When my wife and I moved to Dunwoody in 2010, we didn’t know anybody. We didn’t know the neighborhoods, the vibe, or which part of town was which. We picked a spot close to what we knew: Gwinnett, where I grew up, and her parents in Chamblee. Dunwoody had only become a city two years earlier, and there wasn’t much out there telling you what was going on.
A few years later I got my real estate license, and I kept watching buyers go through the same thing we did. So in 2018 I started a Facebook group, and later the What’s Up Dunwoody podcast, to help people understand the city before they move here instead of after.
After 16 years of living here and 10 years as a REALTOR®, these are the things I wish someone had told us.
1. Dunwoody is groups of communities, not just neighborhoods
A lot of Dunwoody is organized around swim and tennis clubs. A handful of neighborhoods share one pool, and together they act as one community. Dunwoody North, Kingsley, Vermack and Village Mill all work this way. You get a shared pool, a swim team and a social calendar.
So when you’re looking at a house, don’t just ask about the house. Ask which pool you’d go to and which crowd you’d run with. That shapes your life here more than square footage does.
2. Living close to school doesn’t mean your kids get a bus
We lived about a mile from Chesnut Elementary, and the bus didn’t pick up my kids. I’d never have guessed that. When we were there, Chesnut had one or two buses for around 400 kids.
I loved driving my kids to school, but I’d have liked the option. Coming from Gwinnett, where riding the bus was just normal, it still seems ridiculous to me that DeKalb doesn’t put more money into getting kids to school. If you’re counting on the bus, ask before you buy.
3. Want to know how many kids are in a neighborhood? Check the bus stops
Drive through around 7 a.m. on a school day. A packed bus stop tells you more about a neighborhood than any listing will.
4. Test your commute before you fall in love with a neighborhood (or a house)
Unless you work from home, traffic is part of your day, every day. I tell every client the same thing: at the time you’d normally leave for work, put the house’s address and your office’s address into Apple Maps or Google Maps and see how long it takes. Do it on a Tuesday, not a Saturday.
5. Walkability is limited here, so be picky about where
You can walk around your neighborhood, and that’s great. But in most of Dunwoody, you can’t really walk anywhere. If walkability matters to you, you need to be very close to Brook Run, a park you love, or a shopping center you’ll actually use. There are only a few of those spots, so bring it up with your agent early.
6. Know what comes with the age of your house
Our house was built in the late ’60s, and the sewer line out of the house was terracotta pipe. When we moved in, those pipes were right at the end of their life, so we had to replace our sewer line almost immediately. It wasn’t cheap.
If you’d driven through Dunwoody North about 10 years ago, you’d have seen dirt patches in yards all over the neighborhood. That was people replacing those same lines. It’s obvious to me now. It wasn’t then, and a good agent should flag it.
7. Neighborhoods are changing in different ways, at different speeds
Some neighborhoods, like Dunwoody North, are older and cohesive. Drive through and most of the homes look similar, since the builders used fewer than a dozen styles, and homes there aren’t getting torn down.
Drive through The Branches and every home looks different. Many of the smaller original homes have been torn down and replaced with bigger ones, so there isn’t one cohesive style.
Neither one is wrong. Just know which one you want.
We got lucky, and you don’t have to rely on luck
We love where we live. We picked our spot because of Brook Run and how close it was to Chesnut. Chesnut had great scores, and Brook Run was the nicest park in the area. Since then, the city has doubled down on Brook Run and made it even better.
But a lot of what I know, I learned after the closing, and from helping my clients over the last 10 years.
If you’re thinking about moving here and want someone who knows the market and the communities, reach out. Join the Dunwoody Area Community Forum on Facebook, listen to What’s Up Dunwoody, and learn this stuff before you buy, not after.