It’s not surprising condo closings above $1,000,000 haven’t been all too great in the past year, but the question is are luxury sales picking up in Atlanta? Slow and steady wins the race? In today’s real estate climate, luxury developers are willing to give incentives to buyers, but would rather keep their pricing where it is – and that means units stay on the market sitting empty for months. Some luxury projects have not seen any new sales this year, and those include The Mansion on Peachtree, W Downtown Atlanta Residences and the St. Regis Residences in Buckhead.

Most of the movement in the condo market has been in the lower and middle end, leaving room for a huge buyers market in the upper end of the spectrum. That being said, what are luxury condo buyers purchasing above $1,000,000? Penthouses! When you look at the sales below, you’ll notice 5 of the 8 closings have been penthouse sales. Two more are in my favorite building – Sovereign. In that building, buyers are purchasing the larger units and nothing under $1,000,000 has closed. The Astoria also closed a larger unit very close to the million dollar mark. Unit size and location do matter!

1. Ritz-Carlton Residences Buckhead Penthouse 3401 | Closed on 3/16 for $2,582,500 (MLS Available Properties)
2. Sovereign Unit 4301 | Closed on 2/7 for $2,100,0000 (MLS Available Properties)
3. Sovereign Unit 4101 | Closed on 2/24 for $1,775,000 (MLS Available Properties)
4. 10 Terminus Place Penthouse 3201 | Closed on 2/15 for $1,700,000 (MLS Available Properties)
5. 10 Terminus Place Penthouse 3101 | Closed on 2/15 for $1,300,000 (MLS Available Properties)
6. Gallery Residences Penthouse 2602 | Closed on 3/31 for $1,000,000 (MLS Available Properties)
7. The Astoria Unit 904 | Closed on 2/11 for $935,000 (MLS Available Properties)
8. 805 Peachtree Penthouse 605 | Closed on 1/31 for $725,000 (MLS Available Properties)

In the second quarter of 2011, Sovereign, the Ritz-Carlton Residences and The Brookwood are set to close condos above $1,000,000.

The Atlantic Residences is located in Midtown at Atlantic Station and the condos have some of the best views in Atlanta, especially on the upper levels of the building facing downtown. The two-story penthouse unit I toured had some really great features, like the double height windows and ceiling and a spectacular master bathroom. Pictured above, penthouse 4601 has a large square terrace with glass railings. Regarding the terraces in the tower, every other floor in the building has a solid wall railing, so if you want to see clear through to the view from inside your unit, pick a floor with the glass railing. The upper floors have larger terraces.

This particular penthouse happens to be under contract, with a list price of $1,170,000 $1,300,000 (sales team informed me the list price is actually $1.3 on 5/9). It has two-bedrooms, 2.5 baths, two large terraces and approximately 3,133 square feet of space. Click Here for More Photos & the Rest of the Feature

There are numerous ways to search for properties on the internet today. It’s almost overwhelming! Sites like realtor.com, zillow.com, trulia.com, as well as the numerous agent websites, are a dime a dozen. Most buyers and sellers I speak with tell me they perform searches on 3-4 different sites on average. Going to that many sites can only cause confusion. In today’s blog post, I’m going to talk about my own site (http://www.atlantaSKYrise.com – what a surprise) and how you can use it to keep track of what’s going on in the market without a lot of difficulty.

My site is updated  throughout each and every day with the newest properties to hit the market, so it will show every single property available in Atlanta and the surrounding areas – provided they are listed in the MLS. For newer condo buildings, please contact me to find out what is available. Sometimes the developer will only put a handful of listings in the MLS, while there are still a good number available to purchase.

Highlight updates include: You can now enter in an actual street address when performing a search, making it super easy to locate the property you are trying to locate. You can receive results for properties that are currently in pending, back-up or contingent status. Infinite scrolling of properties without reloading! Click Here for More Photos & the Rest of the Feature

The newly opened Ritz-Carlton Residences Buckhead closed the largest penthouse  in the building (3401) last month on March 16th. It is the highest priced sale in the building since opening its doors. The penthouse fetched a price of $2,582,500.00 with approximately 4,745 square feet of space. The sales price will include the buildout of the space.

This Ritz-Carlton Residences has closed a total of 9 units so far, soon to be 10 next week when my clients purchase a fabulous 20th floor 2-bedroom, 2.5 bath corner home with a separate den.

What’s for sale in the building? Take a look by clicking the slider below.

I’m pleased to be in included the company of such esteemed experts. Flip through the latest issue of the Men’s Book Atlanta to see what we had to say.