The ‘Apple effect’: How will company’s pause on RTP campus affect house prices?
When Apple first announced that it planned a $552 million campus in Research Triangle Park, home prices surged.
Local experts called it “the Apple effect,” driving up prices by as much as 53% in nearby suburbs like Morrisville and west Cary.
Now, more than three years later, the office market remains bleak, and the project in this fast-growing corridor along N.C. 540 is officially stalled.
What does that mean for house prices today?
Not much, say experts.
Long before Apple’s announcement, Morrisville and west Cary were already on “a meteoric rise,” said Cory Sherman, a broker with Homegrown Real Estate in Durham.
In 1980, Morrisville’s population was 251 people. Today, the town is estimated to have more than 32,000. That’s a 128-fold increase, The N&O has reported. Other projects — like Spark LS’ 109-acre biotech campus — currently fill the pipeline. Apple is also leasing a building on MetLife’s technology campus in Cary as it waits to build its own offices.
“There’s enough economic activity to buoy prices,” Sherman said. “Apple maybe was a little fuel on the fire, but I don’t think [house prices] doubled because of that.”
He added: “There [wasn’t] an ‘Apple’ tax.”
In April 2021, the month Apple announced its project, the median sale price in the same ZIP code (27560) as its proposed campus stood at $360,000. A year later, prices had jumped to $598,000, up 64%, Redfin found. (It also coincided with a pandemic-fueled surge in prices across the Triangle as out-of-state residents migrated to the region.)
Since then, median price in this ZIP code has fallen by more than 15% — to $504,500 in May 2024. But the decrease was just .88% compared to May 2023.
The median sale price in Morrisville is higher at $630,000, up 2.3% compared to this time last year.
Though the number of homes sold (70) is down 11.5% year-over-year, the suburb remains “most competitive,” according to Redfin, amid a long-running housing shortage and higher mortgage rates, both in the Triangle and nationally.
Homes sell after just seven days on the Morrisville market compared to 40 days last year, data shows.
“The significant decrease in average days on market, particularly in areas like Cary, Apex and Morrisville, underscores the high demand,” said Chanel Hart D’Aprix, a broker with Pittsboro-based Hart and Olive, in a release.
Maya Galletta, a Realtor with Cary-based Legacy Realty Partners and a member of the Raleigh Regional Association of Realtors, agreed.
Buyers may be expecting deals now that Apple isn’t breaking ground right away. “But I don’t think that’s going to be a reality,” she said.
John Wood, owner of Re/Max United in Cary, remains optimistic. “So long as jobs are good, the Triangle’s housing market is going to be strong,” he said.
And as soon as rates fall, Wood said he expects would-be buyers to flood the market. “We’re going to see home prices go upward.”
Projects fill the pipeline
Developers, meanwhile, are pushing forward.
David Ferrell, a longtime Cary resident and property developer, said he’s moving ahead with plans to build 140 single-family homes on a 103-acre site in west Cary after the Town Council recently approved rezoning and annexation.
“We’re full steam ahead,” he said by phone. “We’ve got a good job market here, Apple or no Apple. We’ll be fine.”
Arizona-based homebuilder Taylor Morrison recently brought 190 two-story homes to the corner of Gilmore Bridge Drive and Morrisville Parkway. Heritage Capital Partners is also planning a mixed-use project on a vacant 46-acre site along N.C. Highway 55.
Brian Gordon contributed to this report.
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com
