Diamond Dwellings

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Hamilton Mill Bike Shops

Posted By Matt Fagioli on April 20th, 2010

Lately I’ve become excited about biking. In fact, I’ve been riding a LOT. I first caught the bug doing the indoor kind called spinning. That’s where you lock yourself in a room with 20 other people and jam some really loud music for about an hour — while riding a funny looking stationary bike. Anyway, that’s what got me into it.

I recently bought a mountain bike (pictured) AND a road bike (cuz I wanted to do both). My road bike is what they call a hybrid. It sorta looks like a mountain bike with skinny tires. And, I also bought a mountain bike for my son so we could ride the trails together.

As it turned out, I bought all three bikes from three different shops in the Hamilton Mill area so I thought I’d write this post to share my experiences and give some links to those shops. Since I had great experiences with all three shops, I can really recommend all of them! Each is slightly different depending on what you want, but all of them passed inspection with me

My hybrid bike is pictured below. I had to steal this picture off the KHS website (can’t believe I don’t have a good picture of it yet myself). I bought it from Addicitive Cycles up in Hoschton. I went there before any other shops because a reliable source told me that “all the real serious bikers go there”. Based on what I saw going on there, I guess I could imagine that to be true. Since I’m just a total newbie to biking, I can’t really confirm or deny that for sure. You can judge for yourself. BUT, I can say that Cody and his team up there were awesome, friendly and made me feel very welcome even though they obviously deal with a pretty “serious biker” clientele.

I only had my hybrid for about a week when I realized that I really wanted a mountain bike too (for the trails) and the hybrid for the roads and the paved trails in Mulberry Park. My mountain bike (top photo) is a Specialized (that’s the brand) and I bought from Outback Bikes located in the Hamilton Mill Publix shopping center. I LOVE that bike. It’s super cool (I think). Outback Bikes is a great little shop. They actually have two locations. They had good inventory also. Great service (not just saying that either). By the way, if you want to start mountain biking in Gwinnett, Ft Yargo is a great trail to start on.

I bought my son’s bike over at Knight Bikes & Skateboards. As you can tell from the name, they have bikes and boards. It’s a bigger shop so they have pretty good inventory of both. I think they had a few more “middle-of-the-road” bikes and bikes for kids, etc. It might be the family bike shop of the three (although Outback certainly fits that bill too).

Are you into biking too? Please let me know in the comments here.

Hamilton Mill Real Estate Report Q1 2010 from Diamond Dwellings

Posted By Matt Fagioli on April 14th, 2010

The first quarter of 2010 has come to a close. 21 homes were sold in Hamilton Mill over those first 3 months of the year. This is our usual “quick snapshot” of the sales results. It’s meant to give you a basic idea of what’s happening in the market. You’ll see as you look into the data that sharp analysis and accurate market values for your home (or any other comparable home) requires a more complete review of many other important variables such as closing costs (not reflected here) & seller motivation — including, of course, foreclosures and short sales. As always, more information and often more up-to-date information is often available here at HamiltonMillDwellings.com as the days and weeks pass going forward.

Pricing & Values…

Back in January, I used the term “reserved recovery” to describe our local market conditions here in Gwinnett County. I still think that represents an accurate assessment. In fact, I think we can expect exactly that for months to come — even a few years. If you look back at Georgia’s real estate values for decades (before 2003 or 2004) what you see is very slow, steady growth. Month after month & year after year – 2%, sometimes 3% annual growth. We’re returning to that pattern of positive (but slow & steady) growth.

How’s The Gwinnett Market…

This week I wrote a blog post about a national data report that just came out. It shows that pricing is still declining very slightly. However, sales volumes are rising with DOM (days-on-market) going down. This data supports my comments above. Here’s a link to find that national report.

What’s Next…

At the end of April, most of the first time home buyer tax credits will have expired. There is no indication from Washington that these credits will be extended any further. Most markets are improving slowly – and hopefully that trend with continue without these interventions in place. Spring is upon us and I’m predicting an improved Q2 vs ’08 and ’09. We shall see

Probably want to click here…

Here’s the link to download the new report.

Please note that this file is not the final print version. If’ you’d like a print copy, please email matt@diamonddwellings.com

Housing Market Data – National Perspectives

Posted By Matt Fagioli on April 12th, 2010

My good friends at Altos Research just released their latest Real-Time Housing Market Update. This is a national view of the market based on a 10 city composite index. Since Atlanta is one of the 10 cities it’s always particularly interesting to me when the updated report comes out.

It looks at price — we’re down 1.5% over the last quarter (not bad); listing inventory — we’re up 9.7% in the last 3 months (BUT, that’s very normal going into spring); and average days on market — we’re down 17.1% (wow that’s good)!

The overall composite shows pretty similar numbers to the Atlanta real estate market numbers that I listed from the report above. Overall pricing is down 1.8% with inventory rising 12.8% (again that’s probably more about the normal “spring rise”) and days-on-market down 6.7%

So, this is really more “bouncing along the bottom” data, indicating more of the relatively flat market we’ve had for many months now. It’s good news in the sense that the market has proven to have a pretty firm bottom. The strong rise is still a ways away for sure.

Just click here if you want to download the complete Altos Research report.

Interior Decor is a HUGE factor in Gwinnett Home Sales

Posted By Matt Fagioli on March 29th, 2010

If you’re selling your Gwinnett home this spring, it’s a great idea to get a professional opinion about decorating choices, furniture placement and even lighting options to make sure that you’re highlighting the best features (and minimizing others). We’ve been working with MJN Interiors for some time now & so I thought I’d post their information here as an easy resource. Ask for Michelle (and tell her I sent ya!)

Here’s a great testimonial from their website…

Hit the mark perfectly

We met Michelle during the redecorating of our family room (another “Must Do” project) with the expertise of a fabulous faux painter, an artist really, named Kass. Kass not only recommended Michelle she practically insisted on her and it was truly the best piece of advice we received.
We were so delighted with our family room transformation that in less than a year we decided to tackle our bedroom … with Michelle’s help, of course! We hired out part of the painting, did some ourselves but left the “heavy lifting” (i.e., window treatment design, accent furniture selection, etc.) to Michelle. I simply told Michelle how I wanted our bedroom to “feel” and once again Michelle hit the mark perfectly. My reaction was tears of joy and awe at the transformation and my husband said our furniture never looked more beautiful!

Michelle is a true treasure – she’s fantastic at her craft, talented, a great listener and one of the nicest people we know. We are so very happy that we were introduced to Michelle and look forward to our next project with MJN Interiors! We wish her all the very best!

Patty & Scott Neumeister
Johns Creek, GA

Click on the MJN website below to see more details including more testimonials & contact info.

(note of disclosure: MJN is part of our paid ad sponsor program as well as a local business partner)

Short Sale : 1925 Branches Way, Lawrenceville, Ga. 30043

Posted By Matt Fagioli on February 23rd, 2010

This one’s a pretty amazing deal. Great inground pool. Super private backyard. Huge oversized garage that can fit 2 full size trucks or SUVs AND a whole bunch of storage too! It’s currently listed for $169,800 (but check with us for updated prices)