What's In and What's Out - Home Trends for 2007

Wondering what's in and what's out in home trends this year? Check out this list for what's hot (and what's not)!

Here's what's IN:

l Concrete and Glass Countertops. Concrete can take any shape, a plus for designers, and it is not as costly as some other natural stone materials. Glass - in all shapes, colors, thicknesses and textures - is also showing up in ultra-modern kitchen designs.

l Shower seating. Inspired by upscale spas, seats in showers have become one of the latest trends in master bathrooms.

l Outdoor kitchens. Whether built from the ground up or on an existing patio, outdoor kitchens boost resale value and offer limitless possibilities.

l Upscale garages. It's no longer the out-of-sight-out-of-mind dumping ground. Today's garage owners want them decked out with cabinet and storage systems, mini-refrigerators, insulation, heating and air conditioning and durable but residential-looking flooring.

l Caves. Man caves and Mom caves are coming out of the closet. Personal, dedicated space where one person in a household can go and work on projects or just "chill" without being disturbed.

l Two home offices. Rising gas prices and commuting times have created more two-work-at-home families. Size matters, make sure your home offices are each at least ten-by-ten feet.

l Rejuvenation rooms. A one-stop space for exercising, meditation, yoga, sauna and fancy steam showers. Showers are going upscale, too.

l Upscale showers. Waterfall fixtures, programmable temperature and water flow are the next big trends.

l Faucets. Personalized design aimed at providing homeowners with a relaxing environment while they bathe or shower.

l Heated patios, walkways and driveways. Northern baby boomers are tired of shoveling and are looking for ways to decrease winter maintenance, plus many have discovered how also heating the patio can add an extra couple of weeks enjoyment in spring and fall.

l Snoring rooms. Offered as options in new homes, adjacent second bedrooms to the master offer relief from the "buzz saw" and an alternative to the couch. A godsend for millions of relationships nationwide.

l Energy-efficient materials and appliances. Windows and doors, washing machines, dishwashers, ranges and refrigerators feature sleek designs, innovation and all the latest amenities to help homeowners become more energy- and resource-efficient and save money.

l Sustainable design. Sustainable design is based on three areas: energy conservation, indoor air quality, and resource conservation. Viewed as new-age in construction circles, sustainable design looks at homes holistically, and not just a group of unrelated systems thrown together. Natural forms of energy, such as wind, solar, and geo-thermal if available on site, are maximized.

l Structured wiring. Right up there with all the buzz about green homes is structured wiring, not entering the main stream must-have for technology-savvy home buyers. Coaxial TV cable (RG-6), Category 5E voice and data lines, distributed radio, and remote camera security are wired throughout a home into multi-outlet boxes called, in the trade, home network centers.

l Mixing finishes on kitchen base and wall cabinets. Matchy-matchy is out in kitchen design. The new look is to have stained-wood bases and painted wood upper cabinets. The old-Europe look rules, but with today's appliances.

Here's what's OUT:

l Loads of glass upper kitchen cabinet doors. Buyers say it looks great, but many who specified and experienced it first-hand don't have the time to keep their kitchen cabinets organized. Plus if you hate washing the windows, having more glass in a greasy room like the kitchen is high-maintenance.

l Bowl-shaped above-counter sinks. The splashing and over-all up-keep have earned these the reputation of nice to look at, but don't want one.

l Any shiny metal finish. Brushed nickels and pewters are in, while chrome and antiqued and polished brass are out.

l Stainless steel refrigerators and dishwashers are a fading trend. The cold look and higher maintenance of steel is shifting buyers to specify warmer colors in kitchen appliances.

l Spiral staircases. Once the rage for mid-seventies makeovers, now death to a home seller. The boomers have aged, their kids don't like them, unfriendly to pets and young children. Take yours out and put in a standard staircase (inside or out) before you sell.

l Bedrooms not large enough for a bed. In the boom, rehabbers and developers learned the fastest way to boost profit was to increase the room count of a home. Bedrooms shrunk to walk-in closet size when a four-room one-bedroom was gut-rehabbed to a four-room two-bedroom. Or the doorways and windows eliminate required wall space. Savvy agents kept asking, "Can you fit a queen-size bed in either room?" and the answer was usually, "No."

The Luxury Homes Topping the Market

America’s priciest real estate is just getting more and more expensive. Why? A good mega-mansion is hard to find.

