Augusta: Off the Radar to On the Rise
August 7, 2026
Augusta gets a bad rap.
Aside from the not-so-small golf tournament that happens every spring, Augusta is rarely on the radar for many people not from Georgia. Even for those from Augusta or within close proximity, the city’s reputation often takes a serious beating.
I have witnessed locals and non-locals referring to it as Disgusta, Atlanta’s Red-Headed Stepchild, Little Chicago (because of historical corruption), close to everything, an epicenter for brain drain and many more unflattering things.
I think Augusta is an incredible place to work and also to live. Apparently so do a lot of other people according to a recent LinkedIn study.
I am not native to Augusta and prior to moving to the city in 2006, if you mentioned Augusta, I would have been as likely to head to Maine as I would have been to head to Georgia.
In 2006, as an aspiring real estate investor, I found myself loading my U-Haul in New York City with books and CDs and moving to the second biggest city in Georgia with a desire to begin my investing career in earnest.
There were several things that caused me to move to Augusta including
- Being home to my first mentor
- Having a network of other real estate acquaintances
- Having an abundance of aged inventory of scatter-site single family homes
But what really stood out about Augusta then and still now, is its affordability. As GlobeSt said in its summary of the recent LinkedIn article:
The metro’s labor market and housing data point to a region trying to balance growth with affordability. LinkedIn reports that 11.9 percent of jobs in Richmond are remote and 11.4 percent hybrid, with a median income of $64,585 and an average home listing price of $553,215.
What Augusta was for me, and what I think it can be for many professionals, is a very reasonably-priced, high-quality-of-life place to earn and learn.
Augusta’s real estate market is affordable now and was even more affordable in 2006. The low price of entry and reasonably-priced labor market proved to be very accommodating of the many mistakes I would make, especially early in my career.
It was much easier to bounce back from losing 10% on the flip of a 150k home than it would be on a million dollar home. As the entire world of real estate imploded several years later, I would also learn how resilient the Augusta market was.
One of the things that I did not realize until many years later was how beneficial Augusta was for setting conservative and practical cash flow expectations.
In my early days in Augusta, it was very common to find cashflowing real estate so I assumed all real estate should cashflow. This thesis allowed me to navigate the GFC with investments intact, bruised and beaten, but not defeated.
As my investments have expanded to other markets, this conservative cashflow philosophy has been tremendously beneficial to ensuring my investments weathered many other tumultuous market shifts consistently prioritizing yield over speculative equity plays.
It’s been 12 years since I lived in Augusta but whenever I go back it still feels like home. It’s where I became a husband, a father and was the perfect environment to build Auben from the ground up.
This week’s blog post comes to us from our Founder, Tyson Schuetze!
Be sure to listen to the latest episode of Real Estate Rewind to hear about what Augusta was like in the early days of Auben Realty and listen to Tyson reminisce on the early days with his father, Bill Schuetze, and Natalie Walls!
Listen now and be sure to leave a review, subscribe, and share it with your friends!
Spotify: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/9IIF1VUWn5b
YouTube: https://youtu.be/tillUv94U4U
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-three-properties-to-auben-the-untold-origin-story/id1896884714?i=1000780267020