Thinking about moving to Metro Atlanta NEED HELP!! (Lawrenceville, Douglasville: short sales, foreclosures)

[WVWCBobcat]

1. Budget-House prices ranging from $70,000-$95,000
2. House/Condo/Townhome? House
3. Employment status(commute/work from home) Commute
4. Children(public school vs. private) N/A, no children(planning to have in future)
5. Suburban or Urban lifestyle preference or a mix of the two?-Suburban
6. Easy access to public transit, important or not? Not
7. Preferable demographics of desired neighborhood. Preferably 60-75% white neighborhood

We are a young couple looking to move to and purchasing a home near Atlanta. We live in WV and not quite use to the hustle and bustle of a BIG city such as Atlanta. Looking for a city/town or neighborhood that has that "small town feel" with the "big city amenities" Just looking for help to get our search somewhere. We know that there will be worked involved in that house price range and we are ready to tackle that task. We need ALL the information we can get, and again, thanks for all your help!

[BobKovacs]

To get into that price range, you're either going to be a really rough area of town close to Atlanta, or pretty far out into the suburbs and still in the crappy areas of whatever town you find. The days of buying $100k homes in great neighborhoods anywhere even remotely close to Atlanta are long gone.

The big question before anyone can even attempt to guide you, though is this- where will you be working?

[WVWCBobcat]

Bob, haven't neccessarily found a job down there yet, thinking about transferring with my company that I work for. We are looking at a radius of around 30-45 min. outside downtown. Is there anything better we could do there?

[BobKovacs]

30-45 minutes from downtown doesn't take you very far outside the 285 perimeter during rush hour, and there's nothing I can think of in your price range that close that I'd be able to recommend with a good conscience.

[darkone]

Originally Posted by WVWCBobcat

1. Budget-House prices ranging from $70,000-$95,000
2. House/Condo/Townhome? House
3. Employment status(commute/work from home) Commute
4. Children(public school vs. private) N/A, no children(planning to have in future)
5. Suburban or Urban lifestyle preference or a mix of the two?-Suburban
6. Easy access to public transit, important or not? Not
7. Preferable demographics of desired neighborhood. Preferably 60-75% white neighborhood

We are a young couple looking to move to and purchasing a home near Atlanta. We live in WV and not quite use to the hustle and bustle of a BIG city such as Atlanta. Looking for a city/town or neighborhood that has that "small town feel" with the "big city amenities" Just looking for help to get our search somewhere. We know that there will be worked involved in that house price range and we are ready to tackle that task. We need ALL the information we can get, and again, thanks for all your help!

Question: Do you need to move from WV? Because I think you might be able to achieve your goals much better where you are currently.

[msh0146]

Originally Posted by WVWCBobcat

1. Budget-House prices ranging from $70,000-$95,000
2. House/Condo/Townhome? House

--SNIP--

We need ALL the information we can get, and again, thanks for all your help!

Absolutely impossible, unless your "budget" is your down payment.

[WVWCBobcat]

Ok....so sorry folks...I may be a little ignorant knowing the odds and ends of GA cost of living. I just saw some houses in Snellville and Lawrenceville that were in that price range. Some of them are short sale/foreclosures. Maybe that is a little farther away than expected....are those cities about an hour out?

[TakeAhike]

Originally Posted by WVWCBobcat

1. Budget-House prices ranging from $70,000-$95,000
2. House/Condo/Townhome? House
3. Employment status(commute/work from home) Commute
4. Children(public school vs. private) N/A, no children(planning to have in future)
5. Suburban or Urban lifestyle preference or a mix of the two?-Suburban
6. Easy access to public transit, important or not? Not
7. Preferable demographics of desired neighborhood. Preferably 60-75% white neighborhood

We are a young couple looking to move to and purchasing a home near Atlanta. We live in WV and not quite use to the hustle and bustle of a BIG city such as Atlanta. Looking for a city/town or neighborhood that has that "small town feel" with the "big city amenities" Just looking for help to get our search somewhere. We know that there will be worked involved in that house price range and we are ready to tackle that task. We need ALL the information we can get, and again, thanks for all your help!

You will have to go outside the metro area --quite a distance out of the metro are to find a house in your price range. Off the top of my head--Toccoa, GA comes to mind. NE of Atlanta-----perhaps 2 hours away.

http://www.cityoftoccoa.com/

You could also go NW--Cartersville and beyond>>>
http://www.cityofcartersville.org/

'Suburbs'--these are small towns with suburban areas --more rural than the overdeveloped metro Atlanta area--which might more closely match West VA--I can't say.

To the SW--Newnan, Villa Rica, Lithia Springs, Douglasville, Carrollton, La Grange.

http://www.ci.newnan.ga.us/
http://www.carrollton-ga.gov/

[WriterDawg85]

Originally Posted by WVWCBobcat

Ok....so sorry folks...I may be a little ignorant knowing the odds and ends of GA cost of living. I just saw some houses in Snellville and Lawrenceville that were in that price range. Some of them are short sale/foreclosures. Maybe that is a little farther away than expected....are those cities about an hour out?

I can't be sure without seeing the listings, but I would venture a few guesses about those listing. They probably fall into one or more of the following categories:

1. Positioned for multiple offers - they're hoping to drive the price up by exploiting the attention that comes with severely under-pricing a property to create a bidding war.
2. Terrible/unsafe area - just because it's a suburb doesn't mean it's someplace you want to live or have a family. It could be an area with bad schools, high crime, etc. The places that you named are fairly large, and they have their good areas and bad.
3. The houses need extensive work - perhaps they were used as rentals, or maybe their owners just never did any upgrades or trashed the place.

Whatever the case may be, at those prices and with their relative proximity to the city, there's a reason that those properties are so inexpensive.

If your budget is somewhat limited currently, you may want to consider renting for a few years and saving up, or waiting to decide on a budget until you and your spouse have gotten jobs in the area. Salaries are likely higher here because cost of living is higher in Atlanta than in West Virginia, so you may end up being able to buy more house than you would expect after a year of renting. Being 45 minutes from the middle of town is not going to put you out in the country by any stretch of the imagination, and choosing to live further out before you find employment is going to somewhat limit your job options, which you probably don't want to do in this economy.

Good luck, and I hope that's helpful.

[IntownHomes247]

Actually, there are foreclosures and short sales in those price ranges that you can buy. With foreclosures you have to have cash, know-how and luck (because there are a lot of investors who know what they're doing and they generally snap up the good stuff). With short sales you have to have all your ducks in a row and be prepared to wait a very long time (3 months or more is not unusual) for a response from the bank (and the response is still frequently "no"). It's not a quick or easy process, and it's definitely not for the faint-hearted, but it is possible to find homes in your price range either in the city or in the suburbs. You'll need an agent who knows what they're doing and knows the areas you're interested in (you'll really need to pick an area before committing to an agent because Atlanta is so huge that no agent can cover the entire area).