The Real Estate Manager
Straight answers on buying, selling and owning a home in Atlanta. A new episode every Wednesday.
Which Decatur are you actually buying in?
Every time I pull numbers for Decatur, I see prices that look like they came from two different towns. In a way, they did. The City of Decatur is a small city with its own government, sitting inside the perimeter. A much bigger area just carries a Decatur mailing address. Most of that area is unincorporated DeKalb County, and some of the broad Decatur market reports reach out past the perimeter too.
If you're buying or selling, the first question isn't the zip code. It's whether the address is inside the city limits. That answer changes your fair comparables, your property tax picture and how you should price and market a home. Before you trust any Decatur number, find out which Decatur it's measuring.