From Durham to Zebulon: This year’s Triangle Parade of Homes brings critical housing
At 30, Olivia Slay is single and living alone in downtown Durham.
Like many millennials, she’s still renting — paying $1,750 a month for a one-bedroom apartment — as high home prices and higher mortgage rates keep many would-be homebuyers in the rental market.
But she’s has had enough: “The only other option is to buy,” said the supply planner.
On Sunday, she was among thousands of prospective homebuyers to show up for the first weekend of the Triangle’s “largest open house” — the Triangle Parade of Homes, which runs until Oct. 15.
The free event is a scattered-site tour of 185 newly constructed homes, stretching across four counties in 124 communities — from Durham to Zebulon. With 90 builders participating, new home prices range from $286,000 to $7 million.
Often billed as an HGTV-lover’s playground for scoping out design trends, this year’s parade serves another more critical purpose, said Paul Kane, CEO of the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County.
With the region’s growing housing shortage, it’s providing much-needed new inventory to frustrated buyers, who are increasingly forced to turn to new construction for housing.
“It’s the only thing out there,” he said. “Instead of just looking for beautiful homes and outdoor kitchen ideas, people actually need a place to live right now.”
Currently, the region has 1.8 months’ supply, a 5.3% drop year-over-year, according to the latest data from the Triangle Multiple Listing Service (TMLS). A healthy market has a six-month supply, Kane said.
“It’s reached a boiling point. The existing home inventory is almost gone. We need more of everything, at all price points,” he said.
With her lease ending in May, Slay is running up against a deadline, so she expanded her search to Chatham Park. It’s in the fast-growing Chatham County, about a 45-minute drive southwest of Durham. The 7,068-acre development on the east side of Pittsboro is expected to bring thousands of homes to the community in the coming years.
In the neighborhood where Slay was looking, most of the homes were still under construction. Still, many already had a big “SOLD” sign out front — a sign to her that prices weren’t going to budge much.
“I’d like to pay around $300,00 to $400,000,” she said. “But realistically, for what I want, it’ll probably be more like $500,000.”
The lineup
Roughly 40 of the parade’s 157 homes are listed at more than $1.5 million, reflecting a nationwide upswing of homes with price tags over $1 million.
The parade’s most expensive home is listed at $6,999,900 in North Raleigh at 1400 Rock Dam Court in the North Ridge subdivision. Built by St. Clair Construction Group, the 17,000-square-foot home features six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, “with a panoramic view of North Ridge golf course.
About 23 homes, or 12%, are in the $300,000 range. Many of those are townhomes in fast-growing towns like Zebulon, Wendell, Roseville and Knightdale in Wake County and Pittsboro in Chatham County.
Among them: Dream Finder Homes’ The Kenley two-story townhome starting at $319,905 in Zebulon, and Tri Pointe Homes’ The Mitchell starting at $450,690 in Pittsboro.
The free event continues Oct. 6-8 and Oct. 13-15 from noon to 5 p.m. each day. For more details, go here.
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