Lake Lanier, GA: Is it too good to be true? NO! According to an AP report that just came in, the Army corps of Engineers is lifting a ban which was put in place back in April of 2007 due to the extreme drought and lake levels reaching such historic lows. This is definitely a sign that the drought has become a thing of the past.

I placed a call to Lisa Coghlans office, she is with the Corp of Engineers in Alabama, and they confirmed that applications can be submitted. Right now there is approximately 174 available permits left for Lake Lanier.

Here is the interesting part, the permits will NOT be issued on a first-come first-served basis. More likely is some form of lottery, however that has not been determined yet.

According to the AP report, the rainy weather has helped north Georgia emerge from the worst drought conditions, and Lanier is now only about four feet below full pool. Corps spokesman E. Patrick Robbins said that helped federal engineers feel confident enough to begin accepting new boat dock permits.

If you are searching for that perfect lake home on Lake Lanier, check out www.searchlakelanier.com or contact us with any questions.

Lake Lanier, GA: April showers have definitly brought May flowers and a nearly full Lake Lanier. With the weather nice and activity picking up as we head into the summer months I thought I would see what the market conditions have done to home sales on Lake Lanier. Especially with activity skyrocketing on the popular lake home search site www.searchlakelanier.com.

I pulled data from the Multiple Listing System (MLS) for the four counties that have homes with lake front property and private docks, comparing the number of homes sold and average sales price from 2006 to this year. For the current year I listed the number of Active listings, homes under contract (Pending), units sold and again-average sales price; as seen in the chart below:

Forsyth County Lake Lanier Sales:

As you can see, from the peak of 2006 the average sales price has come down some, but not significantly, approximately 11%. I want to note that the average sales price for 2009 year-to-date seems much higher but there were 2 expensive homes out of the 10 that sold which is raising the average up. I expect that as we move further in the year we will see that number settle down into the high $500’s. As of the date of this post there are 124 Active listings and 7 lake homes are under contract.

Dawson County Lake Lanier Sales:

Dawson county has limited lake-front property and that is demonstrated in the chart above with the low number of sales over the past 3 years. Again, much like Forsyth’s sales this year, the average sales price for Dawson County in 2008 was raised artificially with one very expensive home sale but, the average price over the past 3 years has remained stable and, I expect it will continue to do so. As of the date of this post, there are 52 Active listings with none currently under contract and 2 lake homes have been sold so far this year.

Hall County Lake Lanier Sales:

Lake home sales in Hall county, like everywhere else, have gone down considerably, but sales prices have remained very stable and consistant. Hall county suffers from the largest number of Active Lake listings of any county. Becasue lake home prices have remained stable, I suspect that the backlog will drive a much longer sales cycle (days on market) for lake home sellers in this county. As of the date of this post for Hall County, there are 240 Active lake home listings, 10 are under contract and nothing has been sold so far this year.