For Joe and Leta Wood, it took buying not one, but two homes, to find a house with plenty of outdoor space for their children.
The couple fixed up the Alpharetta home they first bought after moving from Idaho to Georgia in 2012, then flipped the property when they found a Johns Creek house with ample room to roam outside.
The priority
“We had decided that we were going to move to Alpharetta and really picked the area because of the schools. Honestly, we could have gone anywhere, which tells you a lot about how great it is when communities invest in schools, because that is exactly what led us here,” said Leta, a marketing manager for HP.
The housing market in Alpharetta was tight when they originally looked in 2012. Joe, a licensed architect and real estate investor, made an offer on their first metro Atlanta purchase without seeing the home, and they knew it needed updates and repairs. The bathrooms, for example, had white melamine cabinets and white builder-grade 4-inch tile. They made over the bathrooms, kitchen and yard, then put the home in Alpharetta’s Birkdale neighborhood on the market in 2013.
“We saw that house online, and it was easy for us to see the potential,” Leta said. “We spent a year there until we found the property we wanted.”
They received multiple offers on the six-bedroom, five-bath home, built in 1994, within just nine days on the market. They sold the home in the low $500,000s, which was 25 percent over their purchase price, the Woods said.
The search
Having a large backyard and outdoor living areas were most important, after the north Fulton County schools, for their kids, 13-year-old Carson and 10-year-old Sydney.
“We had come from an area where the kids played outside every day for three or four hours,” Leta said. “For us, it’s a big deal that the kids keep playing outside.”
Another must-have was a neighborhood with kids. Their agent, Pam Gebhardt with RE/MAX Around Atlanta, even took the extra step of pulling up the directory of the residents in one neighborhood and counting the number of kids listed.
The home
The seven-bedroom, five-full and two-half bath home on a cul-de-sac in Johns Creek’s Oxford Mill neighborhood offered a backyard with deck and fire pit, plus a sunroom and screened porch. The home also had extra interior spaces, including a finished basement and a keeping room with a fireplace.
Once they made an offer, others came in, but theirs was accepted first. Homes in Oxford Mill are currently listed in the $500,000s. They closed on the home in August 2013 and changes have included redoing the sunroom, which now has a mini-bar and TV.
The lifestyle
The family stayed in the same Autrey Mill Middle School and Johns Creek High School district (Fulton County schools), and the home is also close to McGinnis Woods Country Day School in Johns Creek, a private school that the Woods said they chose for their daughter because of the low teacher-student ratio, curriculum and personal education plan for each student.
“To have that just a couple of miles away is just amazing,” Leta said.
They enjoy seeing their children spending hours outside, playing flashlight tag and other games with friends.
“It is perfect for us,” Leta said. “Now our house is full of kids playing outdoors.”
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