The same budget in seven different towns: what $600,000 buys from Alpharetta to Woodstock
One fixed budget, seven towns, seven different houses: what $600,000 returns in Alpharetta, Roswell, Milton, Johns Creek, Crabapple, Cumming and Woodstock.
Noted by Dana Whitaker, editor, towns field bookverified by Marc Ellison6 min read2 sources
Somebody with a number in mind and three towns on a list is standing in the same place this month: $600,000, saved over years, and a decision that changes shape every time the address changes. The journal walked that same budget through the seven towns this journal covers, north Fulton out to Forsyth and Cherokee, and priced what each one hands back. The figure is not a recommendation and not a median. It is a lens. Hold it still and the towns stop looking alike.
The number is fixed; everything around it moves
In the FMLS reports the journal read through the fall of 2025, the median closed price across north Fulton sat in the $600,000s, Forsyth County in the $500,000s, Cherokee in the $400,000s. That one fact is the whole comparison. The same $600,000 sits just under the middle of the market in Alpharetta, comfortably above it in Cumming, and well above it in Woodstock. First MLS publishes no budget filter, so you find the band the slow way: pull closed sales from the last ninety days, filter to the subtype that fits your household, sort ascending, and read the bottom twenty in full rather than the first three that photograph well.
Where does $600,000 buy the most house?
Cumming and Woodstock, and it is not close. In Cumming, along Bethelview Road and the GA-20 corridor toward Canton Highway, the budget reaches into subdivisions built after 2010: four and five bedrooms, 2,800 to 3,500 square feet, a covered patio, a fenced back yard. In Woodstock, off Towne Lake Parkway or the streets feeding Main Street, the same money buys a 1990s or 2000s house on a half acre, or a smaller renovated one within walking distance of the amphitheater and the shops.
What you are buying with that extra square footage is distance. The house is newer, larger and further from the office, and the county writing the tax bill is not the one you have been reading about for the last six months.
What does the same budget buy in Alpharetta?
Inside the city limits, $600,000 lands between two markets. It buys a townhome with room left over: the 1990s and 2000s stock off Haynes Bridge and Webb Bridge, three bedrooms, 1,800 to 2,200 square feet, end unit and garage count deciding the price. At the top of the budget it also buys a detached house from the 1980s or 1990s east of GA-400, off Kimball Bridge or Waters Road, usually with the original kitchen and a roof that has been replaced once. New construction near downtown and around Avalon closes well above this line, which is why the same money that buys new in Cumming buys established here.
Roswell and Crabapple: what is the walk worth?
In Roswell, $600,000 buys a two-story 1980s or 1990s house on a wooded lot off Woodstock or Cox Road, or a smaller bungalow near Canton Street when one appears, which is not often. Closer in, the historic district's design review governs what you may change on the front of the house, a line item nobody reads until the first permit.
At Crabapple, the crossroads of Crabapple Road and Birmingham Highway, the lots are small and the houses sit close to the street because the form-based code says so. At this budget the square footage is the smallest on the list, a cottage or a townhome, and what the money actually buys is the walk: the shops, the green, the school. You are paying for a pattern of streets, not for walls.
Milton and Johns Creek: is the same money buying less house on purpose?
Yes, and both towns will tell you so if you ask the right office. In Milton, the one-acre minimum in AG-1 is a land price before it is a house price. In the FMLS reports the journal read, detached closings inside the city at this level were overwhelmingly older houses on acreage, 1970s and 1980s ranches off Providence or Batesville Road, frequently sold as is, often with a well and a septic system that carry their own file at the county health office.
Johns Creek sells a different thing at the same price: the 1990s subdivisions off State Bridge, Medlock Bridge and Peachtree Parkway, three or four bedrooms, 2,400 to 2,800 square feet, a house built between 1988 and 2000. The inspection there is predictable enough to budget for before you write anything: roof, windows, both HVAC units. What the money chases is the attendance zone, and the zone is why the house costs what it costs.
Why does the same price carry a different monthly payment?
Because the millage changes at the county line. Georgia assesses property at 40 percent of fair market value, and the bill is the city rate, the county rate and the school board's added together. A Cherokee County address generally carries a lower combined millage than a Fulton County one, and on the same $600,000 that gap is a real annual number rather than a rounding error. Homeowners premiums move by county and by roof age too: a 2003 roof and a 2019 roof are two different quotes, and the second one is cheaper.
Then the rate. Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey prints a weekly average every Thursday, and through the fall of 2025 it has been sitting in the low to mid sixes, where every $100,000 borrowed costs roughly $615 to $650 a month in principal and interest over thirty years. The same house at the same price in two counties can differ by more than $100 a month before a single upgrade is discussed.
What does the drive actually cost you?
The Census Bureau's American Community Survey puts average one-way commute times in Forsyth and Cherokee several minutes above the Fulton County figure, and the express lanes that shorten them are tolled. Roswell and Sandy Springs have the MARTA North Springs station at GA-400 and Abernathy, which is the nearest rail most of this list will ever see. Alpharetta has the Greenway and the managed lanes. Johns Creek has neither rail nor a freeway, only State Bridge and McGinnis Ferry at seven in the morning, which is a fact the brochures leave out and the residents do not.
What the journal would do this week
Pick your one number, then pull the last ninety days of closed sales in each of the seven towns, filtered to your subtype, and read the bottom ten of each in full. Take three addresses and open the assessor's record in the right county, Fulton, Forsyth or Cherokee, and write down what each sold for against what it is assessed at; that gap is your January tax conversation, and it is cheaper to have it now than later. Then drive the winner on a Tuesday at 7:40 in the morning, in the direction you will actually drive it, and time it with a clock rather than a feeling. It walks the streets and reads the public files, and both are open to you this week.
