Residential and Commerical Investors See Opportunities in Sandy Springs, Metro Atlanta

Recent moves show investors see opportunities in metro Atlanta and Sandy Springs.

MidCity Real Estate Partners is developing a $36 million office park at the former site of Sandy Springs Police Headquarters on Barfield, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reports.

A $100 million mixed-use project is planned by JLB Partners at Chastain and Versailles apartments, on Roswell Road.

And Last week, Chris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development said . 

Separately, private equity firms have seized on the metro area to scoop up residential foreclosure properties before the real estate market rebounds, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek story.

In the early 2000s, Phoenix was a cheaper alternative to California for folks longing to live on the west cost. But, John Burns, a California real estate consultant told Bloomberg that Atlanta is the next Phoenix.  

On auction day at the Fulton County Courthouse, earlier this month, Colony Capital LLC bought 230 homes for $15.5 million, the story said. That’s a fraction of the 10,000 metro Atlanta properties the firm plans to purchase by mid-2013, Bloomberg reports.

Private equity investors expect to make money, in part, by renting the older properties at high amounts to folks who can’t obtain a mortgage. [.]

In contrast, Sandy Springs officials and master planning representatives for development of a City Center, expect to attract "renters by choice," instead of necessity, to new luxury mixed-use projects in the new downtown area.