With film and television spending hitting a record high in Georgia, home prices rose sharply last year in the state’s biggest city, home to Tyler Perry’s $100 million estate.
In the past decade, Atlanta has earned the moniker Hollywood of the South. The city boasts a population of around 500,000 in Atlanta proper and roughly 6 million in the greater metro area, with a rising number of full-time and part-time residents who are entertainment industry professionals. Many have been lured to work on productions like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Walking Dead and the new Father of the Bride, or to find more stable work at the 700-acre Trilith Studios or Tyler Perry Studios in the heart of Atlanta.
Long a mecca for hip-hop artists and Black creators, Atlanta has also become increasingly popular with public figures from all walks of life. The undisputed media king of Atlanta — Tyler Perry — recently completed an astounding $100 million estate on 2,100 acres in the city of Douglasville, near his 330-acre studio complex. Celebrities who live or have had homes in Atlanta include Elton John, Melissa McCarthy, Ludacris, André 3000, Norman Reedus, Cardi B, Shaquille O’Neal, Gucci Mane, Jane Fonda and The Vampire Diaries co-creator Julie Plec. Whitney Houston was also a longtime resident; the Alpharetta home where she and Bobby Brown shot Being Bobby Brown is on the market for $1.9 million.
This rise in status and cachet has helped lead to a booming real estate market. Along with ample work opportunities and Southern hospitality, Atlanta offers luxury real estate at a fraction of the price of Los Angeles or New York. According to Rocket Homes, in November 2022, the median price of homes sold was $395,322, a 10.8 percent increase over 2021. The median price for five-bedroom-plus homes is $1.2 million.
According to Shanna Bradley of Ansley Atlanta Real Estate, the luxury market is particularly on fire right now — though overall home prices across the city slightly declined in November compared to the previous month. In the exclusive neighborhood of Buckhead, lavish estates are on the market for $4 million to $6 million, boasting amenities comparable with a $15 million home in Los Angeles. Bradley holds the $5.995 million listing on Mariah Carey’s palatial Buckhead estate, which includes nine bedrooms and a recording studio. Another Buckhead standout currently on the market is the home of best-selling author Emily Giffin, whose 1920s mansion is listed for $8.99 million.
“Comparatively speaking to other markets, we have been relatively affordable,” says Christa Huffstickler, CEO of luxury brokerage Engel & Völkers Atlanta.
Bradley agrees. “I think the current market is driven by the fact that a lot of people are still moving here from other places where the real estate is so much more expensive,” she says.
The sprawling Atlanta metro area offers varied real estate, from charming 1920s cottages to modern mansions by the likes of Robert Green, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. “There’s this plethora of the types of jobs that go into what is the film and production industry, from set designers to cameramen to all these different jobs that are a part of that industry. And not everybody in those jobs is making $2 million or $3 million or $5 million a film,” says Huffstickler. “We have a diversity of neighborhoods and product types, and there’s a fit for everyone.”
There is also the draw of Atlanta’s vast array of colleges (including famous HBCU’s like Morehouse and Spelman Colleges) that offer an elite workforce in a myriad of industries and employers including Google, Microsoft, Cox Communications and CNN.
Arthur Lewis, partner and creative director of UTA Fine Arts/Artist Space, notes that “over the last decade, Atlanta has become a leader in motion picture production and is a bastion for tech startups and a mainstay for major companies like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and UPS. Additionally, Atlanta has one of the highest LGBTQIA+ populations per capita and the second-largest Black metropolitan area in the United States, making it an extremely diverse city.” In 2023, UTA will open an Artist Space in Atlanta, its second after the one in Beverly Hills.
Brian McGowan, president of Centennial Yards Company, a mixed-use development covering 50 acres of a former Atlanta rail yard, adds that the amount of film and television production in the area, combined with the city’s hip-hop music scene, makes Atlanta “a cultural hub where people want to be if you want to influence culture direction.” In fiscal year 2022, entertainment productions spent $4.4 billion in Georgia, a record high — despite some talk that Hollywood would boycott the state over its six-week abortion ban that passed in 2019.
Atlanta’s central location and the beauty of the South have drawn 65,000 new residents in 2022, leading to a seller’s market. “We’re a couple of hours to mountains. We’re a couple of hours to the beach. The busiest airport in the world is in our city. So the connectivity to a lot of different components as a major metropolitan city has been really attractive,” says Huffstickler. “We are green, and we have trees, and we have parks. We have the best restaurants. There’s really something for everybody, I think, in Atlanta. And as a result, we’ve just seen the growth of this city moving at exponential speed.”
Midtown and downtown Atlanta — long something of an economically depressed cultural wasteland — are also having a renaissance. New high-rises featuring lock-and-leave pied-à-terre condos have proved popular with young tech employees, aging boomers and entertainment industry workers. The Flats, a luxury condo community offering short-term rentals attached to the sprawling Ponce City Market, has become particularly popular with actors, among them Ed Helms, Gabrielle Union and Jon Hamm. There is also the new 40 West 12th residences, located in Midtown, which features high-end condos ranging from $1-$2.5 million.
One of the most ambitious projects in the downtown area is Centennial Yards, scheduled to be completed in the next decade. “The project will be 8 million square feet mixed-use office, residential, commercial, so roughly 4 million square feet of residential, 4 million square feet of everything else,” says McGowan. “And then the heart of it will be a sports and entertainment hub. It will be a district that will have bars and restaurants and live music and venues. You will want to come to downtown Atlanta before games and before events and stay after them because there’ll be something to do.”
Other large-scale projects include the scheduled $150 million transformation of downtown’s Five Points Station, the hub of MARTA, Atlanta’s mass transit system. Underground Atlanta, downtown’s historic shopping and entertainment district, is also undergoing a massive redevelopment under the guidance of architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Two new mixed-use residential towers in South Downtown developed by Newport RE are scheduled to open in 2025.
But as Atlanta rises further as a high-end metropolis, many of its residents believe it is the city’s laid-back Southern charm that draws everyone from stars and music producers to grips to the area. “That ‘Hey y’all,’ and being able to greet people with a smile is something that is really refreshing and that is culturally distinct to the South,” says Huffstickler. “I think what celebrities like about being in Atlanta is that we’ve grown into a big city that still feels like a small town.”