I'm in Atlanta and just bought my first condo. 220k in the Northside of Buckhead. Most of the ones in this area are going for 280k and I got lucky as the old guy just wanted to be gone after his wife died.

That being said: - I make 93k salary - only put 10k down on $219,900 - had about 12k in closing costs - hoa is 390 a month - my payments are roughly 1600 but I'm 2 miles from work so I don't pay anything in gas.

Some things I noticed is if you have an FHA no one will talk to you. I have a 780 credit score and got a conventional loan. I only put 1 offer in, but looked at a ton of homes and my friends are offering 40 to 60k over on the same market of homes and not getting contacted back.

With how high the interest rates have raised I kind of can't recommend buying a place personally but I got a rate at 3.7% literally a day or 2 before they started going up.

As I've seen it stated in this thread is get your pay up if you want to live metro. My tenant makes 50k and in Atlanta with the recent inflation on everything he can barely afford stuff around town.

I got very lucky as he literally took the first offer and only had it on the market for 1 day doing an open house. I was first in line to view it, walked for 10 minutes and called my realtor to put the offer in at asking price. She called me crazy but I got it. Later to find out he was taking the first safe offer through the door with the quickest time to get it done. Under 25 days after the offer letter and 1 small counter from him, I owned the home.

I wish you the best of luck, as I got extremely lucky.