Posts Tagged ‘Blue Ridge’

The effect of the real estate bubble bursting is obvious everywhere you go in North Georgia, Ellijay, Blue Ridge, there are so many empty stores and office spaces. Real estate played such a big part in the Georgia Mountains because it was a great place to own a second home. While the housing Industry was booming the market became saturated with carpenters going out on their own and building spec houses. The amount of money being spent was way up because everyone was turning over new homes almost as fast as they were building them. As a new builder sold one spec house the bank would loan builders the money to build 2 and then 3 at a time. The cycle was like a snowball.

Once the bubble burst we had a lot of companies that were employing hundreds die an almost instant death. Many of these small contractors had multiple spec homes and cabins built and they were holding builders loans on them. Once they could no longer pay the interest they were foreclosed on and we saw many dreams shattered. We can only hope that a valuable lesson has been learned by this hardship. Greed truly ran wild in towns like Ellijay and Blue Ridge during the housing bubble.

We have now seen a few banks that contributed to this glut and failure go down with the small contractors. I read this Atlanta Journal Constitution article about an Ellijay builder Theresa Ballard and it was just heart breaking. I have also seen some interesting articles about corruption at the Gilmer County Bank, the bank that financed that builder. Yes, greed and corruption fueled the frenzy, left a saturated market of new homes, a pile of unpaid loans, failed banks, and broken dreams. Let’s hope we have learned a lesson and can rebuild this great North Ga mountain area.

Related Article: Real Estate Investment

A friend of mine just wrote a good article that explains the difference between renting a cabin and motel or hotel on vacation. The way she puts it you would think motels in mountain areas like Blue Ridge would be out of business.

When I first moved to North Georgia I lived in a rental cabin for a few months until I found the one I wanted to buy. It was a cozy little place, the only bedroom was the loft. It had a neat old wood burning stove and a beautiful mountain view.

I have never wanted to return to the suburbs and can no longer imagine enduring the traffic and hectic lifestyle I once endured in the big city. There is no amount of money that is worth giving up how peaceful I feel in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I will be touring Blue Ridge, Ellijay, and Chatsworth this weekend for the best Christmas light displays. If you know where some of the best displays are let me know so I can photograph them. I will post pictures and reviews on Monday. I really love this time of year and I hope we get a White Christmas.

Merry Christmas to All!