"God's not making any more land. [Trophy properties] are a true microeconomy with much less supply than demand," says Mauricio Umansky, an associate at Hilton & Hyland in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Many of the deals are done in cash — and as in lesser markets, some of the properties sell quickly and some don’t.

"Think of it this way," Umansky says, "I could put three mega-yachts in a line — one contemporary, one traditional, and one Mediterranean. I don't know which one is going to sell because I don't know which one Larry Ellison or Bill Gates is going to pick."

Here are the top 10 priciest properties for sale in the U.S.

1. Hala Ranch Aspen, Colo., $135 million: Owned by Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, this 95-acre estate boasts a 56,000-square-foot, 15-bedroom, 16-bathroom mansion.

2. Fleur de Lys, Beverly Hills, Calif., $125 million: Suzanne Saperstein's 45,000-square-foot home is modeled after Louis XIV's palace at Versailles.

3. Maison de L'Amitie, Palm Beach, Fla., $125 million: In 2004 Donald Trump bought this property at a bankruptcy auction for $41.25 million. The refurbished version comes complete with a ballroom, conservatory, 100-foot-long ballroom, and 475 feet of ocean-front.

4. Tranquility, Lake Tahoe, Nev., $100 million: On the tax-free Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, this 210-acre property is owned by Joel Horowitz, co-founder of Tommy Hilfiger. The 20,000-square-foot main house is modeled after a northern European mountain home and has a 3,500-bottle wine cellar.

5. Three Ponds, Bridgehampton, N.Y., $75 million: This home on 60 acres features its own USGA-rated Rees Jones golf course. Surrounding the main house are 14 gardens, a 75-foot-long swimming pool, golf pro shop, grass tennis court, and a guest house.

6. The Portabello Estate, Corona del Mar, Calif., $75 million: Built in 2002, this home has eight bedrooms and 10 full baths in nearly 30,000 square feet of ultra-modern space on a triple ocean-front lot along the Pacific Ocean.

7. Malibu, Calif., $75 million: A beach home located on a flat seven-acre lot with two riding stables, a riding ring, swimming pool, tennis court, and private access to the beach.

8. The Pierre Penthouse, New York City, $70 million: This penthouse occupies the top three floors of one of the most posh hotels in New York, located on the edge of Central Park. The balconies and windows have 360-degree views of Manhattan, Central Park, the East River, and the Hudson River.

9. Belvedere, Calif., $65 million: This six-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot home offers breathtaking views of San Francisco, Angel Island, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the bay.

10. San Francisco, $65 million: This limestone mansion’s neighbors on billionaires’ row are the Getty family.

Source: Forbes.com, Matt Woolsey (05/23/07)

Ideas on How to Improve Your Credit Score

The recent meltdown in the media over subprime loan losses is no surprise to me. The financial press has never understood real estate and seemingly wants it to behave like Wall Street. But the truth is that when you make loans to applicants with very low credit scores, you are bound to experience a higher rate of loss.

What's surprising to me is not that people with terrible credit scores are not paying their loan payments on time, but that anyone would allow their credit score to get that low. It turns out that there are many subprime borrowers who make plenty of income. They just don't handle it well.

Lest you fall into the subprime category for any reason, I have decided to review a list of my suggestions for improving your credit score. These ideas will benefit anyone, but will be especially helpful for those planning to borrow in the months ahead.

As we have discussed before, your credit score is a mathematical expression of the information contained in your credit report. Because you have three credit reports, each with different information, you also have three credit scores, although they are often close to each other in value.

Most lenders obtain all three, then select your middle score as representative of you. In other words, if a lender could describe the likelihood that you will pay back their money as a three-digit number, it would be your credit score. The higher your score, the better you are as a risk. The lower your score, well, the more likely you are to be a candidate for a subprime loan.

Credit scores were originally the creation of Fair, Isaac & Company (FICO). In recent years, other credit vendors have entered the field, including some of the major credit-reporting agencies themselves.

In brief, the computers which calculate your credit score examine various categories of information contained in your credit report on that particular date. Each of these categories carries an approximate weight in totaling your score. These include your payment history (35 percent), amounts currently owed (30 percent), the length of your credit history (15 percent), your most recent credit activity (10 percent), and types of credit in use (10 percent).

The computers use a scoring model to compress your information into a three-digit number, which is then reported as your credit score at that moment.

In their company literature, Fair Isaac is careful not to give away secrets which might allow you to influence your credit score through your behavior. In other words, we can't know for sure what the computer is looking for. But we can try to pick up clues as to what might hurt our chances of being approved.

