Advice for moving to areas west of Atlanta (Douglasville, Douglas: foreclosed, HOA)

[kp85]

I have recently received a job offer--my first, actually--in Atlanta (in Midtown, to be exact), and my husband and I will be moving in about a month. I am not very familiar with the city, but we are looking at the area west of Atlanta, between Douglasville and the city. The houses I have looked at so far on the internet have been a few miles north or south of the west Marta line (around the Holmes, West Lake, and Ashby stations). I know that Westlake schools are okay, but some of the houses are in the Therrell school district, which appears to have bad test scores from what I can tell. We don't have children yet, but plan on doing so in the next year or so. For that reason (as well as resale value), schools are important to us.

I guess the main question is, would this be a good area to live in? Are there certain areas (north of the line or south of the line) that would be better? That area west of the city seems to work really well for us, as the houses seem to be more in line with our price range (up to $230K or so) while still being fairly nice houses. Also, it provides any easy way to get back to Alabama to see our families, since we don't have to go through much Atlanta traffic, while still being close enough to the Marta to ride it into work each day. Any suggestions? Thanks so much!

[maggpie]

Ok, I'm in Douglasville. Nice area of it; 4 minutes from the mall, restaurants...everything. HOWEVER...our subdivision has gone under and the builder, who runs it (president, secretary, VP...all of it) has done nothing to properly maintain the common areas here. We've paid (all but one family b/c they didn't want to throw *their* money away too!) our dues for the year and the pool is down (closed by the health department), the club house is moldy with sporadic power (builder told one family that we all agreed to turn power off to save money...LIE!). Basically, we don't know where our HOA money went. The guy is just sleazy. The bank has taken back the last four remaining homes here plus some lots. The homes are GORGEOUS and you could get a great price as long as you know that when you buy here, you *may* have to pay into the HOA which is not doing anything right now. I saw one family here with a realtor the other day and called the realtor in charge of the foreclosed homes. I explained to her about the situation in here and informed her that this guy was still in charge of the HOA and that no one...NO ONE...should be giving him ANY HOA money seeing as he can't properly account for it (he's only sent us two forms of documentation, only b/c we TOLD him to...neither of which was an accurate recording). I asked her if new buyers would *have* to pay this...she said she thought so. UHm...are you kidding me????? New buyers will have to pay for a crappy, muddy pool and moldy club house that aren't even available to them and have no guarantee of when they will be??? Obviously they won't be telling these homebuyers something!! What *can* these realtors say??? The subdivision is Reserve at Chapel Hill. Great place...fantastic neighbors who keep their homes and lawns up...etc. But it's a shame that some builders (ours was JTR Prestige...now gone!) can just go home and sleep at night knowing...KNOWING that they've done something they shouldn't. And how some realtors might even trade their own integrity for a sale. Disgusting! Just be careful...ask about the HOA situations and CC and R's. Hoa's and CC and R's are different animals. The homes in here are priced in the high 2's still and will probably stay that way due to the area. They're lovely homes...what a shame the builder is a sleaze bag. His attitude towards us is..."I gave you a good price on that house! And you're still complaining." Uhm...YEAH! We are. B/c we didn't **just** buy a house...we bought a house WITH amenities....duh! We were told they were fine...the pool was up and running...as was the CH. The newest people were LIED to! That's why they went ahead and bought theirs. Disgusting people.