moving from long island to atlanta area (Marietta, Alpharetta: fit in, transplants)

[teachsped]

My family is done with Long Island, New York. We were hit hard by hurricane Sandy and the housing prices here are out of control. My family consists of myself and my husband, our two children (1st grade and 3rd grade) and my mother. I am a special education teacher and my husband is a paramedic. My mother will retire this June. I have a brother who lives in the Fayetteville area and we would like to be less than an hour from him. We want to buy a house at a maximum of $330,000 with room for my mom. We would like to be in a location where there are schools with high academic standards, diversity and down to earth people- does this exist?! I will be applying for teaching jobs and would like to live within 30 minutes (with traffic) of where I will teach. I know I will have a tremendous salary shock so I would like to work in a higher paying school district if possible. I do not mind working in "low performing" or "difficult" schools as I have done this before. My husband will need to be within commuting distance to a hospital. We would love to live in an area that is not over run with traffic, shopping centers, etc. We look forward to having an actual yard, places to walk to in the neighborhood and a sense of community. Neither of our children is very involved in sports (we are the rarity in Long Island). Our daughter enjoys singing and theater and our son is involved in boy scouts and is shy and academic oriented. Even though on the surface we look like we fit in here- we are a white family with a "nice enough" home and "good enough" jobs, living in a community with similar people- we cannot stand it here. My husband, my mom and myself all grew up in Queens and went to school with and are friends with people of many different races and religions as well as socioeconomic statuses. We would like the same for our children. Long Island is not the real world. We are hoping that Georgia will be the change that we are looking for. Any advice and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[FromGA]

330K will get you a very decent home (with basement for you mom - Atlanta basements are walk out. I know a family where the mom lives in the basement.) anywhere in metro Atlanta (and probably in 90% of places in the US). For transplants such as yourselves, North Fulton is the way to go. Probably add East Cobb to the east of North Fulton, and Suwanee/Western Gwinnett to the west of North Fulton. Just don't go gaga over "lots of house for my money" and move to somewhere too far off, or not so nice. PLUS, there are tons of rental property here, so don't buy a house long distance.

Most of metro Atlanta will be within an hour of Fayetteville, so no problem there.

Only problem will be teaching jobs and such. Not sure what the status is. Others may chime in.

edit/add: The people are quite nice here. I have talked to strangers, and got all kinds of information. The two recent conversations was with a lady from (guess what!) Long Island, and a gentleman from Chicago. All this in the area I mentioned previously.

[lorilove]

You are going to have lots of options available for you. Actually so many options that you need to first nail down one or both of your jobs so you can focus your house search to make sure you have a reasonable commute.

Quality of life is directly impacted here by keeping the commute reasonable. We still have a rather high unemployment but this is a great area to be in the medical field. It is too risky to buy the house and then look for a job in the area - definitely job first then house.

[Jackalope]

Originally Posted by FromGA

330K will get you a very decent home (with basement for you mom - Atlanta basements are walk out. I know a family where the mom lives in the basement.) anywhere in metro Atlanta (and probably in 90% of places in the US). For transplants such as yourselves, North Fulton is the way to go. Probably add East Cobb to the east of North Fulton, and Suwanee/Western Gwinnett to the west of North Fulton. Just don't go gaga over "lots of house for my money" and move to somewhere too far off, or not so nice. PLUS, there are tons of rental property here, so don't buy a house long distance.

Most of metro Atlanta will be within an hour of Fayetteville, so no problem there.

Only problem will be teaching jobs and such. Not sure what the status is. Others may chime in.

edit/add: The people are quite nice here. I have talked to strangers, and got all kinds of information. The two recent conversations was with a lady from (guess what!) Long Island, and a gentleman from Chicago. All this in the area I mentioned previously.

I think right here it's probably good to remember that to someone from Long Island, where it's flat as a board, a basement may be an almost unknown quantity. Like Florida, basements aren't common up there.

