What kind of quality of life do you get in Cary? What is living in Wake Forest like?
Cary and Wake Forest are two towns in the Triangle region of North Carolina with a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences. They have similar housing prices, with Cary being just a smidge more expensive than Wake Forest. At first glance this might seem strange, since Cary’s location is arguably more valuable than Wake Forest. If you’re working in RTP, Downtown Raleigh or in Durham, Cary cannot be beat for its quick, easy commute into any of those.
Home Values in Cary vs Wake Forest
Contrast that with Wake Forest, whose home values are just 7% lower than Cary’s, but any drive into a major employment center is going to come with some serious traffic. The travel time is about double to all three of those employment destinations.
Interestingly, Fuquay-Varina is about the same distance to employment centers as Wake Forest, but prices there are significantly lower. So what is happening in Wake Forest that makes it a place so many people are willing to live, even with the home prices for the location being so high?
Wake Forest has some secrets that make it a very attractive place to live! We’re taking a look at the lifestyle you get in Cary and Wake Forest, for the median priced home. Quality of life certainly depends on what you’re looking for, so there’s not a clear winner. But you might discover why you like one town over the other. We will also take a peak at what luxury living looks like in both of these areas. Because again, pricing at the top level is similar, but what you get is very different.
| Active median price | Closed Median Price | |
| Cary | 599,000 | 575,000 |
| Wake Forest | 560,000 | 542,000 |
Median Priced Living in Cary
In 2023, the median priced home in Cary is 575,000. For that price you’re going to get a home like this one. This home has 4 bedrooms 2.5 baths and it’s situated on about a quarter acre lot. This home is in the lovely community of Park Village. Park Village is full of walking trails and if you lived here, you would probably spend your time biking or walking to the neighborhood’s two parks.
And if you keep walking on the greenway, you can access under street tunnels that take you all the way to Bond Park. At Bond park you can bike, hike, go boating, or take a class at the community center. If you’re a senior, you can take classes and meet up with friends at the Bond Park Senior center.
Shopping in Cary
If you decided to buy a home like this one in Cary, you would probably shop at one of three neighborhood grocery stores: Publix, HMart or Fresh Market. All are less than 2 miles away. Also nearby are a variety of restaurants, Indian Street Food, Boba Tea House, Hot Pot, and Wood Fired Pizza. There’s also an American brewery with gourmet burgers and pub grub. And don’t miss and the Triangle’s own Goodberry’s. This is literally the best ice cream in the world. If you go on a day when they have the key lime flavor, get it. You’ll thank me later.
If you need bigger shopping for clothing or other big box stores, you can find a decent selection at Park West Village, about a 10 minute drive. Park West has a few mall type stores like White House Black Market, Loft and Chicos as well as your standard T.J. Maxx, Home Goods, and Target. Trader Joes is also over here. Park West is also home to the local Movie theater.
Bond Park and Park West both host a seasonal concert series starting in April on Thursday nights at Park West and Friday nights at Bond Park Boathouse.
So basically Cary gives you a well organized small city, with beautiful landscaping, close proximity to all employment centers and plenty of restaurants in close proximity to where you live.
If your interested in knowing more about the quality of life you get in Cary compared to other Triangle towns, you might want to check these out:
Median Priced Living in Wake Forest
Now let’s take a look at Wake Forest and see how it is different. Here is a house that is pretty close to the median price in Wake Forest, actually a little bit lower. This home sold for 530,000 just last week. The home is also in a planned community, the Preserve at Kitchen Farms, but the community is a lot newer than the one in Cary. This home was built in 2019, it’s about 400 square feet larger than the Cary home.
Shopping in Wake Forest
If you bought a home like this one you might do your grocery shopping at Harris Teeter grocery store which is a local north Carolina grocery brand about 3 miles away, or the local Wegmans, which is about 4 miles away. And if you’re looking for something a little more homegrown, you might even drop by the local corner seafood stand to get your north carolina caught seafood from this guy. His stand is right around the corner from this house and he looks pretty friendly.
