Dansforth

Dansforth has a Fourth of July golf-cart parade, which tells you most of what you need to know about it. The houses went up between 2004 and 2010, about 220 of them, two-story traditionals on quarter-acre lots off Wait Avenue near Holding Park. There is a pool, there are sidewalks, and the street trees have had twenty years to catch up with the houses. Prices run $425,000 to $600,000 and the HOA is $450 a year, which is modest for a neighborhood with a pool. This is a settled mid-2000s subdivision on the established side of Wake Forest, not a new-construction pitch.

Where it is

Dansforth comes off Wait Avenue, close enough to Holding Park that the sidewalks inside the neighborhood are worth something. That puts it in the older, built-out part of town instead of out with the subdivisions going up on the north edge. Buyers coming from newer neighborhoods notice the trees first, and then they notice that the streets look finished, because they have been finished for fifteen years. Nothing is under construction here. What you see on a drive-through in March is what you get in July.

What to know if you're moving here

This is a settled neighborhood, and what a buyer is really weighing is age. The houses are all about the same vintage, which means they tend to need the same work at about the same time.

• Lots are about a quarter acre, larger than what most new subdivisions in town are platting now.
• The houses are two-story traditionals built between 2004 and 2010.
• Schools are Wake Forest Elementary, Wake Forest Middle and Wake Forest High.
• The pool is the main shared amenity and the association runs $450 a year, cheap next to what newer neighborhoods charge.
• That low number is also the drawback: budget for a roof, an HVAC system and a water heater instead of trusting the inspection report to cover you.
• Ask the association for its reserve study, because a mid-2000s pool eventually needs resurfacing and pumps, and $450 from 220 houses is not a large cushion.

What to do if you're visiting

Come on the Fourth of July if you can. The golf-cart parade is the neighborhood at its most itself, and it is the sort of thing people move here for without admitting it.

• The rest of the year the draw is the walk, since Holding Park is right there and the sidewalks run to it.
• For a meal, Lily Mae's is worth the wait.
• A full Italian dinner, sitting down, is what Il Bacio Italian Grill & Pizza does.
• Dessert is Lumpy's Ice Cream, where the line out the door is part of the experience.
• Anyone measuring the town before a move should see what Arts Wake Forest has scheduled, since that calendar is a decent read on how much happens here.