Long before Michael Bunch became a Realtor in Chastain Park, before his photographs hung on the walls of a neighborhood coffee shop, and before tens of thousands of people viewed his images online, he was a college student from a small town in the Mississippi Delta who thought Chastain Park was about the prettiest place he had ever seen.

“Chastain Park was always the dream,” Michael says.

He first came to know Atlanta while visiting an aunt who lived here during his college years at Mississippi State University.

“I can vividly remember driving the roads around the amphitheater thinking these were the most beautiful houses I had ever seen.”

After graduation, Michael and his wife, Tracy, didn't need much convincing about where they wanted to begin their life together.

Atlanta was it.

They rented an apartment at Post River, just outside I-285 off Powers Ferry Road. Michael, a civil engineering graduate, went to work for an apartment and motel developer, evaluating the feasibility of projects on raw land the company was considering.

The country was emerging from a recession. Atlanta felt full of possibility.

And the young couple took advantage of it.

“We bought used rafts and shot the Hooch. We ran the Peachtree Road Race. We watched the Fourth of July fireworks at Lenox Mall.”

And, of course, they found their way back to Chastain.

Michael remembers magical evenings at the amphitheater, complete with candles, tables, tablecloths and what he laughingly calls “all the other bougie picnic trappings.”

They loved the city.

But when it came time to buy their first home, they fell into a very common trap.

“New construction homes can be so tempting,” Michael says. “There's the thrill of picking out the lot and the house plan and then watching everything take shape from the ground up.”

They followed new construction out to the suburbs.

Michael still believes they chose one of the best lots in the development. The house was modest, but it fit their budget at a time when mortgage rates were around 12 percent.

There was only one problem.

Their new home wasn't particularly close to anything—or anyone—they knew.

“That got old,” he says.

The dream of getting back closer to Chastain never really disappeared.

As careers advanced and promotions came, their budget grew. Eventually Michael and Tracy realized the time had come.

But there was an obvious question:

It was 1994. Michael had become a registered professional engineer and was working on environmental projects. Real estate was still recovering from the early-1990s recession.

And home shopping looked very different.

“Our agent gave us these big white listing books,” Michael remembers. “We would sit there and comb through the pages. There was no looking for houses online.”

They considered Virginia-Highland. Then they found two houses in Chastain Park near the very top of their price range.

Michael was convinced one of them was “the one.”

It wasn't.

“It was such a mess inside that we were out of there pretty quickly.”

But two doors down was another house. It had been renovated. It worked for them.

There was just one little issue.

A very steep driveway.

They bought it anyway.

More than three decades later, Michael and Tracy are still there. It's where they raised their children and built their life together.

Michael wasn't in real estate yet, but Chastain Park had already begun teaching the civil engineer one of real estate's oldest lessons:

Location. Location. Location.

At the same time Michael and Tracy were finding their way home to Chastain, Michael was wrestling with another question.

Engineering was a good profession.

It just wasn't proving to be a particularly good fit for him.

For several years, Michael and Tracy had been part of a home fellowship through a church in Woodstock. Tracy's boss had provided the initial connection, and the group became the source of several lifelong friendships.

It also became a safe place for Michael to wrestle with what he wanted to do with his life.

One member of the group happened to be a Realtor.

She ultimately helped Michael and Tracy buy their Chastain Park home. Along the way, she also helped Michael see that real estate might provide the career change he had been looking for.

So the engineer went back to school.

At night.

And on weekends.

He earned his real estate license while continuing to work his engineering job.

Then came the leap.

“I resigned from my engineering position two weeks before our daughter was born so I could be home with Tracy and the baby.”

His real estate career launched in the fall of 1995.

Michael left engineering.

Engineering, however, never entirely left Michael.

“As it turns out, there aren't a lot of former engineers in real estate,” he says.

In a profession filled with naturally outgoing personalities, his analytical wiring became an unexpected advantage.

Details matter to him. So do patterns. He tends to anticipate problems, look several moves ahead and remain calm when something complicated needs to be solved.

Those qualities would become increasingly valuable over the next three decades.

But like most new Realtors, Michael went wherever opportunity took him.

“As a new Realtor, you take the business wherever the referrals lead.”

For Michael, those referrals led all over God's creation in metro Atlanta.

He was busy helping clients, raising a family and building a career.

And without really intending to, he says he “turned my back on Chastain Park.”

Not literally.

It was still home.

In fact, it became his refuge.

Michael and Tracy raised their children around the park. The kids learned to ride bicycles in the parking areas near the amphitheater. There were trips to the playground, NYO sports, art classes and countless ordinary family moments woven into life around Chastain.

They watched the neighborhood change.

Michael simply wasn't selling many houses there.

Then the world stopped.

And Michael started walking.

COVID was a real turning point.

“The world slowed down,” Michael says, “and I needed that.”

For the first time in years, he found himself spending significant time in his own neighborhood.

In July 2020, Michael began the process of becoming certified to train and coach through The ONE Thing. One of the first assignments was straightforward: don't merely teach the models.

Live them.

That meant completing a 66 Day Challenge.

Michael chose walking.

For 45 minutes.

Every day.

At 6 a.m.

Around Chastain Park.

“This changed my life,” he says.

The daily habit improved his health and well-being. The principles he was studying also changed the way he thought about choices, priorities and core values.

And the walks produced another completely unexpected result.

Photographs.

