Where, in the broad Atlanta housing landscape, are home sales the strongest?

March was a hugely positive month for Atlanta’s housing market. As we reported, home sales in Metro Atlanta rose 13.8 percent year-over-year and 32.5 percent from February to March, bringing a much-needed jolt to a marketplace that had, for several months, been on the lethargic side.

But where, in Atlanta’s vast metropolis, were home sales the strongest? To find out, we took a deeper look at some stats from Georgia MLS and arrived at some surprising conclusions.

Here is a graph showing the total home sales in Atlanta’s 10 busiest counties:

As you can see, the fearsome quartet of Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb Counties were far ahead of the pack, accounting for a remarkable 3,635 sales in March (as opposed to the 1,467 of the remaining six counties in the top 10).

When we break things down at the single-family and condo/townhome level, though, things change in surprising ways. First, here’s a graph looking at only single-family sales:

Now, Fulton is knocked down to No. 2, with Gwinnett taking the top spot; aside from that, though, the top 10 is the same. It’s when we only look at condos and townhomes that things really change:

Never before has it been more clear just how single-family friendly Atlanta’s marketplace is, and just how concentrated condo/townhome sales are in Fulton. Consider these two stats: Fulton’s attached sales were more than double that of second-place DeKalb; and the remaining nine counties in that top 10 list accounted for 576 sales, which is just 129 more than just Fulton!

Perhaps those numbers will change as more rentals go the condo route, but for now, attached housing is mainly a Fulton attraction.