Powder Springs Area (Atlanta: neighborhoods, subdivisions, live)

[Zelia]

Staylor21

Buying real estate in Atlanta is certainly less risky than in most parts of the country. During the past five years, metro Atlanta has seen healthy but rather modest appreciation gains-- nothing comparable to the huge price gains on the East Coast or the West Coast, though. The appreciation gains have been spotty. Certain Atlanta zip codes have seen more gains than others.

Downtown Atlanta and Midtown does have a bright future in terms of attracting young professionals and empty-nesters. In addition, culture vultures are close to the High Museum, the Georgia Aquarium, Piedmont Park, and trendy restaurants.

Cheap gas built suburbia, but cheap gas is history. Luckily, Atlanta has a number of large employment parks/centers in suburbia, so suburbia isn't dead yet by a long shot.

[staylor21]

Zelia,

Winters are a beast here because the lake freezes over and the wind gather speed over it bringing that cold blast straight down on us. When you're waiting on a bus you might as well be standing there au natural because the wind cuts through anything you're wearing. Not to mention my once modest $800/month gas bill jumped to $1,800/month the last three years. I'm really not looking forward to spending the equivalent of a second mortgage payment on another heating bill this winter. So anything Atlanta has to offer in terms of weather from 40 degrees on up I will be happy with.

Regarding your post about Downtown and Midtown Atlanta properties. I've seen Piedmont Park and it's probably peeked in terms of appreciation for awhile. But what about your ideas on the areas around High Museum, and the Georgia Aquarium? Are the prices still reasonable there with room for appreciation?

I really want something near the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium. I see it as becoming a breeding ground like Wrigleyville because you can walk to it. What is that neighborhood called? Thanks much for your info and help.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by staylor21

Zelia,

Regarding your post about Downtown and Midtown Atlanta properties. I've seen Piedmont Park and it's probably peeked in terms of appreciation for awhile. But what about your ideas on the areas around High Museum, and the Georgia Aquarium? Are the prices still reasonable there with room for appreciation?

I really want something near the Atlanta Braves baseball stadium. I see it as becoming a breeding ground like Wrigleyville because you can walk to it. What is that neighborhood called? Thanks much for your info and help.

--------------------------------

When I moved to Atlanta (1984) the Midtown area (around the park along 10th street and the immediate neighborhoods) were just leaving their "hippie" stage. At one point until then and earlier, Midtown had gone downhill a bit and was hippified, pawn shopped, and liquor stored to death. Then out of the blue, every gay person south of the Mason-Dixon line decided they liked Midtown, and started buying up much of the property. The worn-down homes suddenly became showplaces with lavishly landscaped gardens, and this was the turnaround in the attitude toward gay people by city leaders - they took a hibby and bum area and turned it into a high-dollar real estate market. Homes that back then could barely be given away have been turned into homes that regularly go for the $350,000 to $500,000 range. Some older apartments in that area have been converted into small condos, but to be honest, I'd never buy a condo "conversion", as you usually don't have the soundproofing and fire protection in those as you do something that was designed to be a condo from the ground up.

It has for the most part remained that way ever since then. A couple of hotels opened in the Midtown area, and in the last year and a half, there has been a large increase in highrise condo buildings in the area ($189,000 for a 1BR, up to $450,000 for a 2-3BR average). Crime is so-so. It's still inner city and you have your muggings and stuff like that, but you can walk the main road areas with little trouble. The High Museum is what some might call "North Midtown", as it right about where the Midtown area meets the more expensive "Buckhead" area. Prices around the High are more expensive than around the lower areas (10th Street, etc). Since most are new condos I don't think you'll get a ton of appreciation over the years - Atlanta may be on the way of being "condoed out" if they keep building them at this rate.

The Georgia aquarium is literally in downtown Atlanta. Some new midrise/highrise condos have been built or are under construction around it. $$$$. Crime is dodgy - there's no grocery stores really downtown and people who live down there regularly complain that once you leave the security of your building, someone is going to bug you for money. City leaders are quietly trying to "shift" downtown Atlanta from the Five Points area a few blocks away, to the Centennial Park area where the Aquarium is, due to how many bums are vagrants are in the Five Points area. So far it has worked, but only to a degree. You'll still pay top dollar for a condo down there though, and I doubt there will be any appreciation on those.

[Zelia]

Staylor21,

I know Chicago winters can be quite brutal. Minneapolis winters are even more brutal. I think in the summer Lake Michigan moderates the heat a bit.

Your gas bill is unreal at $1800 a month. Wow!. Nationally, energy prices have gone way up, but I didn't think that much. The average January high temperature here is around 52 degrees, so I don't think you'll be paying anywhere near $1800 a month in heating bills.

Gasoline prices in Atlanta used to be one of the cheapest in the nation. I remember in around 1997 or so there was a gas war going on and I paid $.64 cents a gallon. Those days are long, long, long, long gone. Due to our smog problems, Atlanta is mandated to have a special blend of gasoline additives, which has increased the price of gas. The AJC just had a recent article about this topic.

Currently, gas prices here are done to around $2.35 a gallon. I hope they keep going down.

I do think home prices have peaked around Piedmont Park. That's just my hunch, but I'm not involved in the real estate industry, so I could be totally off-base. The homes are quite pricey--$400,000 for a modest bungalow is getting up there. That's on the low end of the price range. Larger homes can be $700,000, and even larger homes are easily over a million. Many of the homes around Piedmont Park are fairly large. Not all, but quite a few are. Some of them have been converted into small apartments. There's not many individual garages, so street parking is sometimes hard to find.

I think the best deals are in condominiums, but it is a little risky at the present time. Realistically, I think a person has to plan on living in a condo for five or ten years. If you do buy one, don't plan on selling it in two years and making much of a profit, as that's not likely to happen. The first wave of boomers will be retiring in just a few short years, and the condo market is "probably" going to be a hot market.

Condos are not perfect, but owning a home is not perfect either. Not everyone in their 60s and 70s enjoys yard work, gutter work, painting, and raking leaves when you have a pain here and a pain there. Owning a house makes sense when you have a family, but not so much sense when you're older and the children are gone. I think intown condos are the wave of the future.

A Web site I would highly recommend is, bizjournals.com. Most large cities have business journals/papers and most of the business papers: Atlanta, Austin, San Francisco, etc. can be read online. There's a lot of useful information.

Donald Trump and I think Wood Partners has just worked out a deal to build two high-rise condos behind the High Museum. Wood Partners is condo player, but Jim Borders is one of the leading condo developers in Atlanta. He has projects going up all over town. His high-rise condo, Metropolis, three or four years ago was a huge, huge success. Lots of developers jumped in the markek, but lately the condo market a bit saturated. Many sellers are willing to pay the HOA monthly fees for a year or even longer.

I'm not familiar with the areas around Turner Stadium.

[Zelia]

Greg is right-on-the-money with his thoughts about condo conversions. I would advise a person not to buy a condo conversion.

Condo conversions were once apartments. I've lived in a few apartments, and the walls are generally super thin with all kinds of contruction flaws. The main focus of apartment developers is having an attractive complex generating a healthy cash flow, but quality construction is down the list a bit.

There's no question that gays transformed Midtown from a once blighted area into a highly desirable neigborhood commanding premium dollars. However, this same scenario was repeated in many large American cities.

Homes in Key West could be bought for a song in the early '70s. They ain't going for a song now. Homes in the Castro district of San Francisco were relatively inexpensive in the early '70s. By the late '70s, many homes had tripled in price.

[sleepwalker]

nice schools in powder springs

Originally Posted by staylor21

AtlantaGreg, you are correct. You do know more than most about the areas of Atlanta and make no mistake about it I take your opinions very seriously. Actually I respect you very much! I appreciate your candor in speaking about race and I believe it is truly what's needed to clear the fog of racism and classism.

Therefore I really appreciate your comment that "Smyrna was not very long ago a very typical suburban community, and now has a huge increase in illegal immigrant and black residents." Nothing says typical like a non-black, non-immigrant neighborhood. Thank you for the candor. But with about 15,000 new residents moving into the Atlanta region each month and the black population declining for the first time in 40 years, I'm sure Smyrna can recover it's typical status.

By the way, this is not a hobby for me. I read these posts once or twice a week because I'm moving to Atlanta and doing a little fact finding before going there and your posts always standout because they are informative. Funny though, I've never felt the need to read and constantly post to the forum of the city I'm living in, unlike yourself. Guess this is your hobby. But thank you for the constructive criticism. I will take it and learn from them and read your posts with more acceptance to your experience of living in the ATL. I hope you take constructive criticism just as well. And please, do not become politcally correct on my account. I hate political correctness.

[sleepwalker]

nice civic minded town good schools friendly people
fannin county also good place to raise a child

Originally Posted by sleeplessinpa

Anyone from this area or know anyhthing about it and the people?

Thanks

[atlantagreg30127]

The schools in Powder Springs, especially McEachern High School, were once very highly rated, to the point people moved across the metro area to make sure their kids could go there.

Long story short as this has been discussed in other forums and posts, McEachern is not the school it once was. Many of my neighbors have expressed displeasure with it the last couple of years, and a couple of them are in the process of selling and moving a few miles north where a new high school has just opened (I think it's called Lassiter). From what I understand, a number of parents have pulled their kids out of McEachern and taken them to Lassiter already. McEachern is not the worst school around - it just isn't what it used to be.

[pjacksone]

DoveDiva, what's going on in your area? I have been in ATL since June and have recently heard some frightening stuff about people not being wanted in Powder Springs. Some of those people must have forgotten this is 2006. Since you live there, are things getting better after the news reports?

[YOUNGBUC29]

dovediva

Well maybe you can help me. I was looking at schools for my daughter to attend and i saw brumby primary. How is this school. i know that the address is on Powder Ferry but i can't get any feedback? what do you think?