Tina & Mike's Blog

Atlanta has frequently made news, in both the local and national press, about it’s sky-high water bills. Though many residents were faced with inaccurate bills, even accurate bills are high, as Atlanta’s water rates themselves are among the highest in the country. Why? The water rates have mushroomed in recent years in order to help pay for the Clean Water Atlanta Program, a $4 billion federally mandated overhaul of the City’s aging and deteriorated sewer systems. So what can an Atlantan do to conserve water (and therefore money)?

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As mentioned in a previous blog post, Atlanta has some fine public schools. But, like most other cities, there are also those that are underperforming. This has a predictable effect on people’s behavior, both in terms of real estate as well as the attendance of the schools. Home buyers are attracted to the Intown Atlanta and Buckhead neighborhoods that have the best schools in Atlanta. This bolsters home values in those neighborhoods, but also leads to overcrowding in those schools. This overcrowding is exacerbated by the 61% surge of young professionals living in Intown Atlanta. In decades past, most young couples would move to the ‘burbs when they settled down. Now many of them are staying intown. Meanwhile, other schools end up under capacity. Simple solution; just move kids from the overcrowded schools to those that are under capacity, right? Not so fast.

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Now that we have a kid on the way, we sometimes hear some of our our suburban friends say, “Well, now you have to move to the 'burbs!” We actually had one friend-of-a-friend stridently exclaim, “You can’t raise kids in the city!” (Gasp!) Oh really? Why’s that? Of course everyone has their biases, but putting those aside, the subject that often seems to come up is schools. Some of the more “open minded” suburbanites would concede that it might be OK to raise kids in the city, but one would have to send their kids to private school. But is this true? Are there really no good public schools in the city of Atlanta?

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Of course we all know that neighborhoods are important for many reasons; friendly neighbors, community support, etc. And we all know there are many reasons to choose a particular neighborhood; location, style, affordability, etc. However, from the perspective of your wallet, there’s another important benefit the right neighborhood can provide; price stability.

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In our experience selling homes, we often find that a person’s perception of their home’s value often differs from the reality of the marketplace. There are number of reasons for this, from psychological factors to simple misconceptions about market value. In this article we will discus these issues as well as how best to determine an accurate selling price.

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We’ve received a number of complements on our recent website makeover, and we’re flattered to hear that it’s been so well received. A number of you have asked about the stylized skyline outline in the website header, and whether it really represents Atlanta. It does, in fact, and it was inspired by the photo below. This spawned questions about this building and that, which got us thinking – maybe we should put together a guide to the buildings of the Atlanta skyline. So here goes!

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There are many facets to consider when it comes to selling your home. The timing of your move, prepping your home, how to market your home and countless other considerations. One might say, however, that the most important consideration is setting the listing price. In our experience, we have found that many sellers use flawed assumptions when determining their listing price. WIth this post, we begin a series of articles on the topic of pricing your home for sale.

There are many options one can use to help determine the value of a home. One option that has become more popular lately is the so-called “online valuation.” There are several websites, (such as Zillow, HouseValues, etc.) which claim the ability to determine the value of your home. So, how do they work, and are they any good?

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Atlanta’s historic Ansley Park neighborhood, known for its winding streets, beautiful parks and stunning architecture, kicks off its tour of homes this weekend. Developed in 1904, Ansley Park is one of Atlanta’s first suburban neighborhoods and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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One of the most popular criteria home buyers have traditionally used when searching for a home is square footage. Until very recently, out-of-state or new-in-town home buyers looking for homes in Atlanta found themselves dismayed at the inability to search by square footage. ( read more >> )

New to Atlanta?  Don’t worry…it seems like almost everyone in Atlanta is from somewhere else!  This diversity of backgrounds is one of the things that makes Atlanta great.  If you don’t want everyone to know you’re new in town, you may want to familiarize yourself with some of the terms below. (read more >>)