Michael was on the path around Chastain every day during what happened to be one of the best hours imaginable for someone with a camera.

Sunrises.

Clouds.

Fog.

Long shadows.

Unexpected light.

The same familiar landscape looking completely different from one morning to the next.

Michael began taking pictures.

Apparently, he has an eye for it.

“The photos were really just this amazing by-product of being out there every single day,” he says. “But apparently I have a special eye for framing a view.”

He began posting some of the images to his personal social media accounts, usually in the context of talking about walking.

Then he started sharing them on Nextdoor.

This time, there was a little strategy involved.

Michael had spent decades building a successful real estate career across Atlanta. Perhaps sharing beautiful images of the place he actually lived could spread a little joy while also helping his Chastain neighbors become more familiar with the Realtor living among them.

The response surprised him.

People encouraged him to keep posting.

He did.

He also uploaded several photographs to Google Maps. One of his Chastain Park images has now accumulated more than 90,000 views.

And one of those online photographs led to a particularly unexpected phone call.

The owner of Grabacup Cafe and her designer wanted the new space to have a distinctly local feel.

So they went online looking for photographs of Chastain Park.

They found Michael's.

There was only one slight complication when they contacted him.

Michael wasn't in Chastain Park.

He wasn't even in Georgia.

He was walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

From Spain, Michael assembled a folder of some of his favorite Chastain images and sent them back home.

Today, four of the five Chastain Park photographs printed for the walls of Grabacup are his.

There is something fitting about it.

A habit that began with walking had followed Michael halfway around the world—and then found its way back home.

The photographs continued finding other lives as well.

Michael had used Mixbook for vacation photo projects, and eventually he realized he had accumulated enough exceptional Chastain images to create a coffee-table book.

Initially, the idea was professional.

If he was going to market homes in Chastain Park, Michael wanted prospective buyers to understand that they weren't simply considering a house.

They were considering a lifestyle.

So he created a book that could help tell that story.

It has now been reprinted three times.

Copies have gone not only to clients but also to people who encouraged his photography on Nextdoor and to regular walkers he has met along the path.

The latest evolution is even more old-school: sets of Chastain Park postcards and stickers featuring his photographs.

That suits Michael just fine.

“I'm kind of old-school,” he admits. “I still send birthday cards. Handwritten notes are powerful because nobody really does them anymore.”

Something else was happening while Michael was rediscovering Chastain through those early-morning walks.

His professional attention was coming home, too.

After more than three decades of living in Chastain Park, Michael says he finds himself increasingly protective of his neighbors—particularly longtime homeowners in some of the neighborhood's original brick ranches.

They can be inundated with unsolicited letters, calls and text messages from investors searching for opportunities.

“There is an army of investors out there looking for deals here,” Michael says.

He doesn't fault someone for wanting to buy a property.

He simply wants homeowners to understand what they own before making a decision about what it is worth.

That's where Michael's unusual combination of experience becomes particularly valuable.

Three decades in residential real estate.

More than three decades living in Chastain.

And underneath it all, the mind of an engineer.

Michael understands the nuances between streets. He understands how easements, restrictions and other characteristics of a property can affect land value. And he studies why some Chastain houses sell quickly while seemingly similar properties can languish.

All of that, he says, matters when establishing the right strategy and price from the beginning.

“It's sad to see homeowners struggle,” Michael says. “I understand why it's comfortable initially to select a friend who happens to be an agent, but putting your house up for sale is not something to underestimate.”

Particularly painful is what happens when the strategy misses.

“There is no worse feeling than getting ignored once you hit the market because the strategy is off. That feeling of not having control—especially if you're used to having it in every other area of your life—can be jarring.”

Michael believes Chastain sellers deserve more than a sign in the yard, photographs of the rooms and a listing uploaded to the internet.

Buyers need to understand the story waiting for them beyond the property lines.

The amphitheater.

The walking paths.

NYO.

The playgrounds.

The horses.

The trees.

The community.

The morning light Michael has spent years photographing.

“You have to sell the house and the lifestyle,” he says. “That's what I love.”

Being a resident creates another unusual advantage.

Michael is close enough to keep an eye on the homes he represents, help with property care and make sure a house is ready when prospective buyers arrive.

“Showings go so much better when a home is lit up and full of energy.”

But his definition of representation goes well beyond marketing.

It means helping owners understand their options. Telling the truth diplomatically. Getting the pricing right. Vetting potential buyers. Anticipating problems. Managing the details. Finding solutions when something unexpected happens. And providing enough perspective that his clients can make clear decisions without feeling pressured.

The goal is to make a complicated process feel remarkably calm.

For Michael, that work has become personal.

After all, he knows what it feels like to be the person wondering whether he can possibly afford to live in Chastain Park.

He remembers being the college kid from the Mississippi Delta driving the streets around the amphitheater and looking at those houses in amazement.

He remembers the big white listing books.

The house he was certain was “the one” that absolutely wasn't.

And the renovated house two doors down with the impossibly steep driveway that somehow became home.

He remembers his children learning to ride their bikes near the amphitheater.

And he knows the park at six o'clock in the morning, when most of the neighborhood is still asleep and the light suddenly turns an ordinary view into something worth stopping to photograph.

A lot has changed since that college student first discovered this corner of Atlanta.

But one thing hasn't.

Chastain Park was always the dream.

More than three decades later, it still is.