Which Atlanta neighborhood is really the best?

Newcomers to the metro area may find themselves confused when gathering information about where to live. Rankings for the best Atlanta neighborhoods to live, work, raise a family or buy a house in 2018 are as diverse as the metro area itself.

Related: Why Old Fourth Ward is one of the coolest neighborhoods in the country

Westview and Sherwood Forest couldn’t be more different, yet both are ranked among the top neighborhoods to live in Atlanta.

Westview is the predominantly black community in Southwest Atlanta with homes currently on the market between $125K to $400K. Sherwood Forest is the predominantly white neighborhood near Ansley Park where current home prices range from $950K to $1.7M.

Related: The most expensive ‘hoods in Atlanta: Buckhead and Ansley top $1 million

As with most information, the best neighborhood to live in depends on the source.

Niche ranks Sherwood Forest as the best neighborhood to live in Atlanta, but Westview (deemed one of eight top neighborhoods to live in now by Atlanta Magazine) doesn't' t even crack the top 75 on their best neighborhood rankings.

West End, the neighborhood adjacent to Westview, is one of the best places to buy a new home according to owners.com.

Just when you think things are starting to make sense, you go back to Niche and discover that West End is so far down in the rankings that no numeric number is assigned to the neighborhood.

With such wildly divergent results from one survey to the next, the best approach for anyone looking for a new neighborhood may be to stick with the areas that continually rise to the top.

Decatur for example is also ranked as one of the best places in metro Atlanta to buy a home in the Owners.com listing and also appears at the very top of Niche rankings.

Within the city limits neighborhoods like Riverside and Lake Claire are almost always at the top of any neighborhood rankings no matter how the data is parsed.

And among the “suburban” areas, not a list exists that doesn’t feature Decatur, Johns Creek and Alpharetta somewhere near the top.

Unfortunately, no matter which neighborhood you may choose in Atlanta, home buyers may find themselves limited not by a neighborhood's desirability, but by availability as the number of homes for sale in the metro area continues to decline and real estate prices climb higher and higher.