Expos Aim To Spur Georgia Business, Housing Industries

Navigating a tough economy in the world of small business and the housing industry is the focus of a series of expos running through Saturday.

The events are designed as a type of one-stop shopping for entrepreneurs, realtors and bankers, among others. Organized by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, the aim is to connect those groups with the latest information and tools from the local, state, and federal levels.

Yancey Gulley is with Athens Technical College, one of several schools hosting the expos:

"There will be booths from small business, government to government assistance, and housing assistance. And then throughout the day, we’ll have workshops going on as well."

Athens Tech, along with tech schools in Atlanta and Calhoun are staging expos Saturday from 9-to-5. Events are wrapping-up today in Warner Robins, Hinesville, and Albany.

Albany included in nat'l poverty study

A national study examining concentrated poverty nationwide includes a glimpse of Albany. The Brookings Institution detailed its findings Friday in "The Enduring Challenge of Concentrated Poverty in America," a two-year study that profiles 16 high-poverty communities. The study included larger cities, like Miami, down to smaller areas like the eastern region of Albany. The report describes an area with no major commercial or real estate development and few social services, where 90 percent of the money made is spent outside the region, and where year 2000 statistics showed a 45 percent poverty rate. The report says signs of improvement include new subsidized housing - though some national housing experts blame public housing enclaves for concentrating poverty.

(Associated Press)

A buyer's market at the home foreclosure auction

Georgia housing forclosures, as of August, 2008. (Courtesy RealtyTrac.com)

While housing market hard times mean foreclosure for many, it also means bargains for home buyers and real estate agents.


Potential home buyer holds up sign with the catalog number of the home he's interested in, as the auctioneer, standing before a slide image of the home, rapidly calls out the fast-rising price at a home foreclosure auction at the Cobb Galleria, Atlanta, Oct. 19, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Auctioneer Mike Carr's machine-gun delivery is music to the ears of some two thousand anxious homebuyers and agents, who crowded into the Cobb Galleria Convention center Sunday morning.


Nicole Brown, a real estate investor from Dallas, Ga., at the home foreclosure auction, held at the Cobb Galleria, Atlanta, Oct. 19, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Nicole Brown, a real estate investor from Dallas, Georgia says her $73,000 bid netted her a three bedroom, two bath home:

“This was my first time with an auction; it's very overwhelming, but it's worth the trip.”

It was a trek made by potential buyers from cities and towns across the state.

Kamal Chopra of Alpharetta is looking for a house as an investment, but says it's hard to keep up with the auctioneer's rocket-fast patter:

“It's a different experience – it's too loud for me, i guess, and it's a little confusing for me, the way he's talking. but it's still very exciting, i guess – I'm enjoying it.”

Part of that enjoyment is that it's a buyer's market: Realtytrac.com reports that, as of August, Fulton County led the state foreclosure rate with one in every 267 homes on the block.


Two potential home buyers inspect a catalog of properties, as they watch the auction at the Cobb Galleria, Atlanta, Oct. 19, 2008. (Dave Bender)


Mary Quella, the vice president of the Real Estate Disposition Corporation, at a home foreclosure auction held at the Cobb Galleria, Atlanta, Oct. 19, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Mary Quella is from the Real Estate Disposition Corporation, who are holding the auction:

“We have people here that are buying homes for $30 – 40,000 dollars, that a couple years ago were going for $160,000 plus dollars.”

And at those kind of prices, Quella hopes the the series of auctions in metro Atlanta will sell off 1,100 homes.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the housing market.

Survey: Atlantans most stressed in nation

Metro Atlantans are the most stressed-out people in the nation, according to the American Psychological Association. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports the APA found 36% of people who live in and around Atlanta ranked their stress 8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. Nationally, only 30% ranked their stress that high. Most metro Atlantans cite money as the leading cause of stress, with work, the economy, and housing following in that order.