By Geoff Smith After returning from cities like Chicago and New York City, people always ask, “Why can’t we build a rail system like they have up there?” The answer is simple: It’s insanely expensive. Depending on who you talk to, expanding MARTA’s rail line costs somewhere between $150 million and $350 million a mile. […]
The 2018 Session of the Georgia General Assembly is history, with session officially ending after midnight on March 29. All legislation that successfully passed in 2018 now goes to the Governor for review and potential approval or veto. While any passed bills left untouched by the Governor automatically become law, the 40 day deadline for […]
Bills to create a Regional Transit Authority in Metro Atlanta have now both passed overwhelmingly out of their respective Chambers and were in transportation committee this week in the other Chamber for consideration.The expectation in committee is that both would substitute the other bill’s language for the original house or senate version, and then head […]
By Geoff Smith It should be no secret that homebuilders are having trouble keeping up with the demand in the market right now. So it appears that homebuyers thirsty for newly built homes are finding what they want in recently built homes. A new chart released by Atlanta’s own Smart Real Estate Data shows that […]
by Geoff Smith For at least three years now, inventory in the under $400,000-market here in Atlanta has been at record lows and buyers have been fighting each other for good deals. The result is a sharpened artform that many agents have crafted to be ‘the one’ chosen from the many. I was reading a […]
by Geoff Smith The quote-master, Mark Twain, once said: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” I’m often amazed at how thin the line really is between the two. I just read an article by Maria Saporta in […]
by Geoff Smith The sun came up and another company has decided to move its headquarters next to a MARTA station – what else is new? Insight Global, a staffing company for Fortune 500 companies across the United States and Canada, has decided to move 800 employees into a new, 16-story building that will be […]
By Geoff Smith You would be hard-pressed to find a legitimate economist who was surprised by the Federal Reserve’s move last week to raise its short-term interest rate for the third time this year. But you could open your inbox (or look in your junk mail box) and probably find 20 loan officers who are. […]
By Geoff Smith While we in North Fulton have been dickering for years about MARTA expansion, I noticed a change: the conversation seems to have shifted from “yes” or “no”, to “what kind.” Fulton County Commissioners and the county’s mayors got together yesterday to see the results of a 6-month transit analysis and public engagement […]
By Geoff Smith City leaders in Woodstock have worked hard over the last 20 years crafting what has become one of the metro area’s most successful suburban downtown areas. And as the saying goes, success breeds success. When I was at Chattahoochee High School back in the early 1990s and we traveled to Cherokee High […]