Who on this site lives in the Atlanta area? Rima and I just put in offers on some rental houses in Gwinnett and Cobb counties.

Hi,
I'm not in Atlanta but have been around there much of my life. What I observe is that there are pockets in the suburbs that are on the upswing in value but there are as many that are on the downward trend and they may not be far apart geographically.

Atlanta is the type of place where I would personally visit the particular area before committing to anything. Its hard to generalize without seeing first hand.

Growing Southern cities like Atlanta, or my hometown of Charlotte, have a massive exodus to the exurbs leaving once viable suburban neighborhoods to decline. In my middle-class neighborhood in Charlotte we had nearby malls, K-Mart, etc. They, over the past 20-30 years have all closed up and moved further out. Property values have reflected that even though the neighborhood is still viable. But not a good investment area if you're looking for growth.

I got stuck in this trap with a rental house in a Kansas City suburb. Found myself having to LOWER the rent from year to year to keep it occupied.

How are things in California? A retirement mountain home would be nice. Ga. is on a vertue of trying to find a million ways to bring in more revenue after allmost going broke over the last several years. It may be cheaper in Ga. for a while but they will need to find a way to pay back all the money that was spent.
One county in particular spent 5.1 million bucks on un-wed teen preganacy. I thought we lived in the new world now and all these problems were corrected in school and other places years ago.

I am about 40 miles west of downtown Atlanta.

Barry

We had a few minutes to visit antique malls in old cotton mills in Monrow, GA outside Atlanta today. I saw a nice 1940s Sears console with modern FM, and several nice bakelite radios with AM & modern FM. The prices are much lower than I've seen in California, Missouri, New York, and Virginia.