You use to live intown had kids, then moved to North Fulton? Any Regrets? (Atlanta: fit in, 2013)

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

3) I totally disagree with this. I can't think of any area of Atlanta that has a higher concentration of retail than the Perimeter area. Is there such a thing as a store that doesn't have representation here? And it's on MARTA. Second place would have to go to the Lenox/Phipps area, which I guess would be called intown since it is barely within the city limits. What part of town are you thinking of that has a higher concentration of retail, transit, and culture?

Well, Perimeter is "intown" these days. It's hard for me to see how it would not be considered part of the core urban zone in metro Atlanta. It is far more urbanized and densely populated and developed than many other areas that are inside I-285.

As I've said many times (including this thread), the "ITP/OTP" distinction is not at all a good demarcation of Atlanta's cultural, geographic, political or developmental boundaries. The urban center started migrating north 100 years ago and that has never stopped.

As to places like Lenox and Phipps, I also tend to think of them as "intown" since they are technically, well, intown. Lenox Square is what, about 6 1/2 miles from Five Points? Our urban area extends far beyond that.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by red92s

At what cost? Can you name, say, 3-5 of those "plenty" where a modernized 4 bedroom home could be comfortably purchased by a family with an annual income of $150k?

I tend to think of $150K as big bucks, but maybe I am behind the times. That's more than I ever made in a year and a lot more than the median family income in areas like Buckhead, Virginia-Highland or Candler Park.

How much can folks afford on that kind of salary? I honestly don't know.

[ATLTJL]

That's more than I ever made in a year and a lot more than the median family income in areas like Buckhead, Virginia-Highland or Candler Park.

What??????

There's no way this is true. Because the common wisdom is that you should never spend more than 3 times your annual salary on a home. So if you make $150k, the most you should spend on a house is $450k.

If you're right and people in Buckhead and VaHi are living in spacious modern homes on large lots, with leafy trees and attending great schools, I only see these possible scenarios:

1) They are completely irresponsible and overextending to afford a home
2) They bought 30 years ago and haven't moved
3) They have access to a stockpile of money beyond their stated income

Other than those scenarios, to live in conditions you describe in the areas we are talking about, you'd need an income way larger than $150k. Or you could just be financially irresponsible.

I'm so confused....what red92s is saying is that living intown is expensive and even an upper middle class person making $150k couldn't afford it. Then arjay responded by saying that $150k is a lot of money, seemingly trying to say that you wouldn't need to make anywhere near that much to live the life he described. What am I missing here?

[jeoff]

On taxes, you are kinda comparing rabbits to jackalopes here. Looking at million dollar-plus homes for sale in Morningside-Leonox park neighborhood you can find 18 homes. In all of the 30087 Stone Mountain zip code (which includes the neigborhood of Smokerise), there are zero million dollar homes for sale. At 500K there are about 70 homes for sale in Morningside- Leonox Park (and that includes many small homes, with small lots), in the Stone Mountain zip there are 4. In neighboring 30047-Lilburn in Gwinnett (which has very good schools) there is just one home for sale over 500K. Lithonia has three homes for sale over 500K (no million dollar homes in either). Even Decatur, which most folks consider in-town anyway, has no million dollar homes listed (though there are 36 over 500K).

Originally Posted by arjay57

City of Atlanta property taxes are steep, but at least they're not as bad as Decatur or Lithonia.

Yes, for a $1M home in the city, your property tax bill will run $19,535.

But it's not exactly peanuts elsewhere. For a $1M house, you'd pay $18,938 in Stone Mountain, $16,709 in Alpharetta, $14,125 in Woodstock, and $20,612 in Lithonia.

Property Tax Calculator for Metro Atlanta

Fortunately, many of us living in the city of Atlanta are blessed with outstanding elementary schools and middle schools.

When it comes to the upper grades, most of the folks who can comfortably swing million dollar homes are probably not sweating over high school tuition. They may not like it but they can pay it. A lot of families in the pricier suburbs opt for private school as well.

My guess is that as the suburbs urbanize and age, they will soon face the same issues that inner cities have dealt with in years past.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

What??????

There's no way this is true. Because the common wisdom is that you should never spend more than 3 times your annual salary on a home. So if you make $150k, the most you should spend on a house is $450k.

If you're right and people in Buckhead and VaHi are living in spacious modern homes on large lots, with leafy trees and attending great schools, I only see these possible scenarios:

1) They are completely irresponsible and overextending to afford a home
2) They bought 30 years ago and haven't moved
3) They have access to a stockpile of money beyond their stated income

Other than those scenarios, to live in conditions you describe in the areas we are talking about, you'd need an income way larger than $150k. Or you could just be financially irresponsible.