Here is a summary of my suggestions to improve your score:

1. Pay your bills on time. Because your payment history accounts for more than a third of your credit score, it is imperative that you pay on time. And keep good records of payments so you can prove your payments were timely. Also, check annually to make sure creditors received payments on time. Always challenge late charges.

2. If you ever fall behind, get current as soon as you can and stay that way in the future. The Fair Isaac model weights recent activity more heavily than past problems. The most recent six months appears to be critical in the scoring process. Make sure you stay squeaky clean in the year preceding your application for any major loan.

3. Check all three of your credit reports regularly for errors and identity confusion.

Remember that your credit score is composed strictly from historical data contained in your credit report, and from nothing else. If that data is wrong or belongs to someone else, your score will not be an accurate reflection of your situation.

Credit reports (not scores) are free to Georgia residents two times each year. It's best to request your report in writing. You may download a Request Form at http://money99.com/ by pressing Additional Resources and then Free Documents. And know that errors can take several months to correct -- the process is slow and painful.

4. Keep balances low on credit cards, and work toward paying off balances instead of just moving them around. Balances near the maximum limit indicate poor credit management, and will result in damage to your score. Also, owing the same amount but having fewer active accounts may actually lower your score. Don't close or open accounts in an attempt to improve your score. It may backfire.

5. Avoid "maxing out" any account at any time. The computer model thinks this means you may be in trouble. Instead, try to show a steady decline in balance owed over a period of time, even if you have to open additional accounts. Also, try to show installment balances below 80 percent of the original loan and credit card balances below 25 percent of your credit limit.

6. If you are relatively new to the world of credit, take it easy. Don't go out and apply for a bunch of credit cards all at once. New accounts lower your average account age, and that hurts more when you have been managing credit for a shorter time. But do have at least one active credit card account.

7. Avoid unnecessary credit inquiries. Every time you make an application for credit, that creditor makes an inquiry to your credit history. And each inquiry lowers your score by approximately four or five points. If you have few accounts or a short history, each inquiry hurts even more. Furthermore, multiple inquiries are considered a credit danger signal, so take it easy.

Fair Isaac claims that no inquiry is reported when you request your own credit history or when a creditor makes you a "pre-approved" offer in the mail. They also claim to compensate for rate shopping by counting multiple inquiries duwing any 14-day period as a single request. So if you plan on doing any rate shopping, get it done in two weeks or less.

It is important to know that FICO scores do not consider your race, religion, gender or marital status. That would be a violation of federal law. In addition, these scores ignore your age and any information regarding your employment or income, even though your lender may consider this information. Likewise, where you live is not a factor in your FICO score.

As you might imagine, the three major credit bureaus resent having to give you a free copy of your credit history. They intend to make up for it by charging you ten or fifteen bucks for your score. Fair Isaac has put together a package deal offering three reports and three scores for $48 at http://www.myfico.com/. But you can usually get loan officers to share your scores with you after they pull them. Typically, mortgage lenders pull all three scores, then use only the middle score on the application.

By John Adams. The Georgia Real Estate Report, June 2007.

Single-Family Home Bargains Make for Excellent Long-Term Investments

Current Year Likely to Set Record of More Than 50,000 Foreclosures in Atlanta Area

For the average American family, the best investment they ever make is usually their own home. In fact, residential real estate has consistently been one of the safest investments available over the past thirty years.

I like little houses, especially for someone just getting started. It's not because this form of real estate is better than commercial real estate or raw land or apartment buildings. It's just easier, for a variety of reasons:

= Bargains are readily available in single-family homes. Because there are so many people who live in houses and because people's lives change, there are lots of sellers who need to sell quickly and can afford to be flexible on their price or their terms. This creates lots of opportunities, especially in a major metropolitan area like Atlanta.

Just look at the 4,000 or more homes being advertised each month as going into foreclosure in the metro area. Each one of these is an owner who needs to sell quickly, and may be wiling to offer a bargain just to get out from under the foreclosing loan. In contrast, multi-family properties and commercial properties are typically owned by investors who have more resources and less urgency in their financial lives.

= Financing is easy to get for single-family homes. If you have even decent credit, you can get a thirty-year loan for almost the entire purchase price. To make things easier, the lender will offer you this loan at less than seven percent interest, even as an investment property, and guarantee that the rate will never go up. That makes it easy to plan expenses in the future.

= Single-family homes are readily available in my community. I can drive past them on the way to the office. I know what's happening in my hometown, and can keep an eye on things easily. In contrast, someone recently sent me a brochure on an office building for sale in Charlotte. I have never been to Charlotte, and I don't want to go to Charlotte. I don't even know how to get to Charlotte.

