Here is the update on Apple creating an east coast headquarters in the Raleigh, North Carolina area with updates on what they’ve been up to and where things possibly could be headed. Currently here in the summer of 2023 Apple is finally beginning construction on their east coast campus. Apple recently filed a commercial use application to begin the process. The plans call for a 2.7 million square foot office complex with a parking deck off of Lewis Stephens Drive. It is very close to the NetApp campus in Research Triangle Park which is in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. The application describes the buildings as being a maximum of seven stories tall. This is quite the large campus.
As a reminder for anyone who missed it back in 2021, Apple announced they were building an east coast campus in the Raleigh area. They were permitted to spend $550 million dollars on the project and hiring at least 3,000 new employees to staff this facility. To pay for these employees, it was set to average around $187,000 per year. When the news was announced in 2021, it made a big splash and was the number one story in this area during that period of time. We are fully aware that Apple has only committed to hiring 3,000 people for this facility. We understand that 3,000 new jobs to the Raleigh area is a drop in the bucket. If we use what Apple has done in Austin, Texas as our guide, it is likely that they’re going to hire even more than the 3,000 jobs they have committed to in the future.
Apple has in fact just announced that they will be expanding their Austin, Texas facility and invest an additional 240 million dollars in that area. Perhaps more important than those 3,000 jobs, Apple is committing to bring to the Raleigh area, is what’s called the “Apple Effect”. This is where other companies decide they need to be in the area where Apple builds their facilities. This apple effect has a dramatic impact on the local economy. Again, if we use Austin, Texas as a predictor, this “Apple Effect” should have a dramatic impact on the Raleigh market as well. For example in Austin both Oracle and Tesla among many other companies decided to make a move to Austin in part because Apple was already there. It is likely the same scenario will play out in the Raleigh area as well. Meanwhile Apple isn’t resting on its laurels. It is not waiting to get their facility built, to start hiring and moving into the Raleigh-Research Triangle Park area. Back in 2022, Apple suddenly leased a 220,000 square foot building on the MetLife campus building three and began properly renovating that building to the tune of about 19 million dollars. This building is to be its primary area where they will be hiring employees and getting work accomplished in the Raleigh area while their main campus is being built. Just a few months ago, Apple announced that they already need more space and they’ve leased out Innovation One building on the Imperial Center campus in Durham. This is reportedly a 140,000 square foot, four-story building. Again, Apple is not just waiting around to get going, they’re already here. They are already hiring.
To get Apple to come to North Carolina and to the Raleigh area in particular, the state of North Carolina committed $850 million dollars in incentives to Apple if they would come and hit certain benchmarks along the way to hiring 3,000 employees. Reportedly Apple had to hire at least 126 employees for their Raleigh facility in the year 2023. They are well on their way of achieving those numbers and of course they have to hire even more folks in 2024.
What does all this news mean for the Raleigh area real estate market? Despite all the doom and gloom we’ve been hearing for months and months about the Raleigh real estate market, expecting it to crash. By 20%,30%, even 50% an hour now that hasn’t really materialized we just haven’t seen that happening in the area or in our business. We are still seeing very few homes come on the market for sale. Currently, in the big, four primary counties around the Raleigh area we only have about 3,377 homes for sale. If you drive down to the Silicon Circle that’s that area about 20 minute radius around the new Apple campus, you’re only looking at about 387 homes for sale. Let me say this isn’t a set number of homes in a certain price category this is everything from a free or one dollar house all the way up to a trillion dollar house. All houses, all condos, all town homes, all everything. There are only 387 homes within a 20-minute drive of the new Apple campus. These numbers remain shockingly low. We have seen these numbers for about six months, twelve months now. We just are not seeing the inventory grow like it should. What that’s doing is keeping prices relatively high. People are not having to discount their homes unless of course their homes look like clap traps. The homes that are looking really good as we tell our clients all the time, are selling still within hours if not within days.
As more and more people are moving to the Raleigh area for new jobs with Apple and other companies or just coming here to find a new job that influx of population is causing even more pressure on the Raleigh real estate market. As Apple hires more and more people to come into the Raleigh area and other companies do to, that “Apple Effect” will take shape. Once people decide to start coming to the Raleigh area to hang out with all the cool kids like Apple, it’s going to cause even more and more pressure on the real estate market. We just are not seeing a slowdown in our real estate business, people are still continuing to call us to help them buy and sell their home and it appears at least for now that Raleigh and the surrounding area is going to remain fairly insulated against the shocks in the housing market that may possibly be happening in other parts of the country. As we tell our clients all the time, if you plan to be moving to the Raleigh area you need to come with a really good game plan. Know what you want to buy, know when you want to buy it and know how much money you’re willing to spend to buy that home. Most importantly you have to stick to that plan.
A nice luxury home with a blank for sale sign posted in front. Plenty of copy space on the empty sign for your text.
If you would like our help with this whole process, our real estate team would love to be your agents of choice. You can email us at [email protected]. Give us a call at 919-964-0474 or click here to fill out our contact request form.