Well, I think for a lot of those folks item 2 comes closest. They bought 10, 15, 20 or more years ago and have just stayed put and ridden out the market. Many of them have also learned how to live frugally.

But I don't see how you can fuss at them for taking a chance on real estate that a lot of people didn't want. The city was hemorrhaging population in the 1970s, 80s and 90s and a lot of people couldn't get out of town fast enough. Why blast the hardy few who hung in there?

Here are the median household incomes for several popular intown neighborhoods:



Source: Zip Code Characteristics: Mean and Median Household Income

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by jeoff

On taxes, you are kinda comparing rabbits to jackalopes here. Looking at million dollar-plus homes for sale in Morningside-Leonox park neighborhood you can find 18 homes. In all of the 30087 Stone Mountain zip code (which includes the neigborhood of Smokerise), there are zero million dollar homes for sale. At 500K there are about 70 homes for sale in Morningside- Leonox Park (and that includes many small homes, with small lots), in the Stone Mountain zip there are 4. In neighboring 30047-Lilburn in Gwinnett (which has very good schools) there is just one home for sale over 500K. Lithonia has three homes for sale over 500K (no million dollar homes in either). Even Decatur, which most folks consider in-town anyway, has no million dollar homes listed (though there are 36 over 500K).

Well, of course taxes are going to vary based on the value of the property! If you are going to compare taxes you have to look at properties of equal value.

It wouldn't make sense to compare the taxes on a $250,000 house in the city of Atlanta ($4,508) with a $750,000 house in Woodstock ($10,576) and say taxes are worse in Woodstock.

[ATLTJL]

Why blast the hardy few who hung in there?

I'm not blasting them, that's great for them!

But if there are people that bought 10, 15, and 20 years ago, they probably don't have young kids. So where are the neighborhood kids coming from?

I think when you look around and see kids what you are seeing are visiting grandchildren.

[arjay57]

One other thing, too.

In this country we believe in equality of opportunity, not everybody having the same thing. At the time we bought our old house and a few acres in the city anybody else could have done the same thing. Most were not interested.

However, we decided to make it our home. We believed in it and rode out the ups and downs and struggled to make our city better. We sent our kids to local schools, and we got behind them to make sure they were doing a decent job.

There was never any guarantee that our property would appreciate. In fact, it didn't for along time, and the market has fluctuated many times.

To those who say we "lucked out" or acted irresponsibly, I ask: If intown property had not gone up, would you be there to bail me out?

[red92s]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I tend to think of $150K as big bucks, but maybe I am behind the times. That's more than I ever made in a year and a lot more than the median family income in areas like Buckhead, Virginia-Highland or Candler Park.

How much can folks afford on that kind of salary? I honestly don't know.

A "quick and dirty" estimate is that a home shouldn't exceed 3X household annual income. So, figure a $450k purchase price for this exercise.

I did a quick search for active 4BR listings under $450k, with a 8,000SF (.2 acre) lots. I had to pick something to qualify as a "large lot", and a fifth of an acre is being generous there. The results are below. I didn't take the time to investigate if they qualified as being "modernized" since that is more subjective. I've been very generous on the "great" public schools requirement, and the "kids playing in the street" criteria wasn't even considered. I stopped at about 10 neighborhoods.

Buckhead: 4
Underwood Hills: 3
Grant Park: 2
30317 (Kirkwood, East Lake): 3
Loring Heights: 1
Decatur: 1
Lake Claire: 1
Chastain Park: 0
Virginia Highland: 0
Midtown: 0
Candler Park: 0
Morningside-Lenox Park: 0

So, yes, it's possible. But it's extremley difficult and you are sort of fighting for scraps.

[ATLTJL]

Well, that's exactly what is happening now and a lot of what the cheerleading around here is based on....people buying in an area that is not yet valuable and hoping that someday it will be. EVERYBODY thinks they're area is the next up and coming area. Otherwise, they wouldn't have bought there in the first place. Of course, some are going to end up being right, others are going to end up being wrong.

I'm not going to call any specific people out, but there are a lot of people here that talk about how great their neighborhood is, and I think it's reasonable. Yeah, that area stands a really good chance of becoming something great.

Then there are others where I'm just like yeah, keep dreaming, pal!

But back to the point at hand, we still don't have a satisfactory answer on where exactly you can live intown in a modern, spacious house on a decent sized lot districted for great public schools at a price point of under $700k.