= Single-family homes are easier to rent. I know that this is a tough rental market, but almost everyone would rather live in a house than in an apartment, and there are ways of making a house rental much more attractive than renting in an apartment. For example, I can offer my tenant an option to purchase the house they are renting and rebate part of the rent to them toward the purchase price. And I have found that houses attract better quality tenants than apartments as well. In contrast, how in the world do you lease an empty gas station?

= Single-family homes are easier to sell. I know this is a tough sales market, but the truth is, even in a slow market, there are plenty of homes selling in this marketplace. And in the vast majority of sales, the seller moves to cash if desired. This is in contrast to commercial real estate or raw land, where it is assumed that the seller will participate in the financing in order to complete the transaction.

= The single-family home market is extremely stable. Economists describe home prices as having downward inflexibility. That's because people live in them, and if they can't sell for at least what they paid, they will just stay there until they can. The last time there was a sustained downward trend in real estate prices was during the Great Depression. In contrast, take a long look at your 401(k) balance.

= Single-family homes are relatively easy to understand. The most common problem encountered in home ownership is the failure of the water heater, which can be replaced for less than $500. Major expenditures are most often predictable, and many maintenance functions can be performed by the owner. You can learn to put on a new roof or build a deck or paint the walls. In contrast, it is beyond the skill level of most to repave a parking lot or repair an elevator.

= Single-family homes offer tax benefits that are just too good to be true. Where else can you buy an ugly duckling investment with little or nothing down, live in it and fix it up for a couple of years, then sell it and keep all the profits totally tax free? Only in residential real estate. If I were younger (or my wife would let me), we would be moving every 24 months. You are almost crazy not to do so. I know people who do nothing but find bargain homes, move in and fix them up, then sell every two years. They pay absolutely no tax. No federal, no state, and no social security. I will admit that they are limited to half a million dollars tax free on every sale.

= I also like houses because they make great retirement plans. You can retire comfortably on as little as ten little houses, and they are extremely flexible as retirement vehicles. For example, you can continue to rent them as income, you can refinance them to pull out tax-free cash, or you can sell them individually under the installment method to generate excellent income while managing the tax bite. All at your pleasure.

By John Adams. The Georgia Real Estate Report, June 2007.
John Adams will be teaching his latest seminar on real estate investing on Tuesday, June 5 in North Atlanta and Thursday, June 7 in South Atlanta. The name of the seminar is BIG MONEY IN LITTLE HOUSES.

Is Your House Making You Happy?

Your home can be a powerful influence on your emotions. Life coach Martha Beck shows you how to fall in love with every room of your house!

Places have power - not only the physical power of sheer presence, but the emotional clout to alter our moods. Of course, the converse is also true: We have power over places. If we don't take advantage of that fact, we're squandering a major opportunity to bring positive energy into our lives. What luck, then, that you happen to know the world's leading authority on creating an environment that nurtures your most contented self: you. By tapping your instincts and noting your reactions, you can begin to create a home that will make you happier - right now.

TAKE A VIRTUAL HOUSE-TOUR
To begin, grab a pen and a piece of paper. Then picture yourself heading home after a day of working, attending yoga class, or whatever. Your house is in its usual state of orderliness - or disarray - though at the moment no one else is home. As you imagine walking up to your front door, notice your mood. Are you feeling tense or relaxed? Are you happy - or anxious, angry, or depressed? As you walk in, do you feel relief, excitement, anxiety, dread, joy, or despair? Briefly write down your feelings.

Continue to pay attention to your emotional reactions as you visualize entering the house. Envision yourself touching the wall to your right and walking through your entire home. This "hands-on" approach will help you to remember to visit spaces you might skip if you merely formed a mental picture of each room. We tend to forget about places that make us feel uncomfortable; the discipline of mental wall-touching ensures you'll include them.

As you imagine entering each room of your home, write its name on your piece of paper. As you proceed from one area to the next, note how your mood changes. Perhaps the soft light and scented soap in your bathroom make you feel relaxed, but you tense up when you near the disorganized pile of unpaid bills in your home office. Maybe you love the thought of snuggling into the soft cushions on your living-room couch, but you feel gloomy as you approach the darkness of your bedroom closet.

