A lot of people talk about how Chapel Hill, NC Real Estate is exclusive and the affordability aspect is an issue. Despite the cost, real estate sales in Chapel Hill continue to be steady.
The Orange county unemployment rate dropped to 3.2% down from 4.3%. Orange County resale homes have gained an average of a whopping 7.77% this year. Southern Village has closed the most resale homes in 2007 @65 w/an averages SP of $395,083. Meadowmont, in Chapel Hill, closed on the largest number of new homes. The average sales price of new construction is $566,017.
Currently there is a 5 month supply of new homes in Orange County. The 400+ price point had the highest number of closings. In addition, there is a 4 month supply of re-sale housing in the county.The average Days on Market (DOM) is 75 as of 09/07.
What about this year vs. last year?
-The trend for closings in Orange County is up Year-to-Date over last year although relatively flat. 
- 1,314 closings through 8/06 and 1,351 closings through 8/07
Areas that are appreciating the fastest include the Chalet Condos, Meadowmont, Southern Village, and Kensington Trace.
There are several new communities in Chapel Hill that are under development such as Chapel Ridge Golf Community and The Parks at Meadowmont.
The biggest challenge going into Q32007:
1. Selling your home prior to relocating.
2. Tighter lending restrictions due to the collaps of the sub-prime lenders.
3. Higher interest rates.
Tell me about Chapel Hill, NC:
Chapel Hill-Carrboro - the name slips off the tongue as one, and the towns' boundaries blur. These are two towns with distinct yet compatible personalities. Together, they give you a lifestyle unlike any place in North Carolina.
Chapel Hill is the perfect college town: ivy-covered buildings and stone walls, majestic oaks and hallowed halls. You'll be as enchanted as you are busy with the myriad of things to do, from football Saturdays to Shakespeare plays.
Sprung from a textile town on the other side of the tracks, Carrboro blends blue-collar folks with a Birkenstock crowd. They mingle in the shops, eateries and the community-owned grocery at the refurbished and transformed Carr Mill. At tables next to its lawn graced with sand sculptures, they listen to live music at Sunday brunch while they munch, drink and talk about topics from horses to hammers.
Settled in the late 1700s, Chapel Hill is home to the country's first state university. There's no question that the University of North Carolina brands the town as an intellectual haven. Professors, scientists and students crowd the streets and mull theory and practice at coffee shops aromatically laced with scones and cappuccinos. Not to be left out, business and corporate types, along with artists, writers, retirees and homemakers, intermingle and create a cosmopolitan scene as likely to ring with French or Spanish as English.
Downtown Franklin Street is touted to be the most vibrant downtown in the state. Night or day, you can join the throngs to enjoy hosts of shopping, dining and entertainment choices. Rooftop and streetside restaurants are varied enough to suit any culinary craving. Bars and coffee shops punctuate the scene. Shops range from the clothing and home furnishings lair of Alexander Julian - that nationally known, home-grown designer - to the dressed down style of locally owned clothing stores.
If you want more choices, head east on Franklin Street and turn right on Estes Drive to find University Mall and browse department stores. Or head west to Carrboro. Trek through Carr Mill or along Carrboro's main streets where you'll find rock shops and rug shops sprinkled amid stores specializing in local crafts like pottery and woodworking.
If sports are your pleasure, you're in blue heaven. Tar Heel basketball, football and soccer draw sell-out crowds. If you'd rather play than watch, Chapel Hill and Carrboro have many youth and adult sports activities, from league play and clinics to drop-in free play. Scattered about the towns are parks, swimming pools, gymnasiums and lighted athletic fields in addition to an extensive network of greenways, biking and nature trails.
The university itself is a recreation cornucopia. You can stroll through 103-year-old Coker Arboretum for a garden walk where fragrant flowers bloom even in February. Then take in a star show at the adjacent Morehead Planetarium, where early NASA astronauts studied celestial navigation. Nearby, the Ackland Art Museum's collection spans Roman sculpture to contemporary paintings. Hill Hall, located behind Ackland, hosts recitals, concerts and public lectures, as does Memorial Hall on Cameron Avenue. Memorial Hall has just undergone its first major renovation since opening in 1931. If theater suits you, enjoy a play at the PlayMakers Repertory, which has drawn renowned actors like Eva Marie Saint. Farther afield, the North Carolina Botanical Gardens is the largest natural garden of its kind in the Southeast. In Carrboro, The ArtsCenter is acclaimed for its plays, family shows, dances and jazz concerts.
