Moving from Minnesota to Georgia (Atlanta, Dunwoody: transplants, HOA, townhouse)

[EAA]

I currently live in Maple Grove, Minnesota with my husband and we are thinking of moving in the next year, we have some few places in mind, Georgia, Virginia, Long Island Newyork or philadelphia. Georgia is at the top of my least, but am looking for an area a little bit like Maple Grove (nw suburb), but with a little diversity, $400- 500k home, good schools, not too far from downtown Atlanta. Any suggestions?

[grantvillekim]

I encourage you to check out my hometown and home county...www.grantville.net and www.accesscoweta.com. The grantville site is my own site (I LOVE my hometown!) and the coweta site has a lot of great information. You'll also see me talking-up my town and this part of Georgia in other threads on this board.

Southwestern Georgia has some excellent cities to choose from and you can't beat it for variety. From here, you can easily get to the beach, the mountains, the "big city," the open country.

I lived most of my forty years in metro Atlanta (moved to Grantville in 2002) and I currently have family there and also in Virginia. I am happy to answer questions if you have specific concerns or curiousities.

[moving123]

I would look at the Northeast side of Atlanta. About 20 miles from downtown in the area of Grayson, Loganville. This is where the newest suburbs are growing into. Lots of new homes and developments, excellent schools, and nice shopping and restaurants. Let me know if you would like to know more about these areas..

[south-to-west]

I'm from Wisconsin, so I'm a little familiar with The Cities. Great area, but just too cold, which is why I'm here in Georgia.

If I'm not mistaken, Maple Grove is a suburb that's fairly close to Minneapolis with a lot of homes price $350,000 and upwards, as well as a commerical center with office and retail. I think that Dunwoody would probably be the best fit for you, as it shares a lot of similarities with Maple Grove.

[xxman777]

Dunwoody is a good suggestion. You can get into there $400k - $500k, good schools (although not the best), maybe a 30 minute drive to Atlanta for work (farther in the evening), lots of shopping. I disagree with NE suburbs or Grantville. Grantville is about an hour commute from downtown and farther from Midtown or Buckhead. Loganville or Grayson are both even farther (because of traffic, not distance) and probably have too much diversity. Gwinnett County (where Grayson is) is one of the most diverse counties in the region.

[saucemoney]

Originally Posted by EAA

I currently live in Maple Grove, Minnesota with my husband and we are thinking of moving in the next year, we have some few places in mind, Georgia, Virginia, Long Island Newyork or philadelphia. Georgia is at the top of my least, but am looking for an area a little bit like Maple Grove (nw suburb), but with a little diversity, $400- 500k home, good schools, not too far from downtown Atlanta. Any suggestions?

hey im from minnesota to......what part of maple grove do you live in?

[spacelord75]

I was actually born in Edina (1975) and then my dad got transferred here to Atlanta a year later. We moved to Dunwoody (as did most transfers during that boom era) and I think it is a unique suburb in town b/c of that. I did not develop a Southern accent until I went to college (UGA) b/c so many of the families in D'woody were northern transplants. My mom still lives there and I just bought a house there b/c it's tough to find a better area (for me) in the metro area. I work downtown and it takes 30 minutes to commute (at 7am and 4pm), it's a wealthy area with a very powerful HOA that tries its best to ensure increasing property values. In terms of schools, two of the elementary schools are very highly rated (Austin and Vanderlyn), and hopefully the middle school (Peachtree) and high school (Dunwoody) will follow suit. A lot of areas try to pass off as part of D'woody, but the area I'm referring to is the very northern tip of Dekalb county, all north of interstate 285. There is actually a new boom to the area of 30-somethings like me who grew up here and are now moving back b/c of kids. In terms of houses, you will be hard pressed to find anything new, so either a renovated 1970's or 1980's house for $400-$600k or one that still needs work for $350-450k.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by EAA

I currently live in Maple Grove, Minnesota with my husband and we are thinking of moving in the next year, we have some few places in mind, Georgia, Virginia, Long Island Newyork or philadelphia. Georgia is at the top of my least, but am looking for an area a little bit like Maple Grove (nw suburb), but with a little diversity, $400- 500k home, good schools, not too far from downtown Atlanta. Any suggestions?

Heh. You folks will *LOVE* the cost of housing down here compared to the Twin Cities (my guess is that houses are 20%-30% less expensive here).

We paid roughly the same for an 18-year old 2500 sq ft 4br house in Mableton on a wonderful 0.4 acre wooded lot as we did for our 18-year-old 1400 sq ft townhouse in Eden Prairie with no trees. Not a bad trade at all!

You'll probably have to be more specific about what you're looking for -- the Atlanta metro is larger than the Twin Cities metro, traffic can be more of an issue down here (mainly due to organic suburb growth resulting in lots of winding roads with very few parallel routes), and there are areas in several counties which would probably meet your requirements.

I would seriously consider flying down and driving around for a while to get some idea of the lay of the land -- Atlanta housing seems to be organized into subdivisions of varying classifications (many of them gated or with walls but no gates), the country seems to provide far more services than counties do in Minnesota, and incorporated cities here have small boundaries and are normally separated by large areas of unincorporated territory even in the near suburbs. There are tax advantages to living in no-mans land. :-)

We rented a house down here for almost a year before buying. That gave us a lot of time to learn the ropes and figure out where we wanted to be, and it made the home-shopping process a lot more leisurely...