Life & Real Estate In & Around Athens GA.

The unemployment rate in Athens GA dropped from 7.9% to 7.7% in July according to the Georgia Department of Labor. The state rate also dropped from 10% to 9.9% during the same period while the national rate has remained at 9.5%.

The Athens MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area) consists of Athens-Clarke County, Oconee County, Madison County & Oglethorpe County and it has the second lowest rate in the state with only Warner Robbins MSA at 7.6% being lower. Oconee County continues to have the lowest unemployment rate of all the counties in Georgia.

For more information about real estate in the Athens, GA area, or, if you are looking to buy or sell real estate in the Athens Ga area and surrounding counties, please call me at 706-207-5290, or, you can click to email me at athensrealestate@earthlink.net with any questions. To search for homes, land and other real estate in the Athens Ga area please visit my website, www.The Athens Real Estate Page.com .

AmericanStyle magazine has named Athens, Ga as one of the top 25 mid-sized city art destinations for the 9th straight year in a row. Rating cities on their visual and performance arts, Athens was rated #18 in the mid-sized city category this year.

While most people might know about Athens because of its contributions to the music scene with bands like R.E.M., Widespread Panic and The B-52's, there is also a strong visual arts environment here.

One the widest spread and easily recognized art displays is the Athens-Oconee Junior Woman's Club project "We Let the Dogs Out!". It is 36 bull dogs distributed all over Athens, each one whimsically painted by a different artist. You can find them scattered about downtown, in front of banks, fire stations, parks, etc. As you wander around town you might run into this handsome fellow out in front of St. Mary's hospital.

Or you may run into Dawg House, by artist Charlotte House out in front of the Athens Visitor Center.

So come spend some time, find all 36 of these pieces of art. And tour the galleries and museums. Take a tour of the classical southern architecture homes which are works of art in themselves. Stop in a some of the clubs and listen to the local music. And, of course, try some of the local cousine which is another form of art that satifies the body.

You can see the entire list of cities, large, small and in-between in the May 2010 issue of AmericanStyle magazine. To find out more about what's going on in Athens, Ga, including visual and performing arts, you can checkout Athens Life Unleashed.

For information on buying or sellingreal estate in the Athens Ga area, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or, you can click here to email me with your request for information. To search for homes and real estate in the Athens Ga area, please visit my website: The Athens Real Estate Page.

The unemployment rate in Athens - Clarke County Ga has dropped for the second straight month in April. It is now at 7.4%, down from 7.9% in March and 8.4% in February. This is well below the national unemployment average of 9.7% and the Georgia unemployment rate of 10.4%, down from a March rate of 10.5%.

While this is excellent news for the Athens area, it remains to be seen whether this is an organic job growth in the private sector or temporary decreases due to hiring of temporary census workers. The Athens area, for BlS employment statistics includes: Athens-Clarke County Ga, Oconee County Ga and Madison County Ga.

For information on buying or selling a home or property in the Athens Ga area, please call me at 706-207-5290. Or, you can click here to email me with your request for information. To search for homes and real estate in the Athens Ga area, please visit my website: The Athens Real Estate Page.

Athens Ga has made another list of top places, this year Athens is high up on the Forbes 2010 List of Best Small Places for Business and Careers. Small places, according to Forbes, are those metro areas with a population of less than 245,000 people. Athens, with an area population of 192,000, leads a list of 9 small Georgia metro areas that made the Forbes top 200 small places.

The ratings were based upon a set of 12 criteria that includes:

• cost of operating a business
• cost of living
• job growth
• projected job growth
• income growth
• educational attainment
• projected economic growth
• number of colleges
•  sub-prime lending trends
• crime rate
• culture & leisure
• net migration

Athens regularly makes various "Top" or "Best" Places lists such as Forbes, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Money Magazine, etc. It has been rated highly as a place to live, to work, to retire, etc. Last year Athens Ga was listed as one of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Distinctive Destinations.

The  Athens Metropolitan area includes Athens-Clarke County, Oconee County, Oglethorpe County, Jackson County and Madison County.

If you are looking for more information about the area, or you are looking to to buy or sell real estate in the Athens Ga area and surrounding counties, please call me at 706-207-5290, or, you can click here to email me with any questions. To search for homes, land and other real estate in the Athens Ga area please visit my website, The Athens Real Estate Page.

