Moving Metro ATL (Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta: home, neighborhood, purchase)

[george1981]

Hello Friends,

I am looking to inquire information regarding the City of McDonough.

My wife has accepted a job within city limits while our oldest child has accepted a job in neighboring Clayton County. We are relocating from North Forsyth County but our young family is still fairly new to Georgia as we relocated from Florida four years ago. As we are still learning, some parts of Georgia can still has “issues” with diversity, although we are all natural-born citizens, we come from Hispanic descent and would not like to relocate to an “unwanted” area. Either way, here are some basic information about what we are looking for.

Neighborhood: Any recommendations
Housing: We would like to purchase at least a 4 bedroom home (150K-220K)
School: VERY IMPORTANT, schools have to be safe and preferably highly rated within the state
Amenities: Big box grocery stores, shopping malls, and restaurants
Other: Parks with trails or any sort of outdoor family activity

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by george1981

Hello Friends,

I am looking to inquire information regarding the City of McDonough.

My wife has accepted a job within city limits while our oldest child has accepted a job in neighboring Clayton County. We are relocating from North Forsyth County but our young family is still fairly new to Georgia as we relocated from Florida four years ago. As we are still learning, some parts of Georgia can still has “issues” with diversity, although we are all natural-born citizens, we come from Hispanic descent and would not like to relocate to an “unwanted” area. Either way, here are some basic information about what we are looking for.

Neighborhood: Any recommendations
Housing: We would like to purchase at least a 4 bedroom home (150K-220K)
School: VERY IMPORTANT, schools have to be safe and preferably highly rated within the state
Amenities: Big box grocery stores, shopping malls, and restaurants
Other: Parks with trails or any sort of outdoor family activity

The clusters of schools anchored by Union Grove and Ola high schools are the best and highest-rated areas of schools in Henry County.

Woodland High School is rated slightly above-average while the schools throughout much of the rest of the county are middle-of-the-road in their rankings and quality and seemed to have slightly declined in quality over the last few years.

Much (if not most) of Henry County (which has just recently become a county where non-Hispanic whites now make up a minority of the county's population) has much more of a heavy minority presence than an area like North Forsyth County... Though that increasingly heavy minority presence will be overwhelmingly black and modestly Hispanic.

Big-box grocery stores, shopping areas and restaurants will be found in abundance through the heart of the county along the extremely busy I-75 corridor at Exit 228 (GA 138), Exit 224 (Hudson Bridge Road/Eagles Landing Parkway), Exit 221 (Jonesboro Road), Exit 218 (GA 20-81) and Exit 212 (Bill Gardner Parkway/Locust Grove).

[PTC Dad]

If you want the best schools on the southside, you may want to consider Fayette County. The closest district to McDonough is probably the Whitewater attendance area (about 30-40 minutes away from McDonough), but even the McIntosh (5th highest average SAT scores in the state) and Starr's Mill districts are still within 45 minutes of McDonough and are some of the highest rated in the state. I know several people that commute to McDonough from Fayette County due to the higher rated schools. Also, Fayette is adjacent to Clayton and would offer a similar commute as McDonough to Clayton County.

As for Henry, the highest rated districts would be Union Grove and Ola districts. The other cluster don't rate very highly on standardized tests, and tend to have a high percentage of free and reduced lunch students.

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/GA/d...20/search.aspx

https://www.schooldigger.com/go/GA/d...30/search.aspx

http://thecitizen.com/2017/10/11/mci...ia-sat-scores/

[Need4Camaro]

Also wanting to note for a 4 BR home you're probably going to be closer to $220k. Maybe less is possible, maybe - not 100% sure but its going to be pretty tight.

Diversity is found in McDonough and Stockbridge to a fair decree, but most of it is in the northern suburbs like Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta, Duluth, Suwannee, Lawrenceville, and Buford.

[george1981]

Born 2 Roll,

Thanks for the information, now I can start planning a trip down to Henry County. We really loved North Forsyth, clean areas and nice people but with the expansion of Hwy 400, the traffic has become horrible.

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

The clusters of schools anchored by Union Grove and Ola high schools are the best and highest-rated areas of schools in Henry County.

Woodland High School is rated slightly above-average while the schools throughout much of the rest of the county are middle-of-the-road in their rankings and quality and seemed to have slightly declined in quality over the last few years.

Much (if not most) of Henry County (which has just recently become a county where non-Hispanic whites now make up a minority of the county's population) has much more of a heavy minority presence than an area like North Forsyth County... Though that increasingly heavy minority presence will be overwhelmingly black and modestly Hispanic.

Big-box grocery stores, shopping areas and restaurants will be found in abundance through the heart of the county along the extremely busy I-75 corridor at Exit 228 (GA 138), Exit 224 (Hudson Bridge Road/Eagles Landing Parkway), Exit 221 (Jonesboro Road), Exit 218 (GA 20-81) and Exit 212 (Bill Gardner Parkway/Locust Grove).

[george1981]

Thanks for the information Need4Camaro lol, nice name.

I did a little a research and the market is not that high at this moment so hopefully it will remain this way for a while. I'm very familiar with the northern suburbs and out of 7 you named below, Lawrenceville is the worst, just not my cup of tea.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by george1981

Thanks for the information Need4Camaro lol, nice name.

I did a little a research and the market is not that high at this moment so hopefully it will remain this way for a while. I'm very familiar with the northern suburbs and out of 7 you named below, Lawrenceville is the worst, just not my cup of tea.

Hehe, Lawrenceville is actually one of my favorite practical suburbs in the metro. But to each their own.

I used to live in McDonough, down off of SR 81 near Racetrack Rd, this was WAY before they had the express lanes and it was absolutely no fun commuting from there. If I didn't ever have to leave McDonough / Stockbridge area I'd have no issues with it but now it just wouldn't work well for me because most of my jobs have been in the northern suburbs even when I lived down in McDonough (was commuting to Alpharetta... THAT ...is no fun.)