The Swift and Co Loft building is located on the corner of Fair and Peters Street. There are a handful of restaurants to walk to including Slice, Johnny Cakes and No Mas Cantina. There is also a very cute coffee shop called Tilt. Castleberry Hill is known for their monthly art strolls on the last Friday of each month as well. To learn more about Castleberry Hill check out the neighborhood website for more information.

Authentic Loft

Back to the loft itself, it is currently priced at $159,900 and features a large kitchen with gas stove, white cabinets and plenty of cabinets. The bathroom has a single vanity with a tub/shower combo. Tucked behind the bathroom is the closet and side by side washer and dryer. The living room is large enough to accommodate a small dining room table and it has plenty of wall space for a flat screen tv. The bedroom is tucked behind the living room which the current owner has built a terrific dividing wall with sliding barn yard doors for privacy.

The building does have community rooftop deck with terrific views and plenty of tables and chairs if you are entertaining. The unit does come with 1 secured parking space in the garage. Monthly HOA fees are only at $152 per month which includes garbage, water, basic DirecTv and WIFI.  Swift and Co. used to be an old meat packing plant way back in the early 1900′s.  This building definitely captures the authenticity of what a loft is supposed to be!
The building is not FHA approved, but it should be fairly easy to get a FHA Spot Approval done which means you can get into the loft for as little as a 3.5% down payment.

This loft is definitely one of the nicest lofts in Castleberry Hill and is very affordable at $159,900! For more information, please feel free to contact me at nesa@theloftstop.com or 404-579-9307. – Nesa Kleinheksel

Exterior of the loft.

This is rare!  Locust Lofts have always been a favorite of mine because of how quaint the community is.  There are 13 total units with 7 units in one building and the other 6 units in the building next to it.  Separating the units is a large green space which is completely awesome if you own pets.   These units are pretty incredible too, this particular listing offers 2 bedrooms and 2 full baths.  Yes, the second bedroom is truly a bedroom and it is private!  The loft also has a garage door that opens up from the living room to the back deck, how cool is that!!   Each unit has been customized by each individual owner, so they are all pretty unique from one another.   It is a 2 story loft with a fabulous kitchen and a fireplace!!  This unit has approx. 1600 sq.ft and is currently listed for $229,000!!!  Monthly HOA fees are cheap too, at $150 per month!  There is a driveway for each unit which can accommodate at least 2 cars and there is plenty of guest parking on the side streets.  <br>Locust Lofts are located in Avondale Estates and are conveniently located near the Farmers Market and about a mile to the Square of Decatur!  The Marta station is nearby and there are couple of restaurants that you can walk to! For more info, please contact me at nesa@theloftstop.com or 404-579-9307.  – Nesa Kleinheksel

“I have some positive housing market news to pass on to you today. Mortgage rates are still in the mid 4′s and holding steady! The Fed has made it clear that they believe housing is the key to recovery and that they will “pull out all the stops” to jump-start activity. They have already announced that they will buy $500 Billion in mortgage-backed securities by June. This is the main reason rates have fallen so much.

Low rates along with falling prices have made real estate more affordable and have generated a renewed interest in home buying. This has not translated into a lot of new sales yet, but a lot more people are getting out there and kicking the tires. Check out this report. In December, the widely-watched University of Michigan national consumer sentiment survey reflected an improvement in potential home buying attitudes, with 72% of respondents indicating it was a “good time to buy a house.” This survey was a key leading indicator of the turnaround in housing activity following the housing downturns in 1982, 1990, 1995 and 2001. This is good news.

Real estate is certainly not “fixed” yet, but the early signs of healing are welcome news. And that welcome news is translating into gains for housing-related stocks, including both home builders and housing-focused retailers. Both are rebounding and have helped to lead the market rally of the past month. Check this out. The S&P 500 Home builders Index is up 70% since the low on November 20, 2008 and the S&P 500 Home Improvement Retailers Index is up 32%. Investors are starting to see the potential of things turning around in housing! The downturn in housing was the key catalyst to the recession and bear market. Early signs of healing in housing are a key sign that the pressure on the economy and markets may begin to abate and we can look forward to a turnaround in housing in 2009.

 Courtesy – James Williamson of Fairfield Mortgage

Let me go back and first explain what is typically included in the Monthly HOA fee which are Exterior Liability and Fire Insurance, Pest Control, Reserve Fund and Exterior Maintenance. If you are in a building that has extra amenities like concierge, swimming pool, fitness center, and club house, the monthly HOA fees also includes access to those amenities. A portion of your HOA fee will go into the reserve fund, this fund is primarily used for repairs and maintenance that the building may need . Most of the loft buildings in Atlanta will also include garbage and water in the HOA fee too.

