Around 1,000 lots expected to be on market this year
A number of new subdivisions are contributing to a time of heavy home construction in Gilmer County.
According to Planning and Zoning Director Karen Henson, 11 subdivisions are currently underway in the county area overseen by the planning and zoning office.
They range from large-scale developments, such as the 306-lot, 9-phase High River development under construction off Highway 282, to smaller, under 50-lot subdivisions, such as Highland Pointe just off Stone and Eller Road.
“The only one in that 11 that’s pretty well built out is Highland Pointe,” Henson said. “The rest of them are ongoing, and quite a few lots are left to build on.”
Henson noted that custom homes are mainly being built in the emerging developments after the lots are sold.
“The Hammock, off Roundtop, has 88 small lots and it’s two phases. There’s probably 15-20 building permits in the first phase. Watersong is off Gates Chapel and there are 43 or 44 lots in it. All three phases of Watersong has been final plat approved and I think they’ve had some lot sales in there. High River has several houses in it and they’ve just submitted the preliminary for the final phase,” she added.
Developments still in the very early stages include Jakes Landing Overlook with 124 lots off Hap Holt Road, Creekside Crossing with 436 proposed lots and a 1,900-acre tract and a 2,000-acre tract from the Woodlands Group with 390-plus tracts, Henson noted. There’s also the Vineyards at Yukon, off Pleasant Valley Road, which will have in the neighborhood of 270 lots, and a small tract with only 10 lots off Highway 136, she added.
Henson said new construction is also being seen in subdivisions that were unfinished after the housing market crash.
“We still get permits in the older subdivisions that are being built out quite often,” she confirmed. “We just issued a permit for Red Oak Estates, off Roberts Ridge and Lee Pritchett. It’s a refurbish from when everything fell apart. It was called The Falls, (but) now they’ve refurbished it.”
Devell Frady, a local custom homebuilder and current president of the Georgia High Country Builders Association covering Gilmer, Pickens and Fannin counties, said the busy housing market comes at a time when interest rates remain low, but building materials are more expensive and harder to find.
“It’s been steady as can be the past couple of years. I think mortgage rates have driven (the increased building). That always stimulates the housing market,” he said. “We’re having a hard time getting materials like windows, faucets and plumbing set-out parts. One week it’s this, and the next week it’s something else. We’re being told now that there’s going to be a shortage in PVC pipe. Appliances seem to be a really big one. People are having a hard time getting appliances.”
The increase in material costs is also driving housing prices up. If you were somehow able to find one, a $200,000 home would be considered a bargain here, Frady noted.
“The state and national builder’s associations are telling us we’re looking at a 33-35 percent increase in (home prices) in the last 13 months,” Frady said. “We’re more expensive than Atlanta. The cost here is higher (with) our topography. The infrastructure cost is much higher than a development in Atlanta. Plus, a lot of our homes here are not like Atlanta homes. People here want mountain living and mountain homes. Our products are mostly wood, which is very expensive, and we’ve seen an increase in material prices as much as 100 percent.” Homebuilders, themselves, are getting harder to come by, Frady noted.
“The average builder out there has all they can do right now, (but) you’re not going to see a vast increase in (local) building permits. You’re going to see more than you did last year or the year before, but it’s not alarming,” he added. “There are fewer builders out there than ever before. The draw from the community we get our employees from is thin, and it’s hard to find help.”
During pandemic-dominated 2020, the local planning and zoning office issued 265 new residential permits, which is considered very good, Henson noted. In 2021 so far, 130 residential permits have already been issued.
“We issued 47 new home permits in the month of March (2021), which was as many as we had for January and February combined. In March of last year, we had 17 new homes,” Henson said.
There isn’t any apartment construction planned for the county region, but the county is looking at possibly changing its high-density housing ordinance, Henson noted.
“Pieces of property where you have access to water and sewer are so limited, it’s very difficult to find a piece of property that has access to both in the county,” she added. “We are trying to look into our ordinance where multifamily high density (housing) is concerned. Right now, the county has a four-unit-per-acre maximum. We’re trying to look into changing that.”
Approximately 1,000 newly-made lots will be up for sale locally this year, Henson said.
“I feel like our office is going to be really busy. If half the people who buy a lot get a permit to build on it, that’s a lot,” she added.
Frady noted the cyclical nature of the housing market. He figures it will take a long time for homes to be built on so much available space.
“I don’t think Gilmer County’s about to explode. I think, by fall, we’ll see interest rates possibly roll back. If interest rates roll back, the buyer will slow down and so will our market,” he said.