November 20, 2008

Are you crazy? Are you so flush with money that you don’t mind giving away $20,000 or $30,000 of your equity? I almost said “hard-earned” equity – but for most of us who’ve bought in the last 10 years, we didn’t have to do much other than sit back and watch our home appreciate. But however we’ve earned the equity, it doesn’t seem on the surface to be a good idea to sell right now.

But what if I told you that by giving away $20,000 I’ll give you back $30,000? You’ve now netted $10,000. Sounds a bit better now, doesn’t it? You’re continuing to earn equity the “easy” way – even in this different market.

Let’s say that you own a house that a few years ago was valued at $200,000 – up 30% from when you bought in 1999. Unfortunately prices have dropped in your area so now your home is only worth $180,000 – down $20,000 from 3 years ago. Ouch! It’s no good wishing you’d sold then – that window of opportunity has already passed. But if you have a stable job in an industry that appears to be weathering the economic downturn fairly well, then you might want to consider taking advantage of lower prices on larger homes. If you’ve had to drop your price 10%, then larger, more expensive homes will have to drop their price also. A home that would have cost $300,000 two years ago may now be listed for $270,000.

Then add in the monthly savings of an incredibly low interest rate (I just spoke to a Mortgage rep and he told me as of December 30, 30 year mortgage rates are holding at between the high 4% and mid 5% range. Fifteen year rates are slightly lower at 4.75%.) So what does this mean to your bottom line? For many, the cost is only a couple of hundred dollars more a month for a much bigger comfortable home. Only you can do your calculate what the cost of moving into a more spacious home would be. If I were looking to move up, and my long-term employment seemed secure, I’d definitely be looking now!

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Local Information for Alpharetta, GA

Latitude: 34.073318 -- Longitude: -84.281086

ZIP Codes for Alpharetta, Georgia	30004 30005 30009 30022 30023
Area Code for Alpharetta, Georgia	770
Time zone for Alpharetta, Georgia	EST

Other Area Cities: Alpharetta, GA Dunwoody, GA Cumming, GA Duluth, GA Norcross, GA Roswell, GA Suwanee, GA Sandy Springs, GA Lilburn, GA

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Alpharetta is a city in Fulton County, Georgia, United States. As of the 2006 census, the city had a total population of 57,000 . As of the censusGR 2 of 2000, there were 34,854 people, residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 84.9% White, 6.8% African American, 0.5% Native American, 6.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 3.1% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.53% of the population. Georgia 400 (U.S. 19) is the freeway connecting suburban Alpharetta with Atlanta to the south. It parallels surface highway S.R. 9, which was originally multiplexed with U.S. 19 and was the only paved road through town prior to the county merger. It is now home to numerous mid-rise buildings of 10 or more floors each, which are home to many high-tech companies including Lucent, Nortel, IBM, Sun Microsystems, AT&T, Siemens,Verizon, Alltel, E*Trade, and the headquarters of ChoicePoint. The city is served by Fulton County Schools. -- Source: Wikipedia.com

Georgia 2000 Census Population Profile Map

	Alpharetta	Georgia	United States
Population	34,854	8,186,453	281,421,906
Median age	33.3	33.4	35.3
Median age for Male	32.2	32.1	34
Median age for Female	34.3	34.6	36.5
Households	13,911	3,006,369	105,480,101
Household population	34,774	7,952,631	273,643,273
Average household size	2.5	2.65	2.59
Families	8,921	2,111,647	71,787,347
Average family size	3.13	3.14	3.14
Housing units	14,670	3,281,737	115,904,641
Occupied units	13,911	3,006,369	105,480,101
Vacant units	759	275,368	10,424,540

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November 20, 2008

Local Information for Alpharetta, GA

Latitude: 34.073318 -- Longitude: -84.281086

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