Here in Georgia, where the land is hilly, a basement is wonderful. Generally speaking at least one side of a basement will be low enough that you can have a door, or even a "boat door" (small garage door) into the basement, allowing easy access for yard tools, lawnmowers and such. This allows you to dedicate your garage to cars! (What a novel concept!).

In addition, you may also find that you decide to convert that basement to living space; a home theatre, a playroom for the kids, living space for a teenager or a "mother-in-law suite".

Personally, I wouldn't have a house without a basement. Once you've been spoiled with one, you'll never go back.

[LEAOL30]

Hi,
My family just made this move in Aug. We moved to north fulton county (alpharetta). We love it. Between daycare, LIRR, taxes and generally higher NY prices we save a 2-3k per month. My wife has gone from a 1 hr+ commute to 30 min. So financially and work/life balance it's been great. We have great restaurants here, and nice people. I will say though that both me and my wife were able to transfer down here with jobs, so I'm not sure how that side of things work out. The only thing I could see myself missing is the south shore beaches on long island. But you'll see everything is newer, nicer, and cheaper. It's alot more family friendly!!! Hope this helps, but anymore questions post it, I just made this exact move!!

Oww and by the way you'll fit right in, Alpharetta (north fulton) there are tons of relocations. Almost nobody is from atlanta originally.

[Jackalope]

That is true...but a lot of us are native Southerners.

One tiny bit of advice. When you get down here, please remember the words of our revered native Southern author, Lewis Grizzard...."Please come down here and enjoy our wonderful weather, our great food and our beautiful women. But we just don't want to hear how you did it in Cleveland (or Long Island as the case may be)."

The point here is that yes, we know you can't get a good New York style pizza down here. On the other hand, good pulled-pork barbecue is damn hard to find in Manhatten. Learn to live with the fact that some things will be different and to appreciate the unique advantages of the South.

Always remember, Delta's ready when you are.

[JAS]

There are also some nice neghborhoods and schools in west Cobb -- $300k would definitely allow for a 5-bedroom, walk-out, finished basement house in a nicer neighborhood.

As someone said, a major consideration should be matching residence location with your job location. I live in west Cobb and have a very reasonable commute to the NW perimter area, Marietta, etc. But if my job were located downtown ATL or towards Decatur, it would be an hour commute on a good day with traffic.

[germansoldiers]

I just did the opposite move. To Brooklyn, which technically is still Long Island, but just in the city. Love it up here. People are real. The South is so phony.

[germansoldiers]

Originally Posted by Jackalope

That is true...but a lot of us are native Southerners.

One tiny bit of advice. When you get down here, please remember the words of our revered native Southern author, Lewis Grizzard...."Please come down here and enjoy our wonderful weather, our great food and our beautiful women. But we just don't want to hear how you did it in Cleveland (or Long Island as the case may be)."

The point here is that yes, we know you can't get a good New York style pizza down here. On the other hand, good pulled-pork barbecue is damn hard to find in Manhatten. Learn to live with the fact that some things will be different and to appreciate the unique advantages of the South.

Always remember, Delta's ready when you are.

Nice attitude, bud.

To the Long Islanders moving South: expect to encounter a lot of this passive/aggressive approach down in Atlanta. Everyone is all "genteel like" to your face but will stab you in the back (most likely with a cross or a bible) in a minute. People in NY, you know what you get right up front. It's refreshing.

On that note, no one from NY gave me any "warnings" when I moved from the South to NY. Nobody told me the quickest way to JFK. Nobody here even expects people to tell them how they did it back in their home state. Know why? Because people up here don't suffer from inferiority complexes like Southerners do.

I'm soooooo glad I left Atlanta. And visiting this forum regularly just reinforces my determination never to go back South. Except to Miami/South Beach.

[berkeleylake]

I would find the job first and then narrow down your options on where to live. Teaching jobs are hard to find, but you could probably get one after diligently applying, especially in urban districts (APS - Atlanta Public Schools) or some other districts that are in need of special ed teachers.

Have you even visited the Atlanta area to get an idea about how it is? I think I would do that first and then decide to make the big move.