When Ann Arbaugh first moved to Ann Arbor 13 years ago, she wasn’t thrilled about it. “I was very hesitant,” she says. “Especially because my name was going to be ridiculous.”
Moving from suburban Cincinnati, she had just married and taken her husband’s last name. That made her, officially, Ann Arbaugh of Ann Arbor—a punchline she wasn’t quite ready for. A Buckeye by birth and education, she also wasn’t sure what to expect from life across the border.
But within a month, she was in love. The city’s energy, its possibilities, it all clicked. “My daughters were teenagers at the time, and they had a kind of freedom here they never had in the suburbs,” she says. “They took the city bus. They walked downtown. It was a totally different lifestyle.”
That spirit of mobility and discovery—of putting herself in new places and getting to know them—has defined Arbaugh’s life here ever since. It’s how she fell into real estate, a second career that quickly became a calling. It’s how she learned every street in town, every shortcut, every hidden pathway that links one neighborhood to the next. And it’s how she became something more than just a real estate agent: A community connector, a neighborhood guide, and—by her own tongue-in-cheek description—Ann Arbor’s version of The Love Boat’s Julie McCoy.
“I feel like I know every block,” she says. “And when I work with clients, I get to show them not just houses but all the little stories tucked away in each neighborhood—Mushroom Park, the old dirt road off Geddes, or that tiny footpath behind Northbrook that connects to 7th Street and gets you to school.”
Arbaugh came to real estate almost by accident. Artistic by nature, she once dreamed of flipping homes with her husband. A real estate license would make those deals smoother. “But we never flipped a single house,” she laughs. “Still haven’t. But once I got into real estate, I fell in love with it.”
She began with a respected mentor, then joined Alex Milshteyn’s top-producing team, where she’s now been for nearly a decade. “It’s like a little family,” she says. “The collaboration and knowledge on this team has been everything.”
But for Arbaugh, the work has never been just about buying or selling. It’s about relationships: educating first-time homebuyers, gently advising retirees preparing to downsize, helping new arrivals explore the region, and staying in touch long after moving day. “I’ve helped people paint, pack, even clean out gutters,” she says. “I’ve crawled on roofs. I’ve shown up with my paintbrushes and helped get homes ready to sell.”
There’s a streak of old-school generosity running through everything she does, a sensibility shaped not just by her Ohio roots, but by the deep connections she’s formed in Ann Arbor. She’s made her mark in real estate, yes—but also as an organizer, a neighbor, and a tireless advocate for the character of her adopted city.
Shortly after moving to her neighborhood, she spearheaded a door-to-door campaign to clean up a residential parking issue. From there the organizing snowballed. First came the block directory. Then the potlucks and bounce houses.
And then there were the pumpkins.
What started as Arbaugh and a few neighbors carving jack-o-lanterns for Halloween evolved into a full-scale neighborhood tradition. It’s now so big that a local family donates $100 for every pumpkin carved, with proceeds benefiting local nonprofits like Garrett’s Space and the Burns Park PTO. Each year, hundreds of glowing pumpkins line the small stone wall on Fair Oaks Parkway, providing a spooky, spectacular end to trick-or-treating, and a visible symbol of what a neighborhood can do when someone takes the lead.
“Fifteen years ago, I wasn’t a community organizer,” she says. “But I figured, if I don’t do it, who will?”
She’s carried that same energy into philanthropy, previously chairing the St. Joe’s Holiday Ball and serving on the board of Fostering Futures. And through it all, she’s continued to explore—branching out into other towns for clients, getting to know new communities the way she once got to know Ann Arbor.
“I didn’t grow up here,” she says. “But this is my home now. I walk into a grocery store, I see someone I know. I drive around, I remember who used to live in that house and who just moved in. That’s a kind of community I never had before.”
For Ann Arbaugh, Ann Arbor isn’t just a place she moved to with a familiar sounding name. It’s a place she’s helped build—one block party, one home, one pumpkin at a time.
“I feel like I know every block. All the little stories tucked away in each neighborhood.”
— Ann Arbaugh