $300K.

Having said all this, we moved to Tampa and are loving it. We live in a gated community across the street from a golf course with swimming and fitness center in one of the best school districts in Tampa. We paid upper $300's for 3,200 s.f., 5 year old house. A home like this in Johns Creek would be at least $500K. Alpharetta-JC is starting to become very pricey and folks are moving to Forsyth to get newer homes for less money.

[atlanta28]

Only 3.5 yrs ago, we bought a home in the Chattahoochee HS/Taylor RD MS cluster. Last week our home appraisal (for refinance) came in 44% higher than our original purchase price. Amazing, considering that we've only made cosmetic changes to our home. So, yes, things are hopping around here.

[heymama3]

Thanks for the information. We are expanding our search a bit further east, but still in the Alpharetta/Chattahoochee/Northview High clusters, and we are finding more in our price range.

How has traffic on McGinnis Ferry improved in recent years? I've read it used to be pretty bad. My husband would be working near 400, and that would likely be the road taken to/from work. I know to stay west of the river, but would it be an irritation to rush-hour commute from around Bell Rd to the McFarland/400 intersection daily? What about from further south, near 141 & State Bridge Rd?

It may seem silly, because it all seems relatively close by to me, but I'm curious about how badly the surface roads clog up during rush hr.

Thanks a ton for the insight.

[flamadiddle]

Originally Posted by heymama3

Thanks for the information. We are expanding our search a bit further east, but still in the Alpharetta/Chattahoochee/Northview High clusters, and we are finding more in our price range.

How has traffic on McGinnis Ferry improved in recent years? I've read it used to be pretty bad. My husband would be working near 400, and that would likely be the road taken to/from work. I know to stay west of the river, but would it be an irritation to rush-hour commute from around Bell Rd to the McFarland/400 intersection daily? What about from further south, near 141 & State Bridge Rd?

It may seem silly, because it all seems relatively close by to me, but I'm curious about how badly the surface roads clog up during rush hr.

Thanks a ton for the insight.

The Mcginnis route used to be horrendous, now I'd say it's only terrible.
The problem is that they widened it to two lanes from Suwanee to Emory Hospital, but after that it bottlenecks into a single lane, causing a parade pf pain to/from 400. It's a painful route for sure during rush hour. There are some better routes to McFarland and 400 though... I used to work in that exact area off Shiloh Rd and I live very close to Bell. Here's the route I would take, which was less than 30 minutes each way.

Take 141 North and turn left onto Brookwood/Mathis Airport (Near Target and Walmart), make an immediate right onto Caney, Caney turns into Pine Grove, Pine Grove dead ends into Shiloh road, which you can take left to MacFarland.

[Go Blue 99]

Seems like it's a sellers' market in any good school district. I've done some window shopping online in some of the better districts and there is not much inventory at all, even in the $400-$600k range.