Look who’s buying up East Atlanta

East Atlanta’s notoriety as a hot spot for not-so-wealthy homebuyers has caught the attention of a national research group.
The Fannie Mae Foundation checked out 400 urban neighborhoods in 40 cities and ruled the district just south of I-20 one of the top 10 for attracting low- and moderate-income buyers.
Just how low is low or moderate? The average borrower’s income in East Atlanta was $43,885 — a good bit higher than in Terrell Wells in San Antonio, Texas, where the average borrower’s income was $24,361.
In most cases, such numbers offer hope that even poor folks can save enough to own homes. But the foundation did clue into a factor that puts a different shade on the story in East Atlanta.
“Given the evidence of spreading gentrification,” the report states, “the critical question is whether these borrowers are young professionals in the early years of their income trajectory-stopping briefly at the threshold that qualifies them as [low- to moderate-income] households.”
The other neighborhoods listed by USA Today are in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Oakland, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle.