Buying a home next year - can't decide which area (Marietta: renting, neighborhoods)

[suwannee79]

I currently live in the Vinings area, have been renting here for about 8 years and love it, but now it's time to buy a place and with a $225,000 budget I can't afford a residential home here. I've mainly been looking at homes in the Smyrna, Mableton, Marietta areas as I wanted to stay somewhat close to my current region. However, as having a family will be a priority in the next few years I've begun debating if I should be looking more towards Conyers as that's where my future-in-laws live and they would be able to help with child care.

One of my biggest concerns is our commute to work. My fiancee and I work downtown and right now we have a quick commute down 75 and if there's ever traffic there are a lot of side road options to avoid the highway. If we live off of 20 that's basically our only option to get to work. Additionally, we want an area that has great schools and won't decline drastically in the future while still keeping the commute in mind.

So if we started to consider living near Conyers are there any areas with good schools, nice communities, and decent commute options? And if we decide to try and stay near Vinings what are some decent communities/neighborhoods with good schools? My one stipulation with staying near Vinings is I would really prefer not to move too far up 75, I'd prefer to stay below exit 263, 265 max. Oh and I have been looking on greatschools.org so I've seen school rankings but I don't really know where they are location-wise in relation to the areas we've been looking at online.

Thanks!