Need suggestion on buying house on best suburb of Atlanta (Sandy Springs: real estate, apartments)

[coolforyou]

Dear friends,

I am Indian recently moved to US, Dunwoody for work. I am paying $1700+utilities for 1bhk and seems like its too expensive. But I have good super markets like Walmart, Publix & Target near to my apartment and it reduces my Taxi cost(I still need to buy car).

Since I will be staying in US for long period of time like minimum 6 years max depends on my work and family decision. I have a kid who is 4 year old.

I wanted to invest in buying house ( I know its a long journey) but that's my goal, for now at least I wanted to move to house in suburb with low rent in a good community with good supermarkets ,schools ext.

I went through many thread here but they are quite old and prices they mentioned for buying house seems outdated.

Can you all help me in giving suggestions for good community suburbs with budgets for 3 bhk where I can settle for more years and buy house.

And help me with websites and procedure for buying house. when I google there are so many brokers who wanted to sell worst house for their benefit, but I wanted to first decide communities and find a genuine way to buy a house.

Last one is Bank for housing loan. which bank loan is best for low interest and minimum down payment.

Thanks in advance. Sorry for too many question in single thread. I think it will be helpful for ppl who are new to Atlanta.

[aslowdodge]

You probably aren’t going to find a good neighborhood for low rent. Theres a reason why rents are low.
Get a mortgage broker and have them tell you what you need to do.
Do some research yourself and look for areas with good schools.

[Born 2 Roll]

It looks like you are saying that you currently are paying $1700 per month in rent plus utilities, for a one-bedroom apartment in a good area (close to Walmart, Publix and Target stores)?

If you are currently only paying $1700 per month for rent, that unfortunately is considered to be on the lower end of apartment rental costs in the current highly-competitive and generally highly-priced (some might say overpriced) metro Atlanta rental market.

Unfortunately, at this point in time of a highly-competitive and generally highly-priced real estate for both apartments and single-family homes in Atlanta and in numerous other major U.S. markets, one likely is not going to find a “house in a suburb with low rent in a good community with good supermarkets and schools.”

If you’re looking to pay significantly less in monthly costs for either a house or an apartment, the areas that you are going to be talking about probably are either a higher-crime lower-income area with lower-rated schools or a far-flung suburb or exurb that possibly is a very long commute to and from your job in Dunwoody that potentially still may not offer schools with ratings and quality that will be as high as you may prefer.

[Citykid3785]

I'm confused, are you looking for advice on a good place to rent, or a good place to buy.

I don't think $1,700 is too bad for Dunwoody. I mean, yes you could find something for maybe $1,400/mo, but I don't know that it will be better than your current setup.

Long term, is being close to a large Indian Community important to you? If so, I would look at areas like Cumming, Alpharetta, Roswell, East Cobb, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody.

When buying a house, the big steps are:

1) Find a good real estate agent
2) get pre-approved for a mortgage. Basically you have to submit financial information to understand how large of a loan you qualify for
3) discuss what your budget/monthly payment preference is, and what you are looking for in a house/community. A good realtor will then work for you, and suggest properties that fit your criteria.
4) tour homes
5) put in an offer/negotiate

But a good realtor will happily walk you through all of these steps. You can start by using websites like Zillow, Realtor.com, and Redfin to search for communities and prices that you like. You can even look at realtor reviews on these sites to find a good realtor.

Best of luck and welcome to the US!

[ShenardL]

Since you are Indian, I suggest the Cumming area. There are so many Indians there, and some of the new construction neighborhoods are almost entirely Indian.