Tama and Brian McGee got frustrated searching for their first house.
They wanted to buy a four-bedroom house near Decatur for $180,000 or less, but each one that caught their eye would also have pinched their wallet.
"They were way out of our price range," said Tama McGee, a high school music teacher. "We wouldn't even bother calling about them."
Then their agent took them to Clarkston, a city of 7,200 along I-285 in northeastern DeKalb County. They saw a mix of quaint bungalows, brick ranches and spacious homes from the 1960s and '70s that were selling for $110,000 to $180,000.
"We were totally shocked," McGee said.
Home sales data show that 215 houses sold last year in Clarkston's ZIP code (30021), and the median price of existing homes leaped by $32,000 to $110,000 -- an increase of 40 percent -- in 2003. That ranks Clarkston among the 20 metro Atlanta communities with the most dramatic increases in sales prices last year.
It's one of the few neighborhoods in the top 20 where buyers can find a house for less than $200,000 close to downtown. A sliver of Clarkston is inside I-285.
Communities in Cobb, Douglas, Paulding and Newton counties also recorded healthy increases in home-sales prices under $200,000, according to data provided by Smart Numbers. So did two neighborhoods in south Fulton (ZIP codes 30213 and 30331) that are closer to town but are still outside the Perimeter.
Clarkston is different from other communities with quickly rising home prices, because parts of it offer the kind of older houses that have proven so attractive to home buyers in revitalized intown neighborhoods such as East Atlanta and Grant Park, though Clarkston does not have as many bungalows and Craftsman-style houses as those neighborhoods.
The city also is unique in that one in three people who live in the Clarkston city limits was born abroad. The majority are refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia or Vietnam. They tend to live in apartments.
In addition, houses in Clarkston are much less expensive than in the intown neighborhoods, and the city has a much wider variety of housing styles.
The McGees have made an offer on a two-story '70s-style place reminiscent of "The Brady Bunch" house. It has four bedrooms and 2,900 square feet -- more than twice the size of the brick ranch they rent in Decatur and plenty of room for their 18-month-old daughter, Quinlan.
"I just can't believe that more people aren't moving out that way," she said.
Cristi Lumb, a Realtor who works mainly with first-time home buyers, took the McGees to Clarkston and suggests the town to others who want to be close to downtown -- it's an 11-mile drive down Ponce de Leon Avenue.
"Two years ago that went on the market for $80,000," she said of one home spotted on a recent driving tour of the city. "Now it would sell for a lot more, probably in the $140,000s or $150,000s."
People in some neighborhoods can hear the interstate, but it usually sounds more like white noise than anything. Lumb tells her clients to think of the ocean.
"It's a very nice community, and you're still really close to everything," she said.
Denise Phillips discovered Clarkston last year.
She owned a condo in Tucker but wanted an older house in a safe neighborhood. She was looking in the $120,000-to-$150,000 price range and found a yellow bungalow near the Clarkston library for $132,500.
The only downside, Phillips said, is that the city lacks restaurants or grocery stores that appeal to her. She drives 15 minutes to a Kroger in one direction and can drive 15 minutes in another direction to find an array of trendy restaurants in Decatur.
"I found exactly the kind of community and the kind of house I was looking for," she said.
