Atlanta, GA

Atlanta’s housing market “at risk” as demand for homes collapses

Published

9 months ago

May 29, 2025

Atlanta’s housing market “at risk” as demand for homes collapses

Atlanta’s once red-hot housing market is suffering a cooldown, as the Georgia city reported the biggest share of home sale cancellations in April of all U.S. metro analyzed by Redfin and sales fell year-over-year for the third consecutive month.

The city’s housing market is “at risk” of experiencing a significant downturn, with price drops so steep that it could feel “very much like a crash,” Norada Real Estate Investment’s analyst Marco Santarelli said.

Why It Matters

Many of the hottest housing markets during the pandemic are now experiencing corrections, with lower demand putting downward pressure on prices. The most glaring examples of this unfolding phenomenon are concentrated in the South, where most remote workers relocated during the health emergency.

In these markets, affordability reached a breaking point during the pandemic after which many locals were priced out of buying homes. The only ones who could afford buying properties were investors and out-of-state buyers—but high prices, elevated mortgage rates and growing economic uncertainty have now discouraged these categories as well, and sales are dropping.

While this could be good news for locals pushed to the sidelines of the market, prices are yet to reflect this changing dynamics in Atlanta—but experts say it might only be a matter of time until they start falling.

What To Know

In April, home sales in Atlanta were down 4.6 percent year-over-year, for a total of 699 homes sold in the city, according to Redfin data. The typical home also spent seven days longer in the market before going under contract than it did a year earlier, for a total of 45 days.

In the same month, the city also reported the highest share of home-purchase agreement cancellations in the country compared to all pending sales, with 20 percent of home-purchase agreements falling through, up from 17.6 percent last year.

According to experts, shrinking demand is due to locals being priced out of the market and investors turning away from Atlanta.

“The collapse in investor demand in the U.S. housing market is alarming. In a market like Atlanta, investors are buying 65 percent fewer homes than they did at the peak of the pandemic,” Nick Gerli, real estate analyst and CEO of Reventure, wrote on X.

Downtown Atlanta skyline, photographed from the Jackson Street bridge in Atlanta, Georgia on July 28, 2019.

Raymond Boyd/Getty Images

“Investors are buying fewer homes because of elevated interest rates, declining rents, and rising insurance costs,” he said, commenting on a Reventure graph showing that investor purchases in Atlanta are now 65 percent lower than their peak in the second quarter of 2021.

The collapse in investor demand in the U.S. Housing Market is alarming.
In a market like Atlanta, investors are buying 65% fewer homes than they did at the peak of the pandemic.
Other markets where investors are jumping ship include:
Jacksonville (-63%)
Phoenix (-62%)… pic.twitter.com/gD0rEceXpt
— Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) May 28, 2025
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Investor sentiment appears to be shifting nationally, not just in Georgia. Gerli noted other cities experiencing a steep decline in investor activity include Jacksonville, Florida (-63 percent), Phoenix, Arizona (-62 percent), and Charlotte, North Carolina (-61 percent).

Despite the ongoing cooldown in demand, prices are still rising in the city. In April, the median sale price of a home in Atlanta was $440,000, up 5.4 percent from a year earlier and up more than 80 percent from April 2020. Of those homes that were sold last month, 21 percent went under contract above list price, while 32.7 percent had price drops.

A likely reason behind these price increases is the limited availability of homes in the Atlanta market. While inventory has been rising steadily in the past few months, with April reporting a total of 5,129 homes for sale in the city, up 8.9 percent from the previous month and 40.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com, inventory remains below pre-pandemic levels.

But things may change soon. According to Norada Real Estate Investment, Atlanta is the second market most at-risk of price decline this year in the country after Albuquerque, New Mexico.

What People Are Saying

Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather previously told Newsweek: “We suspect that since Atlanta has been an investor hotspot in recent years, this could be the impact of investors backing out of deals, which might account for part of this trend.”

Gerli wrote on X: “Not so surprisingly, housing inventory and supply have skyrocketed in the markets where investors are no longer buying. And home values are now dropping in many of these markets on a month-over-month basis.”

Santarelli said in a recent report: “Atlanta attracted massive numbers of new residents during the pandemic thanks to its relative affordability (compared to coastal cities), job market, and quality of life. However, that popularity drove prices up dramatically.”

He added: “The negative state-level data combined with the volatile price trend line for Atlanta in the chart suggests that affordability is now a major challenge for many potential buyers. Plus, Atlanta is a major metro, which often sees more development and potentially faster inventory increases than smaller towns. This combination of stretched affordability and potential inventory growth puts it at risk.”

What Happens Next

According to Gerli, investors’ behavior normally amplifies “whatever the current market trends are.”

He wrote on X: “If there is a bubble, investors will make the bubble bigger, bringing in external capital into a local housing market that should be dependent on local buyers. Meanwhile, in a crash or downturn, investors tend to make the situation worse. Leaving the market in droves before the crash gets worse.”

According to Gerli, markets like Atlanta, where investors have backed off, could soon experience significant price drops. Santarelli expects very much the same to happen, with prices potentially falling by 10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent from their peak during the pandemic homebuying frenzy.

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Related Topics:atlanta demand Featured Georgia home sales housing housing market

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Atlanta, GA

Blazers Outclassed in Every Aspect By Atlanta

Published

4 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Blazers Outclassed in Every Aspect By Atlanta

The Portland Trail Blazers put up an absolute stinker on Sunday, getting destroyed by the .500 Atlanta Hawks, 135-101. It was a soul-destroying loss. Jrue Holiday and Donovan Clingan have at least some reason to hold their heads high, with Holiday putting up 23 points on 56.3% shooting and Clingan getting a 15 point/15 rebound double-double. Otherwise you have to squint pretty hard to take away anything positive for the Blazers.