Chapel Hill and Carrboro have numerous neighborhoods to choose from. The towns have exploded since the completion of I-40 made them easy retreats from Triangle workplaces. While many Chapel Hill homes - especially new ones - are among the most expensive in the state, others tucked in older neighborhoods have prices more comparable to those in other Triangle cities. Average home prices in Carrboro tend to be lower.
In the meantime, here's a taste of what the towns have to offer. In Chapel Hill, historic neighborhoods with Victorian to contemporary charm encircle the university. The Cameron-McCauley district is south of Franklin Street and west of Columbia Street. The regal, 82-year-old Carolina Inn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the district's border. The Franklin-Rosemary section, similar to Cameron-McCauley with its 1920s- and 1930s-era homes, is just north of Franklin Street. The Chapel Hill Preservation Society is headquartered there in the Horace Williams House, a 19th-century farmhouse.
On the east side of campus off Country Club Road, Gimghoul Road's stately homes adorn a winding loop on a bluff adjacent to Battle Park, a forested preserve with trails. In winter through Battle Park's bare trees, you can catch glimpses of house lights in Glendale. Located between Franklin Street and Battle Park's northern edge, Glendale's homes, many of which were built in the 1940 and '50s, are tucked into bluffs overlooking the woods. The atmosphere is more reminiscent of a mountain community than a town.
Scattered through these neighborhoods is the occasional new home, designed to blend with the community's feel. Between the 1950s and 1980s, neighborhoods developed off major roads leading away from campus. Their personalities vary by style and year built. There's Morgan Creek, reached off the U.S. 15/501 Bypass, with discretely spaced homes on wooded lots. Brick ranch homes sprinkle among two-story colonials and contemporaries, many of which sit above the creek named Morgan.
Colony Woods, off Ephesus Church Road, is a family-oriented neighborhood with split-level and Colonial styles. Timberlyne, north of town off Weaver Dairy Road, is a more recent incarnation of the walkable neighborhood where kids play along sidewalks. Shopping centers with grocery and sundry shops are close enough to bike or walk to.
Lakeshore Drive is a tonier version. Like many older Chapel Hill neighborhoods, its homes are widely spaced and built amid trees. The Lakeshore community has the added benefit of enjoying a private, community-owned lake on whose banks many of its splendid homes sit. Other family-oriented communities in the north part of town - such as Mt. Bolus, located off Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., and Ironwoods and North Haven, located off Seawell School Road - are as convenient to I-40 as to UNC.
A number of new communities are in the northern part of Chapel Hill. All you have to do to find them from downtown is drive north on Airport Road toward I-40. They include Parkside and Windsor Place. You'll find others - such as Chandler's Green and Silver Creek - by turning right at Weaver Dairy Road. These communities have spacious, expensive homes featuring amenities such as arched windows and two-storied great rooms, media rooms, elaborate baths with whirlpools and master suites with fireplaces. Lot sizes tend to be small, lending them a more urban feel.
Southern Village, one of several communities on Chapel Hill's south side, and the newer Meadowmont, fronting U.S. 54 on Chapel Hill's east side, are probably the most talked about. Each has its brand of urban aura. Southern Village is designed to be reminiscent of grand old towns like Charleston. It has its own public square, main street business district, church, day care and school. The homes incorporate architectural themes that include fronts or sides faced with upstairs and downstairs porches, and alleyway entrances.
Meadowmont cascades across more than 400 acres. Clusters of single-family homes sit adjacent to apartment complexes, in a blend of contemporary styles. A school and office buildings are also tucked within its borders.
From Carrboro's Main Street, either go north on Greensboro Street (by Carr Mill Mall) or head west along Main toward U.S. 54 and sidestep onto streets of established neighborhoods whose home choices include ranch, colonial, contemporary and transitional. Carrboro also has many new communities filled with beautiful contemporary homes. Sunset Creek is on the north side of town. Brookfield at Berryhill is south, off Smith Level Road. Bel Arbor sits off Hillsborough Road. Cedars at Bolin Forest, off Greensboro Street, is within walking distance of Carrboro's heart of town.
If you are planning on looking for a home in the area I'd love to help. Please contact me at Tracy@TracySantrock.com or visit my website at http://www.trianglenchomes4sale.com/.
leaves are beginning to change, and the weeds are starting to dye off. This is a welcome transition from our record breaking temperatures in August. 
So I started to wonder about the change in colors????
400 homes with over 200 closed. Clients that I've taken to this community are really excited about the sense of community. The club house will be the central gathering place for the neighborhood and is scheduled to open in late November. When complete, the community will have about 1,200 homes. A Del Webb community, they are now pre-selling for delivery in October 2008. 