Like most small towns, Food in wake Forest is a little less diverse than it is in Cary. There is a lot of your standard American fare, pizza, burgers, breweries, Mexican. But it also does have Korean, Japanese, Thai, Jamaican and Greek.
Wake Forest is a small town, with about 50,000 people, but it does have quite nice amenities and lifestyle for such a small town. For shopping, Wake Forest has your basic box stores, a Target, a Sam’s Club, and a Khols. But if you had purchased that house we talked about earlier, you’d be only 5 miles (about a 12 minute drive) from the Triangle Town Center Mall and everything else that sits on Capital Boulevard.
Parks in Wake Forest
If you lived in a home like this, you might spend your days hiking or biking the Smith Creek greenway which you can pick up right behind your house. It’ll take you to this gorgeous bridge over the Neuse river. It’s a bit far to lug a kayak to the boat launch about 2 miles away, but an 8 minute drive will get you there easily and you can kayak all the way down to the coast if you wanted to.
If motor boats are more your thing, you might rent a boat from these guys, or if you’ve got a boat, go ahead and give me a call because everyone needs a friend with a boat. And I don’t have one right now. But falls lake is right around the corner and there are multiple boat ramps you can access for boating. It’s about a 20 minute drive to the closest boat ramp, but if you just want picnic at the lake and to enjoy the scenery, that’s about 15 minutes from home.
There are also some pretty incredible greenspaces developed by the town, the county and because Wake Forest borders the city of Raleigh right here, the proximity to those amenities are available as well. There isn’t as much walkable as there is in Cary. You’ll definitely find walkable neighborhoods in Wake Forest, but there are more of them in Cary for sure. However, within a 10-15 minute drive, there’s a lot more wild beauty in wake forest. you’ve got two nature preserves, Horseshoe Farm Nature Preserve and Annie Wilkerson Nature Preserve, in addition to the incredible lakes and rivers we’ve already seen. Wake Forest sits upon these beautiful rocky outcroppings so you’ll notice more exposed rock.
Entertainment in Wake Forest
Wake Forest hosts Friday Night on White street in their adorable downtown throughout the concert season. As well as concerts in the park at Joyner Park. Wake Forest is also home to the Renaissance Art Center where they host the wake forest film festival, among other annual events.
But Wake Forest really has a different, more vacation-like feel than other parts of the Triangle. You do feel like you’ve gotten out of the city when you’re in Wake Forest. I thought we should take a look at the differences between more upscale housing, which is quite different in Cary and Wake Forest.
Luxury Living in Wake Forest vs Cary
The higher end housing options have really taken off in recent years in Wake Forest. The top 10% of homes by price start in the mid 800,000’s in Wake Forest and in Cary they start at just over a million. In both towns the highest priced home most recently sold was 1.8 million, but the one in wake forest was still under construction when they took the pictures so it wasn’t a very good example. But this home sold for 1.2 million and is a great example of the kind of styling you’ll see in Wake Forest at this price point. This home is 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths just over 4000 square feet and it sits on an acre lot and it’s located just outside of town off a country road, but just 8 to 10 minutes from everything Wake Forest has to offer.
In Cary, this home located in well planned community of Lochmere is a complete contrast to the Wake Forest home. Lochmere was developed in the 70s as a golf and tennis club situated on two lakes. Lochmere hosts many recreational activities like swim and tennis clubs, volleyball and yoga. Because this home is older, it has a more established feel. It’s already well-landscaped with a pool and lake access with a dock. Now Lochmere’s lakes aren’t anything close to Falls Lake up in Wake Forest. They are small and only used for non motorized watercraft. Lochmere is just around the corner from Waverly Place and Regency where you can find lots of concerts, community events, movies, and restaurants. This home sold for 1.8 million in January.
You might also like our Cary vs Holly Springs Comparison.
