It was a mixture of good and bad news for home sales in Fayette County during 2011. The good news was that the number of home sales increased slightly after falling for the past four years, marking the most sales since 2007.
But the average sale price was another matter, with 2011 bringing a fifth straight year of falling prices.
Multiple Listing Service (MLS) records provided by Leslie Edwards Realty showed there were 1,157 homes sold in Fayette County during 2011. Those homes carried an average list price of $290,511 and an average sales price of $227,767.
As indicated in the chart below, the data from 2011 shows the number of homes sold and the average list and sale price far below the numbers seen prior to the recession.
Year Homes sold Avg. list price Avg. sale price
2007 1,537 $388,506 $314,342
2008 1,081 $380,569 $297,239
2009 1,043 $363,083 $266,228
2010 970 $346,118 $255,183
2011 1,157 $290,511 $227,767
MLS records show that 188 of the 1,157 homes sold in 2011 came with a sale price of under $100,000.
Also in 2011 there were an additional 857 homes for which the sales contract expired without a sale. That means that 43 percent of the homes under contract did not sell.
Edwards said there are currently 778 homes for sale in Fayette County. That number represents an 8-month supply of single-family homes.
Next door in Coweta County, 2011 saw 1,543 homes sold with an average listing price of $239,511 and an average sale price of $153,806. The number of homes sold represents 58 percent of the homes placed on the market during the year. The remaining 1,214 homes on the market were unsold at year’s end.
Of the homes sold, MLS records show that 595, or approximately 39 percent, sold for under $100,000.
Records also show that Coweta currently has 1,016 homes for sale.
As for a couple of other south metro Atlanta counties, the larger number of homes sold in 2011 in Henry and Clayton counties was not unexpected given the much larger population in both counties. But it was the sale price that took the big hit.
In Henry County, 2011 saw 2,816 homes sold with an accompanying average sale price of $112,704. Of those sales, 1,568 sold for under $100,000.
And in Clayton County there were 3,112 homes sold. Those homes came with an average sale price of $49,036.
