Relocating from Tennessee to Georgia may not seem like a big distance, but moving one state away can be just as hard as a cross-country move. Working with someone who knew Atlanta’s real estate market helped Chip and Mallory Bradley find a home in Woodstock.
Why Atlanta?
Having worked for the Stones River National Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tenn., Chip was excited to take the next step in his National Park Service career. He accepted a job as a facility manager for Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Mallory is a stay-at-home mom to their 2-year-old son, Tripp. A former neighbor recommended real estate agent Carolyn Hutton of Hutton Southern Homes.
Putting down roots
“With this move, we had an opportunity to potentially purchase a home in a good elementary school district, which is important if we do stay in this area for a while,” Chip said. “Everything centered around that.”
Having worked as a speech therapist in public schools in Tennessee, Mallory was prepared to research school districts.
“The main thing I did was look at the size of schools and the communities around them on GreatSchools.com,” Mallory said. “That gave me a good background, but Carolyn really helped us get to know the area schools and gave us her opinion on them.”
After narrowing their search to Cherokee County, finding a four-bedroom home proved harder than they thought.
“We found that there wasn’t much middle ground,” Chip said. “It was either a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with an unfinished basement and no bonus room or it was almost too big.”
House No. 38 proved to be their lucky number when Chip spotted online a new four-bedroom, two-bathroom listing in Woodstock’s Towne Lake neighborhood. Public schools are Bascomb Elementary School, E.T. Booth Middle School and Etowah High School. The next morning, he viewed the 4,478-square-foot home, which was built in 1990.
“I had seen enough houses at that price point to know it was going to sell quickly,” he said. “I wanted to validate that it looked as good in person as it did in the pictures I saw online.”
They closed on the home in January 2016, assisted by Kathy Delbridge with Success Mortgage Partners. Similar-sized homes in Towne Lake range from the $250,000s to the $300,000s. Amenities include a pool, tennis courts and a playground. Hobgood Park is also nearby. Stores such as SuperTarget are minutes away, and The Outlet Shoppes of Atlanta is an interstate exit away.
Relocation tip
Chip was surprised by the high volume of Atlanta traffic, which factored into where they bought. “Our house is about nine miles from work, and depending on when you hit the traffic, it takes 20 to 30 minutes to get there,” he said. “Not bad at all.”
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