How do you figure out if you are buying into a good building or not? That’s easy, look at how much is in the building’s reserve fund and how much per sq.ft. is the monthly HOA fees. Depending on the size of the complex and what amenities the building has will determine how much should be in the reserve fund. Your agent will be able to help you assess what the proper amount should be. If the building doesn’t have sufficient funds in the reserve fund you can probably expect that sooner or later your monthly HOA fee will increase or the association could place a special assessment on every unit to cover any repairs that the building may need.

Let’s break down the monthly HOA fee price per sq.ft. A building that does not have any amenities(swimming pool, fitness center, elevator, etc) should be around 17 cents per sq.ft and less. A building that does have amenities will probably be around 23 cents per sq.ft and if a building has all the amenities and a concierge it will be around 28 cents per sq.ft. Also note that there are buildings out there that also include other utilties in the HOA fee, such as gas, internet, cable, etc that could affect the fee per sq.ft. as well. If you find that the fee per sq.ft is much higher than these amounts it should raise a big red flag, which entails investigating as to why the fees are so high. There are numerous reasons that could affect this but usually it means that the building has ongoing repairs, the association increased the fee because a large repair is needed in the future or the association is or has been mismanaged.

Once you buy into a building, make sure you attend the association meetings, which usually occur once or a twice a year. They are not fun to attend because it is usually a bitch fest of homeowners griping and moaning about frivoulous stuff but when it comes time to vote on a issue that could affect your HOA fees you definitely want to be there, just to make sure the association doesn’t spend money on stuff that is not important. Associations are comprised of usually 3 or 4 board members, who are homeowners of the building. The board members usually don’t have any experience in managing a building and that is how some of these buildings get into trouble. Most of them have no clue that if the association fees are raised how much that can affect the properties sales in the future. If the HOA fees are high, the opportunities to sell makes it much more difficult. Plus, 90% of the foreclosures are usually in buildings that have high HOA fees. Once a foreclosure happens it has a huge negative impact on the building, not only does the values go down so does the amount of money that goes into the reserve fund. Banks don’t pay the monthly HOA fees, so if a condo is foreclosured on and sits on the market for months that means the association is losing out on collecting that units monthly fee, which can be huge negative impact for small buildings. – Nesa Kleinheksel

See More information on Glen Iris Lofts

The next foreclosure is over at Mathieson Exchange Lofts in Buckhead. This foreclosure is a 2/2 and is priced at $245k. That’s pretty hard to beat at this building! Typically, this loft would sell in the low 300′s in a good market. It does have approx. 1100 sq ft. and the floorplan is very nice as well. Mathieson Exchange is also a 7 year old building and is pretty popular amond loft buyers in Buckhead. The building does have 24 hour concierge, swimming pool, fitness center and extra storage.

See more information on Mathieson Exchange Lofts

The next one is located in the MLK District on Edgewood avenue. This one is more of a condo than a loft but it’s definitely a steal. It is a 2/1 currently priced at $175k. It also a large deck with nice views of downtown. If you are not familiar with the area it has grown immensely in the last couple of years, not only are you next to Thumbs Up Diner but there are also several new restaurants that have opened up. This area is still a bit in transition but it give it another couple of years and it will be highly desirable. 

See More information on 513 Edgewood Lofts

**Special Incentive***Use one of our buyers agents at 9 Mile Trolley – The Loft Stop as your exclusive buyers agent and we will contribute $1200 towards your closing costs! Must close on property by Nov. 30,2008!

The first step is to notify the Board of Assessors that you want to appeal it, which is what I did, but you have to do that within 45 days of the notice.  During that time, I gathered evidence by compiling a list of recently sold units in my subdivision which listed the sq.ft, # of bedrooms and # of bathrooms.  I sent all this information with my appeal thinking that would be sufficient evidence, however, about 4 months later I got another letter with a one line sentence basically stating that my property was assessed right and the assessed value would stick, however, the letter also stated that I  had the right to go in front of the board of equalization stating my reasons.  After another 3 months, I finally received a letter stating the date and time of my appearance in front of the board.

Before I went to my hearing, I went to the Fulton County Assessor Website, www.fultonassessor.org and plugged in my address in the property tax search.  Since my property was a condo, I knew that there were several other units in my building that had the exact same floorplan with the same features, so I looked up to see what those properties were assessed at and I found out that they were assessed much lower than mine.  I printed out all the information and highlighted the sq.ft, # of bedrooms/baths and the assessed value.  I then looked up to see what comparable units recently sold in the neighborhood in the last 6 months. There were only a couple units that did sell, however they were larger units that sold far less than my assessed value so that was good evidence to bring to the hearing as well.

I was thrilled with the outcome and the bonus is that they are freezing my taxes for 3 years at the assessed value.  For the next 3 years I now won’t have to worry about my property taxes going up! That is pretty big savings, I think I figured it out to be about $3400 that I am saving over the next couple of years. It almost took a whole year to fight this, but in the end it was worth it!

For new property owners, remember that each year you will get a statement in the mail about what your assessed value is, make sure you look at that closely and if you feel that it is too high, fight it!