-This is a transcript from Go Gaddis Radio to listen to the episode click here-> https://on.soundcloud.com/Znd1v
Welcome back to GoGaddis Real Estate Radio right here on AM 920 The Answer. In this segment of the show, in our neighborhood spotlight, we are featuring Brenfield and Suwannee. So if you live in Duluth or Lawrenceville or Buford or maybe Johns Creek or anywhere in that area, you might want to pay attention to what's happening in Brenfield, cause it could mirror what's happening in your neighborhood.
Also, how do you know if you have a water leak? Have you ever gotten a huge... Have you ever just paid it? And then the next month you get another huge water bill. If you get an unusually high water bill, you probably need to do some investigating. And are there reasons to visit a home often from the time you go into contract to the time you buy that home?
I say the answer is yes. Don't forget, we want to connect with you. Go to gogaddisradio.com. You can submit any question. We have people ask questions that are very... vulnerable that make them feel like they've made mistakes. And we're certainly not going to embarrass anybody or feature that stuff on the air.
We're happy to help people figure things out. Whether we are owning a condominium or a town home, or we're renting an apartment, or we're living in a big beautiful single family detached home, or maybe a small single family detached home. We have questions. We have concerns. There's things that we do not know that we would like to know.
And right here on go get us real estate radio. We'd like to help you with those answers You can also challenge things that we say on the show if you'd like to Share your ideas with us You can ask us to do some specific research on your neighborhood like we've done for brenfield And i'm sure that was at the request of a listener somewhere To help you understand, you know, whether or not you might have a particular advantage or disadvantage when it comes to selling a home in that neighborhood And you can also subscribe to our podcast.
We're available on every major podcasting platform Each week we pick one specific Metro Atlanta neighborhood to call out critical changes over the last three years to help you understand as a homeowner in the neighborhood whether or not you might have a particular advantage when it comes to selling your home or maybe in some cases you have a disadvantage based on the market.
It's not very common to see that. And this week we are actually featuring Brenfield. It is in Suwannee, which is in Gwinnett County. You take I 85 North to Lawrenceville Suwannee Road. You turn to the right, and the neighborhood's on the left. It's really simple. It's very close to Lawrenceville Suwannee Road and I 85.
Again, Brenfield, Suwannee, Gwinnett County. It's a gated swim neighborhood consisting of 164 ish homes. It has great access to 85 and 985. And, believe it or not, HOA dues include lawn care. Did you all just hear the angels singing as I did? I would love... To have somebody taking care of my yard. Somebody does take care of it right now, but I'd love to be in a single family detached home and still have someone taking care of my yard.
I live in a town home now. Um, you can spend more time enjoying everything Swanee has to offer. It's five minutes to rock Springs park, which is 113 acre park. It's 10 minutes to Collins hill golf club, which is one of Georgia's best kept golf secrets. You know, members and the public are welcome. And it's close to Collins Hill Park and Aquatic Center.
It features 95 acres with a basketball and volleyball and a fishing lake and baseball and softballs. All this lifestyle stuff. So this is in Suwannee on the other side of 85 from the city of Suwannee. So this is on the west side of 85. This is on the east side of I 85, excuse me, and the city of Suwannee is on the west side of I 85.
Let's go in and take a little bit of information. Let's just take a look, a little peek at what's happened in the neighborhood over the last three years. I am opening my spreadsheet now with all my handy dandy data points on here. In 2021, eight homes sold. They took an average of three days to sell.
Average sales price was 375, 750. Prices range from 349, 000 to 417, 000 in 2022. Prices increased to the tune of 50, 000 60, 000. Just a little over 60, 000 to 436, 500. Only two homes sold. They took 12 days on average to sell. Prices range from a low of 4. 25 to a high of 4. 48. That's a pretty compact price range, but with only two, I guess that makes sense.
And then year to date, this year there have been four homes sold in the neighborhood. They've taken an average of 26 days from listing the contract, the average sales price. Increased another 40, 000 over the 60, 000 increase in 2022. So it's a 100, 000 increase over two years to an average sales price this year of 476, 875.
That's a price range from 417, 500 up to 525, 000. Neighborhood is served by Walnut Grove Elementary, Creekland Middle School, Collins Hill High School. We'll talk about School Chimp in just a second. There are currently two homes listed for sale in the neighborhood. The average list price is 4. 84. Makes sense.
Average sales price this year is 476. People are continuing to try to push the envelope, certainly as much as the market will allow. You got one in there listed for 479, one in there listed for 490. There have been a total of four sales in the last 365 days, which means those two homes could sit on the market for six months because you've got six months worth of supply.
If it took 12 months to sell, the last four. Then how long would it take to sell these current two? Based on what happened in the last 12 months, it would take 6 months. With those 164 ish homeowners in the neighborhood, and when we look at the value today, 476, 000, and we go back to the value in 2012, which is as we were coming out of the recession, the average sales price was 173, 000, which means those 164 ish homeowners have increased their equity.