Give each area of your home a number representing how you feel in that space. If your breakfast nook fills you with bliss, give it a score of +10. If the basement feels scary and disgusting, it gets a -10. If you feel nothing at all about a room, it gets a score of 0. If a room is okay but not great, it may get a +4, and so on.

If all the rooms in your home are +10, then you obviously don't need this article. Have some champagne. Enjoy. If you're like most people, however, you will feel better in some areas of your house than in others. It's time to figure out the reason.

PINPOINT THE PROBLEMS
Go to the lowest number on your list. Imagine standing in the designated space, and scan it slowly with your mind's eye. Observe how your mood reacts to different elements of the room. For example, you may dislike your kitchen's drab color but like the fixtures and cabinets. If you have trouble figuring out what bothers you about the space, consider the following categories:

Sensory elements are everything you experience physically. Start with the visuals. How do the room's colors, lighting, and patterns make you feel? Touch-elements, such as texture and temperature, are also important; if your fabulous industrial-modern chairs are hard and cold, you'll never be able to fully relax in them. Don't forget the smells and sounds that waft through a space - the fragrance of aromatherapy, the laughter of friends, the quiet that means your children are plotting some outrage.

Utility refers to the usefulness of a space. Is it convenient to do whatever you need to do there? A friend bought a zillion-dollar refrigerator, which, it turned out, could be opened only by a strong man, preferably one using explosives. My friend's kitchen was spectacular - and she was miserable in it until she trashed that fridge.

Organization is about order and chaos, ranging from absolute precision to the full-on catastrophe of a teenager's bedroom. Nothing is more depressing than clutter run riot - except for antiseptic cleanliness, complete with plastic upholstery covers. Is your space too tidy, or too spartan? Either merits change.

Association can charge even a perfect-seeming space with negative emotions. If you decorated your bathroom to please the ex who dumped you, or you slavishly copied your mother's taste until therapy revealed you're absolutely nothing like her, then your home may be dragging you down. Time to redecorate.

THE FIX
Once you've identified your least favorite part of your least favorite area of your home, write out a list three adjectives that describe your less than delighted assessment of it. For example, your kitchen might be "disorganized," "cluttered," and "crowded." Perhaps a corner of your family room is "stark," "unremarkable," and "boring." Write your adjectives below. Then list an antonym for each one. For instance, an obvious antonym for disorganized is organized. For boring, you might use exciting.

Now think of objects that (1) could be described by your antonyms, and (2) would suit the space. When I consider kitchen items that fit the word organized, drawer dividers and ceiling-hung cookware racks come to mind. If the antonym for a stark family room is comforting, I think of big pillows and homey wallpaper.

This will help you to detach from the unpleasant space and focus your attention on the objects, colors, and lighting you'll use to transform the room into a mood mecca. We get stuck in decorating ruts because, once we get used to a space, it's hard to imagine it being much different. The way to unstick yourself is to think of items that correspond to the antonyms on your list, rather than focusing on the space you dislike. Bring in one thing that makes you happy, and you'll think of ways you can complement that object.

If you can't figure out the answer on your own, hire professional help or ask an arty friend for advice. Show that person your list of adjectives and antonyms. Say something like, "To me, this space feels cramped, stuffy, and fuddy-duddy. I want it to feel open, airy, and hip." This specificity will give your advisor the best shot at creating a solution that will have just the right effect on your mood.

Transforming one area of your home from an emotional downer to a source of uplift has a double benefit: It cheers you up and reminds you of your capacity to create places that shelter you emotionally as well as physically. It also gets you ready to work the same magic on the next most unsettling area. By recognizing and embracing your power to change one small space at a time, you can use your gut, heart, and brain to make sure your home takes you further toward happiness and satisfaction.

By Martha Beck from O at Home , February 2006
© 2007 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

America's Most Overpriced Home Markets

San Diego has plenty of sunshine but little affordable housing. Only 5% of local residents could buy a median-priced home -- one reason the city grabbed the dubious honor of ranking No. 1 on this list.By Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com

No matter the locale, denizens almost always gripe about the stiff cost of living, housing and doing business. But in some places the financial pain is clearly more acute than others.

Take San Diego. A slumping housing market, where only 5% of residents could afford to buy the median home, and a high price-to-earnings ratio have made the oceanfront city the nation's most overpriced real-estate market. Had weather been included as a statistical measurement, there's no doubt San Diego would have avoided our list of top 10 most overpriced cities, but we didn't factor in sunshine.

Arriving at the relative value of a given market isn't as simple as calculating median home prices, income rates and the cost of living. Instead, our list of most overpriced real-estate markets incorporates a more meaningful methodology.

