Cary Woods, Auburn: A Neighborhood Profile Near Downtown

Updated August 2026

Cary Woods is an in-town Auburn neighborhood. It shares its name with Cary Woods Elementary School, 715 Sanders Street, Auburn, AL 36830, in the Auburn City school district (Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026). House hunting here comes down to three things. Which schools an address is zoned for, what the county has on record for that parcel, and how in-town Auburn prices are moving. You can confirm all three yourself, and I'll show you where.

The Bottom Line

• Cary Woods Elementary serves grades K-2, with 439 students and a 14.63 student-teacher ratio (Cary Woods Elementary, Auburn, AL; 2024-25 school year; NCES Common Core of Data).
• That grade span is district architecture, not a quirk of this school. Auburn City Schools moved to paired K-2 and 3-5 elementary campuses in 2013 (Auburn City Schools System Snapshot, retrieved August 2026).
• Zoning is set by street address, and the district publishes a free School Zone Locator that answers it for any Auburn address (Auburn City Schools Enrollment, retrieved August 2026).
• Lee County's parcel search can be run by subdivision name, so you can pull up the Cary Woods parcels and what the county has on record for each one yourself (Lee County Revenue Commissioner, retrieved August 2026).
• Housing figures below are Auburn, residential, not Cary Woods. My market data has no neighborhood-level column.

The school the neighborhood is named for

Cary Woods Elementary is a K-2 school. Kindergarten, first grade, second grade. That surprises people, so it's worth sitting with for a second before you tour anything.

It's not that Cary Woods is unusual. It's how Auburn does elementary school. The district puts it this way: "In 2013 ACS shifted to a model of having eight elementary schools with four K-2 facilities that feed into four 3-5 facilities." It has since expanded that model (Auburn City Schools System Snapshot, retrieved August 2026). Auburn City Schools now runs 14 campuses serving 9,438 students (Auburn, AL; Class of 2025 timeframe; Auburn City Schools System Snapshot).

Here's what the federal data shows on the school itself.

The practical version: an address zoned for Cary Woods covers kindergarten through second grade and nothing past it. Grades 3-5 are a different campus, then middle, then high school. On the secondary side, the district operates East Samford School and J.F. Drake Middle School, Auburn Junior High School, and Auburn High School (Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026).

Which specific campus a Cary Woods address feeds into is set by the district, by address, and there's a free tool that answers it in about fifteen seconds.

How to confirm the school zone for a Cary Woods address

Auburn City Schools publishes an address-level map tool. That's the authority, not me and not a listing remark.

Go to the district's School Zone Locator, type in the exact street address you're considering, and the map returns the assigned schools for that parcel (Auburn City Schools Enrollment, retrieved August 2026). It takes about fifteen seconds, and it's the same tool the district points parents to.

Two habits I'd build in:

• Check the address, not the neighborhood. Zone lines can run down the middle of a street. Two houses you'd walk between in a minute can land in different attendance zones.
• Re-check before you go under contract. Zones are set by the district and can be redrawn. What was true when a listing went up may not be true at closing, and it isn't a promise anyone can make on the district's behalf.

Send me an address and I'll run it with you, and get the district on the phone if anything looks ambiguous. If you're still comparing areas, I've written full guides to Moores Mill and Yarbrough Farms too.

Pulling the county record on a Cary Woods house

The other thing worth doing before you write an offer is looking at what Lee County has on file for the parcel.

The Lee County Revenue Commissioner's office (Oline W. Price, Revenue Commissioner) runs a public online property search through Flagship GIS. You can search it by owner name, parcel number, street, or subdivision name, which is how you pull up the Cary Woods parcels (Lee County Revenue Commissioner, retrieved August 2026). The portal itself is at lee.alabamagis.com.

The subdivision field is the one I'd use first here. Searching Cary Woods as a subdivision gives you the actual recorded parcel footprint, which answers "where does the neighborhood start and stop" better than any written description. Zoom in, look at lot shapes and sizes, and you'll see how the streets were laid out.

What the county record gives you is boundaries, ownership, and current-year appraisal value. The age and condition of a specific house come out of the seller's property disclosure, the appraisal, and your inspection. I'd take those three over any neighborhood-wide claim about when everything was built.

One gap worth naming. No city planning document, plat index entry, or historic survey published online sets a build-out decade or a recorded neighborhood association for Cary Woods. So I answer both questions address by address.

Downtown and campus, next door

The reason people search for in-town Auburn neighborhoods like this one is proximity. Cary Woods sits inside the city of Auburn, which means the university sets a lot of the rhythm.

Auburn University enrolled 35,172 students in the Fall 2025 term, 28,953 undergraduate and 6,219 graduate and professional (Auburn University Office of Institutional Research, Fall 2025 term; the published summary does not break the total out by campus location). That's a college town in the structural sense, not just the sentimental one.

