Breaking news, the local news media has just announced that Facebook's parent company Meta
is going to be coming to the downtown Durham area and set up offices there. And we will have quote,
“a significant presence in downtown Durham.” On today's video, we're going to give you all
the details as much as we know about them and how we think it's going to impact the Raleigh-Durham
area and especially the housing market here.
Hello everyone. Chris Morton real estate broker with EXP Realty in Raleigh,
North Carolina and before we dive into all the details, we need to give you a couple of caveats.
Number one, this is breaking news. We have not got a formal announcement yet from Meta. We don't know
any of the details other than that, they're going to have a significant presence in downtown Durham.
Don't know how many people they're going to hire. So bear that in mind, we will be giving you some
further updates and details on this info in a follow up video, just as soon as we have them.
Number two caveat, just as happened with the Apple news last year,
we know they will probably not be having 50,000, 100,000 employees coming here. It will probably be
somewhere in the range of 500 to 2,000 or 3000. That is not a huge number in relation to the whole
entire economy or job outlook for the triangle. That's not the point of this
video. We're not saying that the employees are going to make a humongous difference,
it’s the fact that Meta is coming, that's going to make a big difference. Just like when Apple came,
just like when Google came. It puts the triangle area on the map. It makes the general population
of the country and the world look at us, see what we have to offer and maybe consider making a move.
And almost as important, it means more and more companies are going to put us on the map
as a place they want to either relocate their headquarters too or put a satellite office in.
So how will all this news impact the Raleigh-Durham triangle area in general? Well,
by Meta announcing they're coming and hiring. It’s going to certainly put the triangle area on
the map where a lot of highly educated, highly skilled people are going to want to come here
to get a job with Meta or at least find a great opportunity with some of the other companies
around. And obviously it's going to increase interest in our area from other companies,
rumors are swirling around that Amazon and Amazon web services,
as well as Salesforce have been sniffing around the triangle recently. So its likely we're going
to see more and more companies coming in , that Meta is not going to be the last.
The negatives of all, we’re going to have more congestion, more traffic jams, more hassles to
do things like go shopping, and finding a parking space, getting a reservation at a restaurant,
snagging tickets to some entertainment event you want to go to, and in general,
we're just gonna have a lot more densely crowded areas.
Another negative that's going be coming from this, unfortunately, people that are
in the lower to middle income brackets are more than likely going to probably have to
go further and further out to be able to find affordable housing. Which is going to cause them
to have to drive into work, never a good thing for them.
On a positive note, it's also going to bring new restaurants and new shops to our area that hadn't
considered us in the past. More entertainment options are going to open up and as we said in
last year's videos about Apple coming, we believe it's not outside the realm of possibility that
the Raleigh -Durham triangle area will become the largest mega city between Washington DC
and Atlanta. Definitely time will tell, but it is likely that this will eventually happen here.
So what will this news do to our local housing market? Well, again, while we don't know exactly
all the details of how many people it is bringing here or hiring from here, we definitely can look
at what happened last year when Apple made its announcement to see what kind of an impact that
had on our housing market. So just before Apple's announcement last year, the median home price in
the triangle area was $291,000. And now 14 months after Apple's announcement, the median home price
has jumped all the way to $380,000, which is a 31% increase. And in the area we dubbed the
Silicon Circle, which is that section of the triangle, that's about a 20 to 30 minute drive
from Research Triangle Park. Before Apple made its announcement, the median home price in the
Silicon Circle was $361,000. Today, 14 months later, it's jumped all the way to $500,000,
a 39% increase. And no, we are not saying that Apple's announcement was the sole reason that
prices jumped in this area, nor are we saying that Meta coming is going to cause an equal amount of
jump in the Durham area or the Research Triangle area. But put simply, most people who work
in an area like Research Triangle Park want to live near there, so it's less hassle to get there,
to work in the morning and so therefore they're going to want to have the shortest commute they
possibly can have, which is going to drive up the prices of homes around that area.
So what's going to be happening in the immediate timeframe just after Meta makes its announcement?
Well, our suspicion is that any slowdown that we have had in the last few weeks could potentially
disappear and we could get back into a buying frenzy again. And why do we believe this frenzy
could happen? Well, because number one, investors who have been sitting on the sidelines because of
interest rates and because of lack of inventory, will hear this announcement that Meta is coming
and realize there's going to be even more of a demand for rental houses in and around
that Silicon Circle. We saw about 50 investors reach out to us in just the three or four days,
right after we made our Apple videos last year. All of them inquiring about what our area was like
and what kind of rental rates they could get on investment properties here. And we see a similar
frenzy happening as soon as this Meta announcement becomes official.
Also, people that are out of state that are looking to make a change in their lives,
then can work anywhere, are going to see this announcement about Meta coming to the area and
are going to start doing some more research on our Research Triangle Park area and possibly
plan some exploratory trips to check it out for themselves. We think the end result of all of that
is you're going to have more people coming to the area, therefore putting more demand on housing.
And finally, we believe that locals who have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for this
housing crash to happen are going to realize that Meta is coming.
They're gonna be hiring. The frenzy is going to get started again, and they can't wait
to buy. They're gonna jump into the market, which is again, going to put more and more pressure on
the small amount of inventory we're still sitting on of houses available, which in turn will end up
driving up prices again, as well on our rental side of things with Meta coming in, you're going
to see rental rates increasing, especially in downtown Durham, where Meta's going to be
as well as Research Triangle Park. So it looked to see rental rates, unfortunately for housing,
for apartments, to keep going up and up and up. So that's our thoughts on Meta coming to
the triangle. Again, as soon as we get more details, we're going to share them with you.
And by the way, if you're considering a move either into or out of the Raleigh- Durham
triangle area, my team, and I would love to be your real estate agents of choice.
You can call or text us at the number below, email us at hello@mortonbradbury.com or click
on the link in the description. We'll be happy to help you out any way we can like can subscribe to
this video if you haven't already done. So, and we'll see you on the next one, take care. Bye-bye.