You might be wondering if Atlanta is a good market from which to look for a work-from-home job. The answer? Yes. Atlanta ranks No. 5 on a top-10 city list for freelancers and telecommuters, according to Realtor.com.
Atlanta's selection is based, in part, on its median listing price of $274,300 and median one-bedroom rental price of $867.41.
Atlanta freelancers can take advantage of The Freelance Forum, a group set up to help contract workers network and learn new skills in their fields.
Freelancers also can benefit from expansion of faster internet by various providers and from gas and auto savings.
Atlanta recently ranked seven of the top 10 U.S. cities where renters can afford to become homeowners, according to the National Association of Realtors®.
For their Aug. 8 article, Realtor.com data analysts reviewed the top 100 metro areas in the U.S., based on the number of households, to figure out the cities that are affordable, fun and Work From Home (WFH)-friendly.
Among the factors by Realtor.com were:
- Median metro home prices, according to Realtor.com.
- Median metro one-bedroom rental prices, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data.
- Costs of state and local taxes, according to the Tax Foundation.
- Cost of individual health care plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- Cost of high-bandwidth internet connections, according to BroadbandNow.com.
- Walkability, according to WalkScore.com.
- Number of coffee shops with free Wi-Fi and number of gyms per capita, according to Yelp.
Another reliable source for those who would like to work from home comes from Atlanta's own, yet nationally known, consumer advocate Clark Howard at his Work from Home Guide.
Howard warns to avoid companies wanting you to pay them upfront fees and to check the following for yourself.
Among Howard's legitimate work-from-home opportunities are:
Amazon Flex - Pays you as an independent contractor around $20 an hour to deliver packages to Prime customers in under one hour; but you cover gas, maintenance and any other car expenses.
CashCrate.com - Make money online with paid surveys.
CheckPoints.com - This app offers manufacturer deals while you're in the store. You earn points for scanning the barcode on an item in a store. No purchase of the product is necessary. You can redeem the points you collect for free gift cards, airline miles and other perks.
ConvergysWorkatHome.com - Be a home agent providing customer care, human resources and billing services.
EasyShiftApp.com - Turns you into an on-demand secret shopper. You are assigned "shifts" by product manufacturers who want people to go into stores and confirm that their merchandise is being displayed properly. The pay rate for a shift is between $3 and $8 and the money is remitted to you via PayPal.
Among other opportunities listed by Howard are eJury.com, Elance.com, Foap.com, FieldAgent.net, Fiverr.com, Google Opinion Rewards, InstaEDU, Tutor.com, IntelliCare.com, LiveOps.com, oDesk.com, RedBeacon.com, Scoopshot.com, SnapWi.re, Sutherland CloudSource, Sykes.com, TaskRabbit.com, WAHM.com, WAHVE.com, West.com, WorkingSolutions.com, Zintro.com and 2020Research.com.
A 2015 Gallup Poll revealed that 37 percent of U.S. workers say they have telecommuted compared to nine percent in 1995.
Gallup found the average worker telecommutes two days per month with 46 percent of telecommuters doing so during the workday and most employers saying telecommuters are just as productive as other employees.
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