The Georgia tax assessors are sending out 2013 tax assessment notices and it is time to take a look at Atlanta commercial real estate values. Below is the sale price per square foot trend for retail real estate in metro Atlanta. It appears we are still bouncing along the bottom:
Below is the retail trend in list price. It doesn't matter if you look at the city, county, metro, or state, the asking price trend was pointed downward at the start of this year.
The average sale price per foot is almost 30% lower than the lowest asking price (state-wide) number. Based on this the asking prices are pointed in the right direction - down. But wait. There is another real estate data provider that has this information also. They are considered the better half of the marraige of LoopNet and CoStar. Here is the CoStar average sale price per foot of retail building in the Atlanta metro area:
As you can see this data set shows an average sale price per foot of approximately $130 heading into this year. That is much higher than the LoopNet data. Below is the CoStar information for retail listings:
As you can see here asking price and sale price are very similar with sale price actually slightly higher. Which information do you use? For a property tax appeal you want to use the LoopNet data because it supports a lower value. Most Georgia tax assessors know that the data in LoopNet is user generated. That means that agents and brokers input the information. CoStar has an army of employees that verify sales data and contact property owners on rental and vacancy rates on a regular basis.
Unfortunately for most, CoStar is about three times more expensive than LoopNet. It remains to be seen what will happen to the costs of these services now that one has bought the other. If I find any other good data sources I'll be certain to list them here.
