At a glance
Monroe and Annette Colbert’s home, built in 2006 in Lawrenceville’s Silver Oak neighborhood, has four bedrooms, three baths and about 2,500 square feet. They purchased it in August, assisted by Latisha Williams with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers. Homes in Silver Oak are in the high $100,000s to mid-$200,000s.
After living in New Jersey his entire life, retiree Monroe Colbert joined other Garden State residents who are lured to the South for affordable housing and taxes, warmer temperatures and proximity to family.
Colbert, 60, who managed unemployment offices for the state of New Jersey, moved to Lawrenceville with his wife, Annette. He chatted about the ranch home they bought in Gwinnett County, after renting an apartment in Tucker, where their son and his family live.
Q: What type of difference did you notice in housing styles between Georgia and New Jersey?
A: In New Jersey, at least in the part I lived in, there’s not really subdivisions. The house we built in 2004 was on 5 acres and just an individual home. How it’s built is very different. In New Jersey, most things are put in the basement. Here, heaters are in the attic. You don’t have a lot of attic fans in New Jersey, where most every house has attic fans systems here. From the perspective of buying a home, I think you have to realize that this home may not be what you are coming from. You just can’t compare houses, so you’ve got to be very cognizant of that.
Q: How long did you search?
A: We found a house about three months later that was a reasonable price. We looked as far south as Hampton and as far north as Lawrenceville.
Q: How much did you downsize?
A: In New Jersey, we had about 3,300 square feet (including the full basement), five bedrooms and three baths. Here, with the garage, it is about 2,500 square feet. It is three bedrooms with a bonus room, which we turned into a bedroom, and three full baths.
Q: What features did you want in the home?
A: We started out looking for three, maybe four, sides brick. We end up with front brick with siding on the three sides. We wanted three bedrooms and three baths, not two-and-a-half baths. We wanted granite countertops. We wanted to move in with minimal changes.
Q: How did you know it was the one?
A: We looked at it probably four or five weeks in the process. We saw a lot of two stories that we loved because they had great big master bedrooms and closets. But I kept coming back to this house because of the design. If you’re 60, now you say, in 10 years am I going to be able to do the steps a number of times? You have to consider how much up and down the stairs you want to do. If you buy a house with two stories or even a basement and find a year down the road you can’t walk in it, that’s just wasted money right there.
Q: What’s a tip for a buyer coming from out of state?
A: Spend a little time looking at the laws (related to real estate transactions) because they were totally different down here. You do need to spend time looking into the legal aspect so that you know the process a little bit better. We went into it with a good Realtor who walked us through it.
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