In their homes, 51. 3 million, 164, 165 ish owners have 51. 3 million more in equity today in 2023 than they would have or did have in 2012. That is significant to me. If you're the type of parent who doesn't want to monkey around with your kid's education or the school's effect on home values, you really need to get a school chimp report.
I know you can go online and get a great schools report. A lot of people do that. Or you can go to school digger and get a school digger report. Those are... Like, nothing to those compared to a school chimp report. So, a great schools report is going to give you all the information you need about the school itself.
But it's not going to give you the demographic information you want. It's not going to tell you the percentage of homeowners and renters. And it's not going to tell you the average age of a home. It's not going to tell you the household income or the educational attainment on parents. It's just not. And it's also not going to overlay all of the real estate data.
What's happened to the average sales price? What's happened to the days on the markets? What happened to the size of the market? What's happened to the size of homes that are selling in the area over the last five to seven years? All of that is available in a school chimp report, and you can get it by doing this.
Go to gogaddisradio. com, click on school chimp. Tell the system whether you want it to compare one school to another or one school to the average of all schools and you will be good to go, you'll be on and off of there in 20 or 30 seconds max. If you want the right place to search for homes for sale in Metro Atlanta, It's not Zillow, in my opinion.
It's not Realtor. com, in my opinion. There's not many other agents websites or brokerage websites, even the big ones. It is SureMLS. S U R E M L S dot com. Why? We pull the data in differently from both listing services, not just one listing service in Metro Atlanta. We have a strange market because we have two multiple listing services.
areas only have one. We pull information for both listing services, which means if you go to that site, suremls. com, s u r e m l s. com, you're a lot more likely to find the listing that you are looking for. Have you ever gotten a water bill that seemed outrageous? I know I've opened an envelope, my mouth just kind of flopped open, and At first thought, it could have been us using more water.
We received a question from Mason in Winder, whose water bill was really, really high last month, and their new homeowners, oh no, that's sad, weren't sure where to start to figure out where it's coming from. Can you help? Yes. If I got a high water bill, the first thing I would do is make sure that all the water in the house was off.
I'd look at every bathroom. I'd look at every place where there could be water running. I'd look at the sprinkler system. I'd make sure water could not be running through the sprinkler system. And I would go open the top to the box where the water meter was in the front yard. And I would lift the little cap up if there was one.
And I would see if the little red dial in the water meter, on the water meter, was spinning. Because if all the water's off... And the water, the water is flowing through the meter, that means you are using water somewhere. In most cases, you do have a water leak, and it's either outside the home or inside the home.
Outside the home, generally, the water company is willing to give you credit. Sometimes inside the home, if you can prove to them that you had a leak, they'll give you a credit for the amount of water that was just wasted, basically. Uh, but that's what I would do. So, um, Mason, I would check out to see whether or not the water meter is running.
You can probably identify if it's still running. You can probably identify where water is running because in many cases you can hear it. And honestly, if you have to, you have to call a plumber. Sometimes toilets will run and one of the best ways to do that is to put some blue dye basically in the tank and see if you see it flowing out into the, to the toilet before you flush it.
Because if you do, then the toilet is actually leaking itself. Have you ever heard the phrase, love at first sight? Even when buying a home, I have. I have seen people fall head over heels in love with a house. So if you think there's no such thing, you're probably wrong. And here's some steps you might want to take to make sure that you don't buy the first house you fall in love with, even if it might be the wrong house.
Steven in Suwannee wants to know what his agent would suggest in terms of visiting a home between the time they make an offer and the time they close. And I will give you an answer that you should visit the home as often as you possibly can. And let me give you four reasons. You need to visit during the day, and you need to visit during the night.
Uh, might drive a seller crazy if you have to go get into the home, cause sometimes you, so sometimes you're just gonna go see the outside and what's going on in the neighborhood and not get into the home. But some sellers will be cooperative and let you come whenever you want to. Here's the things I would be looking for.
Number one, is there any noise that is gonna be bothersome to me? Are there barking dogs? Are there noisy neighbors? If you go on a showing and the dogs are barking, they're probably not going to stop barking. When you become a neighbor, they're probably going to continue barking. I would check out the indoor layout.
Do the rooms flow well? Are there stairs that might be problematic? Is there enough storage? Those are important. I would pay attention to all the little things. Do you see little things that need to be fixed beyond the inspection? Spend time in each room with a notebook. And I would want to make sure I had good neighbors.
The more I would visit a property, the more opportunities I would have to meet my soon to be neighbors. So those would be my suggestions for you. Steven, my suggestion is that you visit the property as often as you possibly can without causing problems. Thank you for tuning in for another week's edition of Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio.
We'll be back next Saturday, same time, same channel. Have a great week, Atlanta.