re: in 2023, what price level lets you know a 'hood is nice/safe?

Speaking of metro Atlanta, I was surprised to see how affordable Sugarloaf country club is.

There are several listings well over 6,000 square feet for less than 1.5M.

One in particular is 7,510 square feet and only 1.3M.

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Average home price in my town is off the charts. Our big crime problem is opportunistic car burglaries. People around here leave cars unlocked parked in driveways. Sometimes they leave the fob in the car.

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Avg home price is roughly 450k here. You can get some condos for 250k, but any single family home with a small yard will run over 450k.

The safe places are on the water. While the average home price is relative high for a small city, you can get a really nice waterfront home for 650k - 1.2m which isn't bad.

Pre COVID you could get a well built older home that needed maintenance, etc. in a pretty decent in town neighborhood for that.

Not sure you can now. There may be a handful around like that, and that’s probably because they’re smallish and too expensive for most people to teardown.

IMO the sweet spot is and was the boring, old but well kept neighborhood, either in town or in a close in suburb. There is only one demo that buys these homes - the young professional family. It’s because those types are willing to pay a premium for community and relative safety over size and newness.

See some of the Dallas burbs vs somewhere like Lake Highlands. Other demos (near east families, primarily) have taken a hold in many of the major burbs because they’ll prioritize space and newer builds. Which is fine, they’re not going to cause you any problems, but they will remake the community that previously lived there because they’ll congregate and then behave in insular fashion.

Somewhere like LH is going to be fairly similar decade after decade. The cons are politics and price. You’re paying a premium for smaller homes, smaller lots, etc.

I don’t think of it as a true suburb. But in general there is nothing great along the 20 corridor. I’m not saying you can’t find a decent neighborhood and build a nice life there, but there just isn’t any draw IMO except raw space and lower price.

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I visited the National Park at Kennesaw Moutain (I have two gg uncles who died there). That seemed like a nice area. What about that area? Marietta is the nearest city, I guess?

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Yeah Marietta, Kennesaw and Acworth. The reality is that none of those areas overall resemble the park very much and all three have kinda crummy areas, but there are some little sections that have a nice/wooded/manicured feel somewhat like the NP.

But I don't want to seem hypercritical, those areas don't do it for me but you can certainly find nice spots. We have friends in Acworth and while kind of dull it's nice enough. Out that way (at least in the neighborhoods) your issues are more of the middle class redneckery variety rather than any serious crime/etc.

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I personally wouldn’t want to live in anything less than a million in New Orleans.

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Well that's a little absurd. You can get good homes for much cheaper in Lakeview, Lake Vista, etc.

On a crazy note, a 2 bedroom little cottage went up for sale in the average part of Old Metairie last week. It was listed for $749K and was under contract within 2 days.

To be fair, it's a very big lot with a pool, so someone with screw you money will probably just bulldoze the house and build new.

I know the football thing is for demographic purposes, but it will also be a good indicator as to whether there is neighborhood support for a school.

Same as driving around older neighborhoods looking for football/cheer/etc. signs in the yard. Not saying that's everyone's cup of tea, but if you want the type of life many of us had growing up (or something like it), that type of thing is a good tell. A lot of suburbs won't even have that.

I wouldn’t buy a house less than $800k in one of those places and not be concerned about safety.

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live in the country rather than the "neighborhood."

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some of us have careers