If you purchased and closed on a home in Athens-Clarke County Ga last year, 2009, you may be eligible for a Homestead Exemption. While the state funding for relief under the Homeowner Tax Relief Grant (HTRG) was unfunded last year, and not yet refunded, there is still a portion of the Homestead Exemption left in place that saves Athens-Clarke County Ga property taxpayers an average of $330 on annual property taxes.

While the majority of the state has a deadline of Apr. 1 for filing for the exemption, Athens-Clarke County has a filing deadline of Mar. 1. To make sure you get your credit, file at the Athens-Clarke County courthouse on East Washington St, room 250. Business hours are Monday - Friday, 8 am - 5 pm.

To qualify, a home has to have been your legal residence as of Jan. 1, this year. If you bought previous to 2009, you can still file for this years credit. If you miss the filing deadline, you can still file but you will not receive any relief until next years, 2011, property tax season.

If you are interested in more information about this, or, are considering buying or selling real estate in the Athens, Ga area, including the surrounding communities and counties, please call me at 706-207-5290. For a copy of my 99 Tips for Getting Your Home Ready to Sell, please click here to email me with the request. To search for homes in Athens, Ga. area, as well as NE. Georgia, please visit my website, The Athens Real Estate Page.

For the second year in a row Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine has rated the University of Georgia in it's top 10 values for colleges and universities in the U.S. This year, UGA has been rated # 6. It joins 3 other colleges in Georgia on the list of Kiplinger's To 100 Best Values for 2009/2010.

To determine the rankings Kiplinger uses a combination of academic, cost and financial aid criteria for both in state and out of state students. Academics count for almost 2/3 of the ranking.

To read the full story, see the list of the top 100 and find out about the methodology used, you can go to Kiplinger's Top 100 Best Values in Public Colleges for 2009-2010.

Athens, GA has also been rated one of the most affordable college towns for retirement by TopRetirements.com as well as one of the most affordable college towns overall. Athens itself has a current average price of about $161,000.00 while the greater Athens Area, which includes Watkinsville, Oconee County, Oglethorpe County, Madison County and Jackson County has a current average price of about $185,000.00.

For more information about real estate in the Athens, GA area, or, if you are looking to buy or sell real estate in the Athens Ga area and surrounding counties, please call me at 706-207-5290, or, you can click here to email me with any questions. To search for homes, land and other real estate in the Athens Ga area please visit my website, The Athens Real Estate Page.

Athens is well known for being the home of  the University of Georgia, Dawg-mania and the birthplace of great music with groups such as R.E.M. and the B-52's. But Athens also is a river city.

The Oconee River flows through Athens right next to "downtown," meandering through parts of the University, the suburbs and farms and into Oconee County. Most of the year the Oconee is a shallow and easily fordable stream.  The almost crystal clear water flows over rocks, creating gentle rills that can't quite be called rapids, to arrive in smooth still pools.

If you look carefully you can sometimes see the flash of a fish or even a heron wading, searching for a meal.  Often you can see kayakers along some stretches, although, in drier years, like this one, there is a lot of portaging.

Oconee is the Creek Indian word for "place of springs" and it gets its name from an old Creek settlement. The Oconee's headwaters are in Hall County. The Middle Oconee and the North Oconee join together in Athens to form the Oconee, which continues for over 100 miles to where it meets with the Ocmulgee and forms the Altamaha.

The river supports diverse wildlife; the herons mentioned earlier, other birds, frogs, turtles and a multitude of fish species. In the spring there is a large run of white bass. During that run, dozens of boaters can be found on the waters below Barnett Shoals Dam, all hoping to bring a stringer of bass home.

A greenway is being established along parts of the river, providing a quiet promenade for walkers and bike riders along its banks. You can often see turtles sunning themselves on exposed logs and rocks as you take advantage of the greenway. During the seasons different plants bloom and flourish along the river and the greenways, some wild, some cultivated, and some just gone wild after cultivation. The jasmine and beatyberry are found along the bank, wild or planted, it doesn't matter, they are beautiful.

The next time you are in Athens take some time and walk along the river. Forget, for awhile, the shopping, the clubs, the restaurants, your problems. Point out the wonders to your children. Hold hands with the person you love. Even forget, but just for a bit, that the Dawgs will be playing again soon.