The truth about Atlanta (Suwanee, Dallas: real estate, 2014, renting)

[Topicality]

My wife daughter and myself are looking to relocate from Florida.we look at other city like New York city, North Carolina,Dallas TX and some other city's. our search lead us to Atlanta,Ga. We are looking at North Gwinnett and especially the Suwanee Area. we like the school district in gwinnett for our middle school-er we would
like a heads up on Middle schools,The jobs Market,and housing. we would be renting just to get a feel of the area before we buy. we are looking for general feel of the area.

thanks.

[Onthemove2014]

Go to Dallas.

The job market here is terrible if you aren't in IT or Medicine.

[atltechdude]

Like others typically advise, it's probably best to move to wherever you can land a job, whether that be Atlanta, Dallas, or elsewhere. Unless you have substantial resources, moving here without a job is a risky move.

[alco89]

Originally Posted by Onthemove2014

Go to Dallas.

The job market here is terrible if you aren't in IT or Medicine.

If the job market is so bad here and so good there, why haven't you left yet?

[cittic10]

I live in North Gwinnett and it's a great area.
I don't have kids but I do know that a lot of people move here for the schools. There are a number of other benefits. Proximity to the interstate, recreation and many of the business and industrial parks.

Dallas may have a little lower unemployment and some other benefits but dude... it's like 110 degrees there every day. Who wants to live in that? Charlotte is another city that Floridians migrate to. I've got my eye on charlotte myself although I've looked into moving there years ago and wasn't real impressed then but my trip was plagued by problems and that probably had a lot to do with it. Best I can tell it's a little more expensive to live there.

New York City is kinda in a class all by itself and suburban Atlanta really can't compete with that although if you're just looking for good schools, relatively low crime and low cost of living and low real estate prices, Gwinnett is a nice place to live. That's why so many people from the northeast move down here. The cost of living and fast pace eventually gets old I guess.

[Onthemove2014]

Originally Posted by alco89

If the job market is so bad here and so good there, why haven't you left yet?

I work in IT. Most people don't.

[Onthemove2014]

Originally Posted by cittic10

Dallas may have a little lower unemployment and some other benefits but dude... it's like 110 degrees there every day. Who wants to live in that?

Someone who needs a job.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by Onthemove2014

Go to Dallas.

The job market here is terrible if you aren't in IT or Medicine.

I get a couple emails or phone calls a week from recruiters trying to fill engineering positions . . .

[Onthemove2014]

Originally Posted by red92s

I get a couple emails or phone calls a week from recruiters trying to fill engineering positions . . .

STEM in general is what I should have said. Though I figured Alabama was better for engineering.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by Onthemove2014

STEM in general is what I should have said. Though I figured Alabama was better for engineering.

Tough to say. Alabama's Architectural, Engineering, and Related Services as defined by the BLS isn't large enough to warrant a dedicated data set. Atlanta's data for the industry can be found here:

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

Not stellar performance, but better than it could be. Still well off pre-recession highs as you might expect.

The parent sector data can be found here for Atlanta and here for Alabama.

You're touching on something generally correct about Atlanta. Often people say we need to do better at attracting high-salary jobs. But the data indicate more or less the opposite. Professional & Business Services has been doing extremely well over the last couple years; we're now up to our pre-recession peak in that sector. Lower wage sectors have been much slower to recover.

That's not to say we can't do better in higher wage sectors; you can always do better. But we're doing especially poorly at attractive lower-wage jobs right now.