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As for your comment, “At this juncture, the inventory keeps building and sellers appear unwilling to accept that their houses are not worth what they paid in 2005.” I couldn't agree more about the inventory problem. It's not because builders continue to create new inventory. Our inventory increase here locally is due mainly to foreclosures.

As for Seller's not willing to accept that their houses are not worth what they paid…that's much more gray than black & white. Depending on the zip code, school district, and/or neighborhood, they could be right about property values not decreasing. (give me some zips, schools or specific neighborhoods and I will publish my research for you and everyone else)

I have also found that many Sellers are on the market to try to avoid foreclosure by selling their home. The problem here is that these Sellers have such little equity that they can't afford to sell the property for less than they paid. So you see some Sellers holding out, hoping that someone will pay what they need to cover their own mortgage payoff. If they are truly over-priced (which many, many are), then these will eventually become new foreclosures and the banks will place them back on the market at lower price points in the coming months. Unfortunately, this is a process that many Sellers and banks must go thru before we get back to a stable market. These type of listings have the possibility of becoming short-sales. It just depends on the situation.

Thank you for bringing to light the crux of the issues here in North Atlanta. I look forward to reading more of your comments in the future.

While I agree that East Cobb & Alpharetta never saw the appreciation lunacy of places like Las Vegas and Phoenix, the market around here got way too frothy for the local median income (I've lived in E. Cobb for 21 years).

At this juncture, the inventory keeps building and sellers appear unwilling to accept that their houses are not worth what they paid in 2005. I'm a buyer with 20% down and able to meet traditional lending standards for a $500K+ house.

I can wait.

In regards to your “nonsense I hear from Realtors” quote, I couldn't agree more. Many Realtors just repeat what they hear from NAR or speak on feelings and not facts. The truth of the whole “housing crisis” is the corrections will be different at each local market. The adjustments (I think this correction was necessary for many reasons) are not always price based. In fact, many zip codes in East Cobb and Alpharetta will have only a slight price correction over the last year. Atlanta's market problems were due more to over-supply and not necessarily price inflation. It is very price-point dependent as to the correction needed in North Atlanta.

Many North Atlanta locations can be corrected by just stopping the supply creation and riding out the market while demand meets supply. Granted this could be expedited by dropping prices, but Atlanta never saw drastic price inflation as many markets in the country did. The biggest problem in Atlanta today is the amount of foreclosures flooding the market. Demand can reach supply levels when we constantly add thousands of properties to the market via foreclosure each month. It does seem the foreclosure rate is slowing and this should allow demand to creep back closer to supply in the coming months (maybe year). Bottom line is… Seller's should not go to market today unless they HAVE to and Buyer's should not demand large price drops unless they want to shop forever. Most zip codes in North Atlanta still sell between 93%-96% of List Price and a few zip codes have actually seen property appreciation during this past year.

In conclusion, you should contact someone you trust who is willing to provide historical sales data, market absorption rates, and property value trends to help you make the best decision in this unique market.