Here are a few observations from the game:

First Quarter Disaster Class

Not a whole lot went right for the Blazers in the first quarter other than Jrue Holiday’s 14 points in the frame. No other Blazer could manage more than three points. At the other end of the court, the Hawks were getting to the free throw line with ease, taking 15 freebies against only two for the Blazers. Atlanta found it easy to get wide-open shots too. Simple penetrate-and-kick was the order of the day, and it was shockingly successful. Five turnovers for Portland didn’t help either. With everything going wrong, the refs added to the misery, ignoring some laughably physical play for a steal at one end, while whistling Vit Krejci for a block on a clear charge on the other. Poor whistles led to frustration, with Clingan losing the plot a bit and picking up his third foul in the quarter out of frustration. Finishing down 19 at the end of the first quarter is no way to win a basketball game, yet somehow it could have been worse. With a bit over a minute to go, the Blazers had been down 24. Credit for not giving up I guess, but… yeesh.

Okongwu was terrific. At one point in the 2nd quarter, he had 20 points on 77.8% shooting from the field and 75% shooting from deep. Not bad for a 6’10” center. He was always open in the corner. Every time down the court. If Atlanta had wanted to make feeding him a priority, Okongwu might have finished with 60. Instead, they ignored the obvious and gave every Hawk who took the court plenty of touches and shots. It’s hard to argue with a 34-point win, but it really should have been a 40-point lead at halftime if the Hawks had pressed their advantage.

Henderson’s Three-Point Shot

It’s still early days for Henderson’s 25-26 season, but he’s shown good things coming back from injury. His strength and first step are encouraging. His three-point shooting, however, has been a real problem. For a team that was already at or around the worst three-point percentage in the NBA before Henderson took the court, the last thing they needed was him to come in and shoot 24% for the season. In this game he attempted 4 of them, making one. Two of his misses were so ugly that Atlanta fans were embarrassed for him. Without a functional shot from range, he’s just not showing enough to win the starting job.

Three Quarters of Garbage Time

One way to look at this game is to give the Blazers credit for keeping it pretty even for most of the game after the soul-crushing first quarter. You could also give Portland credit for finding their way to the arena today. This game was decided early and nothing the Blazers did the rest of the way gave anybody a sense that they could mount a comeback. That’s pretty discouraging.

Nice Shooting Percentage From Krejci, But…

75% shooting from the field and 66% from three for Krejci? Yes, please! Three total shots from deep and five overall in a game when they needed points? No, no, no. Krejci seemed like a brilliant pickup for the Blazers, what with him shooting over 40% from three the last three season in Atlanta. He just hasn’t had the kind of impact we all imagined so far. It’s still early in his Blazer career, but the 31.7% that Krejci is shooting from beyond the arc for the Blazers isn’t what anyone had in mind. Today he made his first three shots, with two of them from deep. Would this be the game that could get him on track? Unfortunately he’d only take one more three-pointer the rest of the game. It’s incredible that they wouldn’t at least try to lean into him a bit more when he looked like he might be poised to break out of his Blazers’ shooting slump.

The Blazers will get two days off before taking on the apparently lottery-bound Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday. A Portland win would probably suit both clubs just fine.

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Atlanta, GA

Drama mars finish of half-marathon national championships in Atlanta

Published

16 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Drama mars finish of half-marathon national championships in Atlanta

The 2026 Publix Atlanta Marathon, which served as the USA Track & Field Half Marathon Championships, met chaos Sunday in the women’s half marathon event.

Three runners — Jess McClain, Emma Grace Hurley and Ednah Kurgat — were led off course by an official race vehicle with less than 2 miles to go. The nearly-half-mile error, according to data from Hurley’s Strava account, cost the runners their top-three finishes.

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Atlanta, GA

Police increase presence across metro Atlanta amid teen takeover rumors

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Police increase presence across metro Atlanta amid teen takeover rumors

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Popular gathering spots across metro Atlanta saw heightened law enforcement presence Saturday night following rumors of potential “teen takeovers.”

Authorities say a similar event last weekend led to more than a dozen teenagers and adults being taken into custody. In response, agencies across the metro area are stepping up patrols in several high-traffic areas, including the Beltline and the Cumberland Mall and Battery districts.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: 9 juveniles, 8 adults charged after weekend ‘takeover’ event at The Battery

Along the Atlanta Beltline, Atlanta police confirmed they increased staffing levels as a precaution. An APD officer on scene told Atlanta News First that officers are maintaining an enhanced presence due to the takeover rumors. An Atlanta News First crew observed multiple people put in handcuffs and an APD officer at the Beltline said four guns had been confiscated.

Multiple patrol units were visible along the Beltline, with officers monitoring foot traffic and briefly detaining several individuals. Police said the show of force is intended to deter large, disruptive gatherings before they begin.

Cumberland Mall to have teen curfew Saturday after ‘takeover’ at The Battery

In Cobb County, law enforcement agencies are coordinating efforts around Cumberland Mall and The Battery Atlanta. The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office deployed its mounted patrol unit, with four deputies on horseback circling the mall. Units from the Cobb County Police Department, Marietta Police Department, and the Georgia State Patrol were also seen monitoring traffic and pedestrian activity in the area.

Electronic message boards and posted signage between Cumberland and The Battery warned visitors of the increased law enforcement presence. Officers said the goal is to prevent a repeat of last weekend’s arrests and ensure public safety.

For now, officials say the evening remains calm, but they are prepared to respond quickly if large crowds begin to form.

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