buying my first home, need some help in choosing safe area (Atlanta: houses, college)

[sunnygt]

Hello Atliens!

I am trying to purchase my first home and I would like some suggestions on safe areas in atlanta. I just graduated college so I'm not looking to break the bank, I need something affordable but also in an area where I am not afraid to walk my dog. I need to have a house w/ an extra bedroom for my home office as well. Any suggestions on areas? I found some homes online using realtor.com but drove down to some of the houses and found them to be pretty sketchy.

HELP!!

[BobKovacs]

Well, in general, you're going to pay more for a better area, so of course some of the lower priced stuff is going to be in sketchy areas. There are two things that anyone here will need to know if you want to get decent recommendations:

- What do you consider "not breaking the banK"? $100k, $200k? $500k?

- Where will you be working? No matter how nice the area and how affordable the home, if you pick a location that doesn't work with your job location, you could be looking at a 2-hour commute. Or, is the "home office" you mentioned your sole place of business?

[sunnygt]

I'm looking to spend ~250k, I am a partner in a business so would need room to have an office in the house. Other than that, I do coach some children and do choreography as a hobby in gwinnett a few evenings a week but its not something I am overly concerned about as far as commute to and from there.

[BobKovacs]

OK, and are you looking for an urban "intown" environment, or something more suburban? At $250k, you've got plenty of options, though the options in that price range will probably be greater in the suburbs- especially if you want a really safe area, IMO.

[sunnygt]

I have two giant dogs one of which was bred from a line of protection dogs. So I'm not opposed to living somewhere thats more on the up-and-coming side, but it still needs to be as safe, and where my investment will mature some and make me money. I would love to live somewhere urban, intown- where I can take part in the fun events in the parks and such.

[BobKovacs]

Well, I'm not the best guy to make suggestions since I don't really "get" the whole "live in an up-and-coming area where I need a large dog to avoid having my house robbed" thing, but people are always talking about Grant Park, Inman Park, West End and Kirkwood as up-and-coming intown areas. You may want to check them out, but you may also find that they're some of the "sketchy" places you talked about in your original post.

[IntownHomes247]

sunnygt, a great many of the intown neighborhoods have YahooGroup mailing lists, most of which you can subscribe to freely. The lists give you the opportunity to get a very true sense of the issues that most directly affect the lives of the neighborhood residents -- particularly crime. Once you start finding neighborhoods you are interested in, I would encourage you to research the mailing lists (you can read archived posts on YahooGroups.

Since you have ties to Gwinnett County activities, you might want to look at some of the neighborhoods on the east side of the city in the area from East Atlanta to Decatur to Tucker. $250k will not go very far in the most intown neighborhoods but can get you quite a reasonably sized house on a good-sized lot in Tucker.

Of course, the most important thing is to drive around different areas and see whether or not you feel comfortable there. No one can judge what environment will make another person comfortable or uncomfortable.

[kelingdun]

How do you find these neighborhood groups? Example, I am looking at riverbrooke community, how do I find their group? Thanks

[gahomes247]

Sunnygt, Duluth has some nice areas where you will be able to find homes in that price range and even lower, I had a client not too long ago looking in this area and I was very suprised to find this realy nice neighborhoods with very reasonable prices. and its not far from downtown. let me know if I can help

Make It a Great Day!!

[IntownHomes247]

Originally Posted by kelingdun

How do you find these neighborhood groups? Example, I am looking at riverbrooke community, how do I find their group? Thanks

Not every neighborhood has one and I would be surprised if they are as common in the suburbs, but most of the popular intown neighborhoods do -- like Midtown, Morningside, Virginia-Highland, East Lake, Kirkwood, Oakhurst, Home Park, etc. Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 ways to track them down online.

1. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for the name of the neighborhood (check that the results are for the correct city before you join the group since many cities have neighborhoods with the same names).

2. Search Google or your other favorite search engine for the city and neighborhood. If the neighborhood has a web site your search should find it. Most neighborhoods link to their mailing list from their neighborhood web site.

3. Post a topic on a bulletin board like this asking if anyone knows of a list for the neighborhood in question.

Of course, if you're working with an agent who specializes in the neighborhood for which you are seeking information, the chances are pretty good she'll be able to point you in the right direction. Not every agent is terribly internet-savvy but most will know whether or not their neighborhood has a web site, which should direct you to the mailing list if they have one.

Good luck.