In my experience showing houses in the in-town neighborhoods, traffic, restaurant waits, and downtown parking all run on the academic calendar rather than the regular one. Some buyers want to be in the middle of that. Some want ten more minutes of driving and a quieter Saturday in October. On a home game weekend, those ten minutes are worth roughly a hundred.

It's a real preference, and it's worth deciding which one you are before you tour. If you're weighing this against other parts of town, my comparison of Auburn neighborhoods lays out the trade-offs.

The market backdrop: Auburn, not Cary Woods

One boundary note, then the numbers. Everything below is Auburn, residential, from the Lee County Association of REALTORS®. There's no Cary Woods column in that data, and a city median won't price an offer on a specific in-town house.

Chart 1: Year-over-year change in median sold price, Auburn, residential, January through July, 2026 compared with the same month in 2025. Source: Lee County Association of REALTORS®. Zero baseline (zero equals no change from the prior year).

Six of those seven months came in higher than the year before, February being the exception at $2,600 below its 2025 figure. July to July is the clearest read. The Auburn median sold price was $431,625 in July 2025 and $494,087 in July 2026, on 136 sales then and 114 now (Auburn; residential; Lee County Association of REALTORS®).

All figures: Auburn; January 2025 through July 2026; residential; Lee County Association of REALTORS®.

Fewer homes trading while the median sits higher is a thin-inventory pattern, not a boom. A Cary Woods offer still needs a comparative market analysis on that specific parcel. You can request a home valuation, or just ask me.

Questions buyers ask me about Cary Woods

What grades does Cary Woods Elementary serve?

Kindergarten through second grade, with 439 students and a 14.63 student-teacher ratio in the 2024-25 school year (Cary Woods Elementary, Auburn, AL; NCES Common Core of Data). Third grade and up means a different campus, because Auburn City Schools pairs K-2 and 3-5 elementary schools district-wide.

Is a house in Cary Woods automatically zoned for Cary Woods Elementary?

Don't assume it from the name. Auburn City Schools assigns by street address, and the district's School Zone Locator is the only tool that answers it for a specific parcel. Run it before you're under contract.

Where does the Cary Woods neighborhood actually begin and end?

Search Cary Woods in the subdivision field of the Lee County parcel viewer at lee.alabamagis.com and the map draws it for you, lot by lot (Lee County Revenue Commissioner, retrieved August 2026).

When were the homes in Cary Woods built?

It's a per-address answer. Pull the county parcel record for the specific house, then confirm against the seller's disclosure and the appraisal. Forward me the listing and I'll do the pulling.

Is there an HOA in Cary Woods?

Covenants and any dues obligation should come out of the title work and the seller's disclosures on the specific parcel. That's true even where a neighborhood is widely described as having no HOA, because the recorded documents are what bind you, not the description.

How's the market around Cary Woods right now?

Cary Woods is in Auburn, and citywide July 2026 closed at a $494,087 median sold price on 114 sales, against $431,625 on 136 sales in July 2025 (Auburn; residential; Lee County Association of REALTORS®). There is no Cary Woods figure in that data set, so neighborhood pricing is a separate, more specific conversation.

Thinking about a house in Cary Woods?

Send me an address and I'll come back with the county parcel record, the district's zone confirmation for that exact parcel, and a real comparative market analysis on the house. Not a portal estimate. If you'd rather start with a conversation, get in touch with me. I'd love to help.

I'm Amy Cotney, and I work with buyers and sellers across Auburn, Opelika, and Lee County.

Online home value estimates are a starting point only and are not a formal comparative market analysis or appraisal.

Figures are closed data for Lee County as of July 2026, from the Lee County Association of REALTORS®. Market conditions change and past figures are not a prediction.

Amy Cotney, REALTOR®, is a licensed real estate salesperson (Alabama license #108235) with Roots Real Estate - Investment Development, 235 N Gay St, Auburn, AL 36830. Call or text (334) 332-4002 or email [email protected]. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Figures are general market guidance. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed, and readers should independently verify anything they rely on.

Sources

• Cary Woods Elementary School detail, NCES Common Core of Data, U.S. Department of Education, 2024-25 school year and 2025-26 directory.
• Cary Woods Elementary School, "Our School", Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026.
• System Snapshot, Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026.
• Our System, Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026.
• Enrollment and School Zone Locator, Auburn City Schools, retrieved August 2026.
• Property search information and Lee County parcel viewer, Lee County Revenue Commissioner, retrieved August 2026.
• Total Enrollment Quick Facts, Fall 2025 term, Auburn University Office of Institutional Research.
• Lee County Association of REALTORS®, Auburn monthly residential figures, January 2025 through July 2026.