This information is for you if you are considering moving to the North Metro Atlanta area. You’ve probably heard of Sugar Hill and it may even already be one of your top choices as far as where to start your home search.

If you aren’t familiar with Sugar Hill, it is in Gwinnett County and is located off of I-985, about 40 miles from downtown Atlanta and is nestled between Suwanee and Buford. You have to love that the city’s motto is The Sweet Life. How perfect is that for a city named Sugar Hill? Stick around until the end to learn more about Sugar Hill!

Helping you find a great home for your family while navigating the real estate market with as little stress as possible is my top priority. If making a move to Georgia and finding a home here is your goal, then I would love to hear from you! Send me a text, email, or call and let’s talk about it!

It is honestly hard to find much not to love about Sugar Hill, but I’m going to try my best to give you an honest look at some pros and cons of living there.

Pro 1: Downtown Sugar Hill. Located off of Broad Street, this is the place to be in Sugar Hill and is such a wonderful addition to the city. The E Center is the heart of downtown and you’ll find wonderful shops and dining options, just like in many downtowns, but you’ll also find a well maintained community gym and fitness center that is free to Sugar Hill residents. There is a variety of workout equipment, a walking track, basketball courts, and fitness classes are offered as well for a small fee.

Downtown you’ll also find the Eagle Theater, known for its $2 Tuesdays and The Bowl, an outdoor concert venue that hosts concerts throughout the year.

During the summer months, you can bring your kids to enjoy the splash pad. The best part is that it is free!

Con 1: Housing Availability. Living in Sugar Hill is great, if you can find a home. People love living here and tend to move here for the long haul. I pulled some numbers and Sugar Hill and a grand total of 46 homes available. That’s in all price ranges. Compare that to Buford with 177 homes and Suwanee with 137 homes. If you really want to call Sugar Hill home, it is very doable, you just won’t have as many homes to choose from as you would in nearby areas and may have to wait longer for just the right home to hit the market.

Pro 2: Outdoor Recreation. Sugar Hill’s Gary Pirkle Park is a wonderful perk of living in Sugar Hill.   This 67-acre park has so much to offer! One of the most unique features is that its large playground is covered by a pavilion. That means you can take the kids to play in the summer without the sun beaming down on them, or even play when it is rainy! There’s also a creek running through the park, turf fields, and almost 2 miles of paved and lighted trails. The park is very popular and for good reason! There is something to enjoy here for your entire family.

The park is also home to Sugar Hill’s community garden. Plots are available for a very reasonable rental fee and the garden provides a great way to grow some of your own food if you either don’t have a yard or have a yard without great growing conditions.

Con 2: Traffic. If you’ve watched any of my other videos, traffic is always a con. I feel a bit like a broken record saying it again, but it is one of the downsides to living in a metro area. You do have to take traffic into consideration when deciding where to live, especially when deciding where to live relative to where you work.

During the day, traffic isn’t bad at all. But during rush hour, traffic can get quite backed up on Buford Highway, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, which is what you will take from the Duluth area to Sugar Hill and Traffic on I-85 and I-985, which is what you will take from Atlanta back to Sugar Hill can also get pretty bad.

It isn’t a deal breaker of a commute to downtown Atlanta as plenty of people do it, but you will want to factor an average of about 45 minutes each way, plus additional time on rainy days or days where there is a traffic accident into your decision on whether or not to move to Sugar Hill.

Pro 3: The Sugar Hill Greenway. Okay, so this isn’t near completion yet, but when it is finished one day it will be an awesome addition to Sugar Hill. The plan is to have 16 miles of paved trails encircling the city. Two new parks will be built as well to serve as trailheads.

One of them is presently under construction, the 9.5 acre Gold Mine Park is named because of the city’s history as home to gold miners way back in the day. There will eventually be a second city park built as well, with a lake in the middle.

Once completed, the greenway sounds like it will be worth the wait and give you a fantastic local option to get out and get some exercise without having to travel far from home.

Con 3: Shopping. Again, this isn’t a huge deal but it does matter to some people and sometimes having the right store just down the street can be very helpful. Sugar Hill doesn’t have a ton of shopping. There are the boutiques downtown and an assortment of other shops and businesses in town, but aside from a few grocery stores, Sugar Hill doesn’t have much in the way of big box type of stores. They aren’t far away, and you can head to Cumming, Buford, Hamilton Mill, or Suwanee for almost anything you could ever want to buy.

But, you’ll spend 10-30 minutes to get there depending where you live in Sugar Hill and on traffic instead of hopping in the car and getting to the store 5 minutes later.

Like I said, that is not a deal breaker for most people but is something to keep in mind.

Pro 4: Schools.  Sugar Hill is in the Gwinnett County School District which consistently is a well respected district in the state and the nation. Sugar Hill is served by Lanier High School which is in Sugar Hill and North Gwinnett High School which is located next door in Suwanee.

North Gwinnett is ranked the 2^nd best high school out of 27 in the county per US News & World Report and is ranked the 16^th best high school in the entire state and the 504^th best out of thousands in the country. That’s impressive!

Lanier is ranked the 13^th best in the county and the 62^nd best in the state. Don’t let that turn you off from Lanier though and think North Gwinnett’s district is where you need to be. There are plenty of students that thrive at Lanier and as always, the numbers on paper and school ranking reports are only part of the story.

I always suggest families do their own research and see if a particular school will be a good fit for your family or not.

Con 4: Affordability. As is true of many of the North Atlanta suburbs, homes in Sugar Hill tend to be at the higher end of the price spectrum. In November 2022, the median sale price was $445,000. You can still find homes here for under $400,000, but they tend to be either very small, need a good bit of work, or both.

If you want to get a bit more house for your money, you may want to look further out in Barrow or Jackson Counties.

All in all, Sugar Hill is a great place to call home!  If you are interested in finding out more about homes currently available here or nearby, please reach out! You can send me an email, text, or give me a call. Whatever is most convenient for you. I work with people moving here from all over the country as well as people who are currently in the area and desiring a change. I’m looking forward to meeting you!

Sugar Hill is a city in northern Gwinnett County in the U.S. state of Georgia and is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. The population is around 24,617  and is the fourth-largest city in Gwinnett County.  Sugar Hill, is a city that is really beginning to grow.  Located between Buford and Suwanee, Sugar Hill was once known as the heart of Georgia’s gold mining communities.  If you ask around you may also hear that moonshiners started making moonshine right here in Sugar Hill!

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL CURRENT HOMES FOR SALE IN THE AREA