As the ninth largest city in the United States, Atlanta is home to half a million residents and literally thousands of housing options. As you can imagine, finding the right home in Georgia's capital can be a little overwhelming at first. Turn to the real estate section of any of Atlanta's newspapers and you'll find hundreds of ads for homes, apartments, lofts, and condominiums in the Atlanta region.

One course of action for a home buyer would be to work with an Atlanta real estate agent and have him or her find potential homes. This leads to discussing your needs with the agent, getting together for meetings, and ultimately, touring home after home until you find the right one. An alternative and arguably easier route is to search Atlanta real estate listings yourself to find the ideal property.

If your budget is higher than the typical cost of a home in Atlanta, you could narrow down your selection to homes within the affluent Buckhead neighborhood. If you're a free spirit with ties to Atlanta's arts community, perhaps a residence in Cabbagetown would have the architectural elements and amenities you desire. Or, maybe you simply want to live in the heart of the city where everything is within a few blocks of your front door.

After determining where in Atlanta you'd like to live, an Atlanta MLS search will show you available properties. From there, you can narrow the properties down even further, eliminating ones without enough bedrooms, bathrooms, or the ones below or above your price range. Doing so condenses the Atlanta real estate listings, showing only the homes of interest to you.