Housing market (Atlanta, Marietta, Smyrna: real estate, renters, HOA fees)

[redrocket2]

I have read that the ATL housing market has experienced phenomenal growth in the last couple of years and is poised to come down. I am from SoCal so not familiar with the ATL market but I am considering it as a place to perhaps move as the cost of living here is becoming prohibitive - home prices in SoCal have doubled in the last 2 years and rents are absolutely skyrocketing out of control. Those that bought pre-2000 have locked in low prices and are fine but those of us who were renters at the time have been absolutely screwed for the last decade.

As a general question, is it possible to get a 1600sqft home in a safe suburban neighborhood like Marietta or Alpharetta in the $250k range? In addition, I am a Software Engineer, are most of the IT jobs in the northern suburbs?

[lorilove]

Yes - you can still find a nice home for $250,000 in the northen suburbs but if you are talking about the best schoold districts that will be on the low side or perhaps an older home that needs some updating.

The northen suburbs (specifically Alpharetta) has the highest concentration of IT jobs but there are still plenty of good IT jobs all over the city.

With Atlanta, always safer to find the job first then determine where you want to live. Otherwise you could end up with a horrible commute

[redrocket2]

thanks, $250,000 still seems like a laughable amount to me Just to give you an example, even in a crappy neighborhood here in the Los Angeles area with average to bad schools you will pay around $450,000 for a 1700-1800 sqft house. In addition the home with come with steep HOA fees of $300/mo. or more, property taxes that will be $500/mo.

In a *nice* neighborhood with *good* schools a good sized home around 2000 sqft is about $800,000-$1 million

[Atlanta_BD]

Originally Posted by redrocket2

In a *nice* neighborhood with *good* schools a good sized home around 2000 sqft is about $800,000-$1 million

You will pay that much for a nice home in a good school district in Atlanta proper (of course the houses will be larger though). But some of the suburbs in Atlanta are cheaper. But that also depends too. Not too far from where I work, in Smyrna, GA they have houses for $600k (also pretty big) and there really isn't much interesting in that particular area (it's actually pretty industrial and close to the city dump).

With any metro, it just depends on the area. Just shop around and you'll find something in your budget.

[redrocket2]

Originally Posted by Atlanta_BD

With any metro, it just depends on the area. Just shop around and you'll find something in your budget.

Arent Alpharetta and Marietta upscale areas close to job centers in IT?

In the Los Angeles metro area you can find cheaper homes, and by cheaper I mean around $350,000-400,000 but they are very far away (1.5+ hr commute to work one way in horrendous traffic).

I am assuming living and working within the northern suburbs should not be so bad in terms of commute.

I could not imagine paying $1 million for a home in ATL when I could buy a home with close proximity to the coast here in Southern California.

[DaBurgh]

Originally Posted by redrocket2

I have read that the ATL housing market has experienced phenomenal growth in the last couple of years and is poised to come down. I am from SoCal so not familiar with the ATL market but I am considering it as a place to perhaps move as the cost of living here is becoming prohibitive - home prices in SoCal have doubled in the last 2 years and rents are absolutely skyrocketing out of control. Those that bought pre-2000 have locked in low prices and are fine but those of us who were renters at the time have been absolutely screwed for the last decade.

As a general question, is it possible to get a 1600sqft home in a safe suburban neighborhood like Marietta or Alpharetta in the $250k range? In addition, I am a Software Engineer, are most of the IT jobs in the northern suburbs?

Regarding your bolded statement, I think it's the other way around. The market has been stagnant/depressed, up until this year and it's back on the upswing. Perhaps someone other than me who has the facts and figures can tell you definitively. But my take on it is the past year or two has been the best time to buy, as prices and interest rates were low and both are posed to rise.

You can easily find this: "1600sqft home in a safe suburban neighborhood like Marietta or Alpharetta". My friend just closed on one for 208k in a great neigborhood in Alpharetta.

[testa50]

$800k-$1MM is a very generous housing budget in Atlanta. Extremely. $400-$500k is a good budget for a big house in the burbs.

Within the City of Atlanta prices get much, much higher to be in a very nice neighborhood. But still nothing like you see in So Cal.

[ATLTJL]

To answer the question....

Your information is bad. Atlanta has not experienced phenomenal growth in the past 2 years. What has happened is the bleeding finally stopped, and prices have started to recover. There seemed to be short period of pretty sharp and fast recovery that lasted a few months, but now things have slowed down and things are recovering at a much reduced, but sustainable pace. We're above the bottom of 2010, but still nowhere near the highs of 2007-2008.

While I don't see prices coming down any time soon, I also don't see them rising at a tremendous rate. I see things returning to real estate equilibrium....properties making modest but steady gains year over year.

It can depend heavily on specific location, I'm talking in the metro aggregate.