12 Oaks is a new-construction golf course community being developed on 687 acres on the west side of Holly Springs in the $260’s to $1M+ range. Located off of New Hill Road, the community is ideally situated in terms of access to commuter routes (NC-55 and US-1) and the new retail and restaurant developments in Holly Springs along the 55 bypass. Additionally, the development is adjacent to the new Novartis facility being constructed, and will provide an ideal location for the future employees there.

At the heart of the community is a 7,000+ yard Nicklaus Design Group championship golf course, complete with a full clubhouse featuring both elegant and casual dining, a state of the art fitness center, aquatic center with competition and family pools and world-class tennis.

The Homes

There are 6 collections of homes available in the community ranging from charming Charleston style townhomes to full custom luxury estate homes. The styles of the homes are a mix of Colonial, Greek, Southern Antebellum Revival and Victorian, which provide for a great diversity of  architecture to enhance the beauty of it’s natural setting.

The Builder Team

The community is being developed by the Wakefield Development Company, central North Carolina’s largest community developer. This is the same developer that created the highly sought after Wakefield Plantation community in North Raleigh. WDC has  selected the following builder team for the community:

If you would like more information on this development, let me know what you’d like to see and I’ll post it. In the meantime, here are some additional pictures of the development.

We started off the week with the news about housing starts. According to an article on CNN.com’s Money web site, while economists were expecting a further decline in the number of housing starts, a government issued report on Tuesday, March 17th 2009, indicated a massive surge of 22% over January’s numbers. This is especially staggering given that this index has been in decline for the last 8 months. In addition, new building permit applications were up 3% according to the same article.

Also this week, the national average rate for 30 year fixed mortgages fell to 4.9% on Thursday, March 19th 2009, according to HSH Associates, a firm which has been tracking daily rates since 1979. This is the lowest rate ever recorded in their 30 year history.

So every day you hear the doom and gloom on the state of the Real Estate economy. Well folks, when you look at the National picture, it certainly is alarming. According to the 4th quarter Housing Price Indexproduced by the good folks at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight for the 4th quarter of 08, housing prices declined by 8.24% nationally from the period of December 2007-2008. That’s terrible news for sure, but what do those numbers mean to us here in the Triangle? Well, not what you might think.

If you look at North Carolina specifically, you will find that the same report ranks us at number 25 in 1yr appreciation with a property appreciation rate of -3.66%. While that’s not a great number, it’s a far cry short of the staggering losses being seen in states like Nevada (-28.24%), California (-25.52%) and Florida(-23.96%). So while this statistic is not really news to celebrate, here in NC, things could be a lot worse.

So again you might ask, what does that mean to us here in the Southwest Wake? Well, that’s the good part and I am really happy to deliver this news. Out of the 292 metropolitan areas covered by this report, the Raleigh-Cary, NC area was raked 18th for appreciation year over year with 2.96% appreciation. Yes, that’s right, POSITIVE appreciation. So what does that mean? It means that despite the terrible statistics from the national and even state level, if you bought a house in the Raleigh-Cary area last year, your house is likely worth more now that what you paid for it. Is this staggering growth? No. But frankly in light of the national picture, I’ll take it.

One of the things that you’ll notice about our local market here is that we didn’t experience the insane amount of appreciation that occurred during the last few years of the “Housing Bubble”. But looking at this latest Housing Price Index report, you’ll notice that the areas that benefited the most during those times are the ones that are hurting the most right now. Once again proof of the validity of that old adage, “slow and steady wins the race”. So the next time you hear the news anchors talking about the miserable real estate situation, take it with a grain of salt. A wise man once said that all politics are local, and that same sentiment certainly applies to Real Estate as well.

In addition to general market information and news, I want to use this blog as a repository of sorts for local neighborhood profiles which will highlight the wonderful communities here in Holly Springs and the surrounding towns. I’ll try to post a new one every week, so if you have a specific neighborhood that you’d like to see featured, drop me a line and let me know. This week I’ll start with 12 Oaks, which is a new golf community over on the West side of NC-55.

Hopefully as the blog develops, you’ll come to find it a good source of information. If there’s anything at all you’d like to see here, please feel free to let me know. Thanks for checking out my blog, I’ll be checking back in soon!