Atlanta's Luxury Condo Market Heats Up. (sales, 2013, condos)

[Atlwarrior]

According to the WSJ "The best place to land a luxury high-rise condo these days could be Atlanta, where current sales signal a notable comeback and prices are still below market’s peak, reports The Wall Street Journal."
The WSJ says 14 condos worth $1 million or more have sold in Atlanta in the first half of 2013, compared to 9 in all of 2011.
The paper notes on its website that in 2008, there was a nine-year inventory of luxury condos. Now, the inventory has dropped to six months, the WSJ said.
“Definitely seeing a market comeback,” the WSJ reported, adding that several high-end buildings that sat mostly empty are filling with buyers.

[ATLTJL]

The paper notes on its website that in 2008, there was a nine-year inventory of luxury condos

Obviously there wasn't a 9 year inventory or else that inventory would be available until 2017. If we're down to 6 months of inventory only 5 years later, that would mean that the market would have to have been twice as hot as average in each of the past 4 years, and we know that's not true.

So the numbers just don't make any sense.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

So the numbers just don't make any sense.

I think you are right.

Nonetheless the high end condo market is clearly doing much better than it was a few years ago. Many of them have probably had to do some price reductions as well.

[CravingMountains]

I have a friend that purchased three condos in Atlanta after the market crash. With the price increase this year he is finally turning some money on them.

[jeoff]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Obviously there wasn't a 9 year inventory or else that inventory would be available until 2017. If we're down to 6 months of inventory only 5 years later, that would mean that the market would have to have been twice as hot as average in each of the past 4 years, and we know that's not true.

So the numbers just don't make any sense.

My guess is that 9 year number was just describing how dead the condo market was in 2008 when no one could get credit to buy anything --especially condos. At the the low point, if only 1 condo was selling per month--then it might take 9 years to sell all the inventory--if you start selling 10 condos a month--it would take less than a year.

[noah]

Exactly, most markets had times 2-3 times at least what they have now a few years ago when the credit markets froze. Its simply based on how many are selling at that time so it is definitely possible to go from 9 years to 6 months to sell of inventory -- 2 factors affect it - Number of sales and amount of inventory at a given time. As we all know inventory is down in most markets so even if sales had not increased the time to burn off all inventory would have went down.