When Millennials buy, they to to the exurbs (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: for sale, real estate)

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by JPD

They're all on Reddit.

Or on both... as it may be.

[atltechdude]

I'm a millennial likely purchasing my first home within the next 6 months. I am NOT buying in the exurbs.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

I'm a millennial likely purchasing my first home within the next 6 months. I am NOT buying in the exurbs.

Yeah. I've been keeping an eye out, and hoping I'll still be able to afford to live ITP, let alone near the BeltLine or near transit. I just don't know what prices will be like once I've paid off student loans and saved enough for a down-payment. And I'll probably be one of the few with a decent job who is ABLE to do that. There are plenty who just can't.

I would like to see a study on want vs. can afford. My gut tells me there are plenty who WANT to live in the city, or near transit, but who just can't make the finances work. Either because of incurred debt, a saturated job market, sky-high housing prices, depressed wages, or any myriad of other things that keeps our generation out of the housing market properly.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by fourthwarden

Yeah. I've been keeping an eye out, and hoping I'll still be able to afford to live ITP, let alone near the BeltLine or near transit. I just don't know what prices will be like once I've paid off student loans and saved enough for a down-payment. And I'll probably be one of the few with a decent job who is ABLE to do that. There are plenty who just can't.

I would like to see a study on want vs. can afford. My gut tells me there are plenty who WANT to live in the city, or near transit, but who just can't make the finances work. Either because of incurred debt, a saturated job market, sky-high housing prices, depressed wages, or any myriad of other things that keeps our generation out of the housing market properly.

There are grants to help homeowners move into areas that need the investment and have BeltLine/MARTA access.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by cqholt

There are grants to help homeowners move into areas that need the investment and have BeltLine/MARTA access.

Right, but will they be there in 10 years? Will the neighborhoods even 'need investment' at that point?

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by cqholt

There are grants to help homeowners move into areas that need the investment and have BeltLine/MARTA access.

Those grants are generally only available to poor people. Most of the time if you make more than like 50k a year you are unlikely to qualify for them.

[tikigod311]

Originally Posted by JPD

They're all on Reddit.

Not per the last income/job thread. Good lord the average income was impressive.

I think Millennials have seen the consequences of sprawl and the studies that show how much of your life you spend behind the wheel. Big turn off for the exurbs and one of the biggest reasons people want to live close in. The other big reason, tons of things to do. But as folks get older that becomes less important, especially when kids enter the picture. Unfortunately, it appears your household needs to be making at least 80k to own in a relatively decent place where you can actually utilize the schools.

If driverless cars become ubiquitous in our lifetimes, I foresee a pretty big shift toward more sprawling housing trends and/or drive-to urbanism, regardless of the generation. It will just become a logical choice for those with kids who don't want to deal with high cost of living, crime and poor schools.

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

Those grants are generally only available to poor people. Most of the time if you make more than like 50k a year you are unlikely to qualify for them.

We would have to ask Residing, as that poster used a similar grant.

[JPD]

My wife and I used an URFA loan for our first house. It turns into a grant after three years occupying the house. We had to buy in areas that needed investment (which meant pretty much anywhere in SW Atlanta) and take a first time home buyer class. We wound up buying a 3/1 off of Cascade Road for $75k. The loan/grant was essentially our down payment. This was before the crash, and I don't know if the same loan is available anymore, but it's worth looking into these programs.

URFA - Invest Atlanta Programs - EhousingPlus

[magnetar]

Originally Posted by testa50

The data are extremely misleading and inconclusive, and not even for reasons of income and so forth... The big problem is the percentage of overall units in an area that are owner-occupied, period... Also the density of such units is completely not explained. How many owner-occupied millennial units exist in the big South Fulton blob vs the Brookwood blob? I have no earthly clue.

Yeah, this is a bad map (I say this as an information designer, who does some of this kind of stuff for a living). In addition to the points you made, it also doesn't consider the total population of an area, at all. So giant rural census tracts with only a few hundred or thousand people look more substantial on this map than the core of Midtown or Old 4th Ward. A scatter map might give a better indication of how many millennials actually live in each area, but at a more basic level, a map just isn't the right medium in which to present quantitative data.