True Cost of Living in Milton, GA

Milton, Georgia is one of Fulton County’s northernmost suburbs with picturesque estates, a fantastic location, and notoriously high price tags. Milton is highly popular with commuters because you can be in Atlanta within 30 minutes. The largely residential city is a bit more rural and laid-back than many North Atlanta suburbs, but residents still have plenty of extra shopping, dining, and work opportunities in nearby Alpharetta. As a matter of fact, Milton is a relatively new city–just created in 2006. Many people choose Milton as the place to raise their families away from the city. In fact, Niche.com named Milton the #3 best suburbs to raise a family in Georgia. Its fantastic location and great schools make it very desirable, but the biggest downfall to Milton is the cost of living.

If you have watched my cost of living videos in the past, you’ve heard me reference bestplaces.net, which is a website that breaks down the cost of living in towns all across the US. They use a scale of 100 to describe the overall cost of living in an area compared to the national average. The state of Georgia as a whole has a score of 93.4, which is below that national average of 100. Milton ranked a score of 143 on their scale with the cost of housing receiving a whopping 229 rating. This was last updated in August of 2021, so it is a bit behind the times. At that point, they listed the median home price as $671,000. Our MLS system shows that the median home price was $946,500 back then when they last updated this. Since the website doesn’t have access to all of the listings our MLS system has, it’s not surprising that that number comes in lower than reported, and it’s also safe to assume that even the score of 229 should be higher because get this- currently there are 75 active listings on the MLS system. 59 of them are over a million dollars. 27 of them are over $2 million! The least expensive listing is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with 1,100 square feet, coming in at $385K. The most expensive is a new construction home that will have 12,750 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 and a half bathrooms, an elevator that takes you to all three floors, for a mere $7,450,000. The current average sales price of a home in Milton is just under $1,380,000, with a median sales price of $1,179,000. Super affordable, right? You would think these high prices would slow down demand, but the average days on market in Milton is only 11. Back in 2019, this was 104 days so despite the hefty price tag, people are still moving into the area. If you compare the cost of homes to Alpharetta, where people seek out for many of the same reasons, Milton’s home prices are significantly higher. The average sales price in Alpharetta is currently $684,000 which pales in comparison to Milton’s $1.38. People might seek out Milton instead of Alpharetta if they are looking for more land and privacy for these sprawling estates. One of the major contributing factors to the high prices in Milton is that homes are on bigger pieces of land, whether it be several acres or larger, like this one that sits on over 30 acres. Having so much land, while still being so close to the city of Atlanta is huge, and in turn, runs up pricing.

So what about taxes in Milton? So generally speaking, property taxes in Georgia overall are much lower than many states like Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. You can go check out this video on my channel if you are interested in hearing more about how property taxes here in Georgia work. However, property taxes here are based off of the assessed value of the home. If the house is valued at several million dollars, your taxes are obviously going to be much higher than they would be if you were buying a home for say $300,000. I still think you would be surprised by the property taxes, even on a massive estate like you’ll find in Milton compared to what you might pay in another state. In Milton, you’ll find that many homes sit on those large lots like we talked about, but they aren’t in neighborhoods. This means you won’t have to pay HOA fees or club memberships like you would in most neighborhoods. This will save you a few hundred dollars per year- or several thousand if you were considering one of the country club neighborhoods. For example, in the River Club in Suwanee, you have $4,000 in yearly HOA fees, and if you want to be a golf club member, that’s going to cost you $36,500. Yes, you heard that right, almost $40 grand. Yikes!

Aside from the high cost of homes in Milton, you’ll see that most other categories fell in line with the national average, or just above it. The grocery category received a ranking of 103.4. They’ve got Walmart, Aldi, Target, and tons of other stores that are technically in Alpharetta, but depending where you are in Milton, are just a few minutes away like Spouts, Whole Foods, Publix, and Kroger. I’m sure you’ve heard me talk about all of the great shopping that Alpharetta has, which you’ll be able to get to very quickly from Milton. You’re also very close to the Collection at Forsyth which has some great shopping as well. When it comes to the cost of utilities, Milton was ranked at 101.7 which is lower than the overall state ranking of 103.2. People from other states are always blown away when they hear that utilities are not astronomically expensive here since we have to run our AC for what feels like ten months out of the year. Every home in Milton will have air conditioning. Not just because they are mostly multi million dollar estates, but because every home in Georgia has air conditioning. Of course there are always exceptions to everything, but if you are getting a loan in Georgia, your lender will require that you have AC. On average, the monthly cost of utilities in the state of Georgia is around $349 a month. 

At the time of filming this video, gas prices are pretty high in Georgia. However, there is currently not a state in the US with average gas prices below $4 a gallon, so comparatively, they are definitely on the lower side. In Fulton county, where Milton is located, the average price of gas is $4.25 a gallon. 

So what do you think? Obviously, Milton won’t be the perfect location for everyone, but if you are looking for a big piece of land with a gorgeous home while still being a hop, skip and a jump from Atlanta, it just might be for you!