Behind the numbers
Using the 40 largest metro areas, we started by estimating a price-earnings ratio for each market. (Like the P/E ratio of a stock, this value attempts to measure the price a homeowner would pay for $1 of return.) Using data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, we took each market's median home price and divided it by annual rents minus taxes and insurance for those properties. For this exercise, we assumed other costs don't vary drastically from city to city.

The average P/E ratio for the 40 markets is 28. Note: Unlike, say, the S&P 500 Index of stocks, ours is not a weighted-average ratio. If it were, certain cities with greater overall sheer market value would carry more weight.

We incorporated a second metric: an affordability index. Calculated from National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo data, the affordability score is the percentage of the population that can afford to buy the median-priced home, assuming a 6% mortgage rate. In a city such as Los Angeles, No. 4 on the list, a wee 2% of homes are affordable for residents pulling down a median income.

Consider Detroit. Almost 88% of its homes are available to those with a median income, and its 17.5 P/E ratio appears relatively low, but that doesn't make real estate in the Motor City a good investment. Already-stagnant home prices have decreased at a rate of 1% over the past year, and, of the major metros, Detroit is the only one on our list to have lost jobs since 2005. (New Orleans also lost jobs, but it was left off the list because after Hurricane Katrina its statistical figures were such anomalies that it wasn't comparable to the rest of the cities.)

So which markets are in bubble territory? Look for a high P/E ratio, low affordability, low income growth and a high cost of living.

San Francisco, ranked fourth, fits that bill. Despite home prices growing at a 2% clip over past year, according to the NAR, the city by the bay ranks third to last in expected income growth, reports Moody's. That's not good news in a market where only 7.5% of housing is affordable for the median-income earner. Combine that with a housing P/E ratio over 50, and it isn't difficult to imagine some softening on the horizon.

The usual suspects littered our list: Miami came in second, followed in order by Sacramento, Calif.; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Honolulu; New York; Los Angeles; Boston; and San Jose, Calif.

The 5 most overpriced places in the U.S.

Rank -- City -- Median home price -- Housing price trend (change over the past year)

1 -- San Diego, CA -- $601,800 -- (-4.5%)

2 -- Miami, FL -- $371,000 -- (-6.2%)

3 -- Sacramento, CA -- $374,800 -- (-4.1%)

4 -- San Francisco, CA -- $736,800 -- 2%

5 -- Washington, D.C. -- $431,000 -- (-4.1%)

Posted May 18 on Forbes.com

What Can The Gebhardt Group do for you?

As full-service real estate consultants, we can do more for you than list your home or help you buy a new one! Here is just a sampling of our long list of services. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

H Refer you to a real estate agent, anywhere in the world - Through our extensive referral network we can help locate and set you up with a qualified and knowledgeable agent, one that we would trust with our own family, so that you don't have to guess!

H Refer you to a mortgage lender - We have strong relationships with reputable and trustworthy mortgage brokers and lenders and we would be more than happy to refer you to them!

H 1031 Tax-Free Exchanges - We can help you with the ins and outs of a 1031 tax-free exchange, whether you are in the market for a vacation home, a second home, or an investment property - and we can help save you money in the process!

H Refer you to a trusted group of service providers - Through our Preferred Partners Program, we can refer you to service providers of all types, including electricians, painters, builders, contractors, interior decorators, dentists, banks, and many more!

H Help you with property tax disputes - We can provide valuable market analyses to help you achieve a fair property tax bill.

H Give an evaluation on return-of-investment - If you are considering remodeling/renovating and/or updating your home, we can help you decide where you can get the most for your money.

H Assist you in finding a second home, vacation home, or investment/rental property - Real estate is a great investment. Let us help you diversify your investments by helping you choose the kind of real estate purchase that is right for you!

Welcome to The Gebhardt Group's blog!

Welcome!

The Gebhardt Group is a top-producing real estate team in North Metro Atlanta. Whether you are a first-time homebuyer in need of step-by-step guidance or a veteran homebuyer who values a high level of knowledge and expertise, we want to make your experience buying and selling real estate as enjoyable as possible. We pride ourselves on the highest level of client service!

We at The Gebhardt Group would like to welcome you to our blog. Our company has taken advantage of the current technologies available to realtors, so it was only natural that we hopped on the "blogwagon." Look to this blog to inform you of our new listings, trends in home design and real estate, helpful tips, and other news and information pretaining to the North Metro Atlanta area and its hot market.