Wake County had the highest number of loans approved for new construction in 2017 in North Carolina, according to data submitted by lenders to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
Of the 156,000 new home construction loans in North Carolina approved by lenders, 21,289 came from Wake County.
Mecklenburg County — home to the burgeoning metropolis Charlotte — followed closely behind with 20,889 construction loans, and Guilford County, the seat of the Piedmont Triad (including Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point), comprised 7,202 such loans.
“Anything close to [Research Triangle Park] does well,” according to Mary Ann Meagher, a real estate agent with Fonville Morisey. “Cary just has this pull. Nationally, people know to move to Cary.”
Meagher has worked as a real estate agent since 2007 out of Fonville Morisey’s office in Lochmere, a popular and wooded middle-class suburban neighborhood within Cary. She explains the area’s equidistance between work in RTP and leisure in downtown Raleigh makes it an attractive location.
“Holly Springs — when [N.C. Highway] 540 opened up down there,” Meagher says, “it made that area more accessible to RTP. And there’s just been this huge growth of people moving out that way.”
Like Cary, Holly Springs is a satellite town sandwiched between nearby Raleigh and RTP. Following the 2012 completion of NC 540’s connection of Holly Springs to RTP, the town saw its population of 26,938 surge by over 8,000 people to 35,223 people in 2017.
Meanwhile, Wake County’s population at the 2017 census jumped to 1,072,203, up 153 percent from 423,380 in 1990.
The unemployment rate of the county is 3.6 percent, according to Wake County’s website — 30 basis points below the national average. The median household income is $77,318. An estimated 37 percent of Wake County residents are renters; the rest own the property they live in.
As each satellite town sees its land and home prices grow, the next one waits anxiously.
“I think Garner will be the next town to take off,” Meagher says, “but inside [Raleigh’s] beltline is always hot — especially right now.”
Further west, a $2.5 billion light rail project has been set into motion by the town and city councils of Chapel Hill and Durham, respectively. Meagher doesn’t see the light rail impacting business and living situations RTP in the same way it will impact downtown Chapel Hill and Durham.
“We’ve been discussing the light rail for the last 20 years here,” she says. “RTP is a spread out campus, it’s not a one-stop-shop like you’d see with a light rail. As far as going from Durham to Chapel Hill, that might help commuter traffic some; people still will have to drive to the metro station. I don’t think it will have a large impact on housing in the area.”
Also tallied were refinancing loans on homes: Low interest rates throughout 2017 encouraged strong refinancing terms for homeowners to extract equity value out of their home and pay lower monthly fees.
Of the 72,123 home loan refinancing agreements closed in North Carolina in 2017,
Mecklenburg County had the highest number of refinance loans at 9,655 loans. Wake County followed closely behind at 9,126 loans, and Guilford County saw 3,223 refinance loans closed.
As interest rates rise — a 25-basis point hike was enacted in late September — the number of refinance loans are likely to fall.
Home improvement loans, or loans used for construction purposes on existing single family residences, were tracked as well: Wake County led the way with 1,463 such loans, followed by 1,259 in Mecklenburg County and 423 in Durham County.
Fonville Morisey agent Meredith Kisner, colleague of Meagher’s, explains that remodeling doesn’t need to be so expensive: Light and paint are the best bang-for-buck improvements homeowners can make.
“Lighting is like your jewelry,” says Kisner. “You can really change your home with lighting. Of course everyone wants quartz and granite and stainless steel countertops, but this is something people can afford.”
