Best Part of Raleigh?
What is the best part of Raleigh? Where do you get the best amenities? The most convenient location?
We’re giving West Raleigh some love today. ITB and Midtown are great, people love North Raleigh, South Raleigh is growing, but we’re making the case today that west Raleigh is the best part of the city. Argue with us if you have to, but our argument is pretty solid. Learn more about the different parts of Raleigh and search for homes here.
There are places in West Raleigh where you can live and have a 6000 acre back yard. This is not a joke. Okay so maybe it’s not YOUR backyard, technically speaking, but there are homes along Ebenezer Church Road that give you walking access into Umstead Park.
Umstead Park is 5,599 acres of woodlands, trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding, lakes, picnic shelters, and campgrounds. This state park is one of Raleigh’s crown jewels.
You can learn more about Raleigh here on our “Living in Raleigh” page. Or search for homes currently for sale in Raleigh, NC here.
We’re going to look at homes at all different price points in West Raleigh, from $200K up to $2M. We’re looking at the area along highway 70 and south toward the PNC Arena and the Fairgrounds.
Now, West Raleigh typically is also understood to include the area around NC State University, but here were leaving out the area inside the 440 Beltline. We love that part of Raleigh, but we’re narrowing our focus in this post.
This area has some of the best schools, parks, greenways and shopping in the entire Triangle. If you want to learn about what locals really think of Raleigh, NC, click here.
Umstead Park
Umstead park is almost 6000 acres and it dominates West Raleigh. The northeast entrance is in Raleigh and the southwest entrance is in Cary so it straddles both cities. Umstead has 15 different trails inside the park totaling about 34 miles of trails. There are 3 lakes, you can rent boats, there’s parking for horse trailers if you need a place to ride your horses.
Umstead is Raleigh’s best amenity if you love hiking or biking or just being outside. There are a handful of neighborhoods that live here off Ebenezer Church Road that put you within walking distance of Umstead. And you don’t have to pay multiple millions to get into one. Let’s start at the lowest price point.
10 Things People Love about Raleigh
What $200,000 gets you
In the $200 thousands, you’re going to get a condo or a townhome at this price point. And anything listed in this price point is going to be a little bit older, built in the 70s or 80s.
This property is less than half a mile to the Crabtree Creek trailhead. And you can take that to the connector and be in Umstead park in minutes.
West Raleigh Amenities
Laurel Hills Park
If you love parks, but you need more manmade amenities, Laurel Hills Park here gives you a great playground for the kiddos, a community center, and ball fields. Our kids just loved this park when they were little, and it’s less than 2 miles away from that condo. You can learn more about other Raleigh, NC parks here.
Fairgrounds
Another really cool amenity in this area is the State Fairgrounds. The State Fair is hosted here every year in the fall, and the Got to be NC Festival is hosted in the spring, but fewer people know about that one so it’s less crowded and it’s pretty much the same thing. You’re welcome.
At the fairgrounds they also have horse shows, car shows, art shows. . . all kinds of events here. And the flea market.
Right across the street from the fairgrounds is the PNC Arena and Carter Finley stadium. So whether its concerts or ball games that you love, they’re all right here
What $500,000 gets you
If you’ve got a little more budget, you can get into a single family home. We’re still looking at older homes, built in the 60s through the 80s, but they are single family homes.
Most of them in this price point are on roughly a ¼ acre lot. And in this price point, we’re usually seeing original finishes, generally not updated yet. although you might sometimes see a kitchen where the cabinets have fresh paint and new hardware.
There are also townhomes in this price point, but those are brand new or close to it.
Sometimes you can find a real gem in older neighborhoods like this one where the lots actually average closer to ½ an acre.
This one level home sits on .4 acres, it is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and 1700 square feet.
Blue Ridge Corridor
Blue Ridge Road runs through the heart of West Raleigh, and your two major amenities here are the NC Art Museum and UNC Rex hospital. Hopefully, you don’t need the hospital, but so many of Raleigh’s best medical practices are right around the hospital.
I’m super excited about this location as an investment because there are big changes coming to this area… this is what they call the Blue Ridge Corridor. It has been hugely underdeveloped for it’s location for a long time but all that is about to change.
This area is going to be the next second tier urban center, like North Hills, but better because it has a lot of features that North Hills doesn’t have. Imagine if North Hills had a stadium, an arena, a nationally recognized art museum, multiple parks and greenways, the state fair, a world renowned hospital, and a Drive Shack, all within a couple walkable square miles. This doesn’t exist anywhere in Raleigh.
And while all the features I just mentioned are already here, the upscale shopping hasn’t been developed yet… but that is the final piece of the puzzle and it’s finally on the docket. Developers are focusing on infill and connection, to make all these high value amenities work together and be more user friendly.
What $900,000 gets you
When we get into the $900s things start to look a lot more interesting. We’re still looking at older homes, but these homes tend to have significant updates or amenity features.
Once you get up into the $900 thousands, we start to see some really nice features. You might see a huge backyard or even something like this where you can walk from your back yard to Umstead park. This home was built in 1985 and has been completely remodeled, it sits on .8 acres but it might as well sit on 6000 acres.
You’ve got this incredible creek down at the bottom of the hill. And this is slated to become a greenway in the next few years. This greenway will connect you to but you don’t really need that right now, you can just walk into the park on state controlled land.
The home has been completely updated from bottom to top. Check it out here.
Convenience
And the coolest thing about this area is, it almost doesn’t matter where you work in the Triangle. This is convenient to almost everything! 15 minutes from downtown Raleigh and downtown Cary, 25 minutes from downtown Durham, 30 minutes to Chapel Hill. It doesn’t get more central than this. Oh, and its only 15 minutes to RDU, so the mad dash to your flight is just a little bit easier.
And we haven’t really talked about the shopping
Crabtree Valley Mall is right at the intersection of 70 and 440.
And 70 itself is like one long retail district from the Mall all the way up to Brier Creek Shopping and the airport. Honestly, it isn’t the prettiest stretch of road in Raleigh, and the traffic around the mall can be trying at times, but chances are if you’re shopping to outfit your new home, you’re going to spend some time here.
$1.5 million
Add another $600,000 to that budget and homes and lots start to get a lot bigger. This home is over 4000 square feet on a 1.9 acre lot!
This home was built in 2000. It is 4100 square feet, it has original finishes, and sits on a 1.9 acre lot.
$2 million
And when you cross that 2 million mark, that is when we start to see new construction. These are typically homes built on infill lots where the older smaller home has been torn down and a new larger home is being built.
This home sits right behind Laurel Hills park on a .4 acre lot. It has 4100 SF and was built by custom builder Homes by Dickerson.
