I just moved out of Cary. And moved to Holly Springs.
Did we make a mistake leaving one of the hottest towns in the country? I mean Cary is by almost any measure an awesome town. The economy is great. Real estate values are increasing.
Yes, they STILL are increasing. Let me talk about that really quick and then I’ll get back to why we moved because I don’t want you to think that we moved because of the real estate market.
Of sales in Cary that closed from July 1st through July 15th, (2022) 76% of them sold OVER list price. Actually the median closed sale price was 4% higher than the median list price. And remember that is well after interest rates increased But back to my story. Cary is attracting major developments like Fenton. Epic Games is at work on their new headquarters here. The downtown continues to expand. And of course the parks and outdoor spaces are amazing. Cary’s proximity to RTP, and Raleigh, and Durham is unbeatable.
Holly springs used to be the place where the double wide trailers started when you left Cary.
So why leave Cary?
Small Town Feel
Obviously you all know I really love Cary. I think it’s an amazing town… but actually that’s the first reason we moved.
Even though it’s called the Town of Cary, and they try really, really hard to make it feel like a town rather than a city, Cary no longer feels like a small town to me. Incidentally, this is why so many people hate the idea of Cary building vertically…. You don’t have skyscrapers in small towns and Cary has billed itself as a close knit…town.
Epic Games rezoning request incudes building up to 12 stories in the center of Cary where 3 stories has been the max and even that is not typical. Anyway, When the tall buildings start multiplying , that’s when it starts losing it’s small town appeal.
Holly Springs is about 40 thousand people, which is about the same size as the town I grew up in, in South Florida, which really felt like a small town at that time. Cary is about 180,000 people. Now, Holly Springs IS actually building tall buildings. There is no doubt in my mind that Holly Springs envisions itself becoming much more urban over the next 20-30 years. We’ll talk a little more about that when I talk about the economy. But based on zoning and building height that has been implemented in a town of 40,000, it seems that Holly Springs, while currently a village, will eventually be a city. But for right now, it feels like a very quaint and close knit small town, even with a few tall buildings.
So that’s one reason we’re leaving. We wanted somewhere that just felt more intimate. Holly Springs is also physically a lot smaller than Cary. It’s about 17 square miles compared to Cary which is about 60 square miles. And it’s unlikely that Holly Springs will get as big as Cary because the annexation laws have changed since Cary grew to be as large as it is.
It used to be legal for a city to involuntarily annex the land surrounding it, if they thought it was necessary for urban development. And Cary took advantage of those laws and snatched up a bunch of land and honestly had a really bad reputation for a while because of it. There used to be signs all over the outskirts of town that said “Stop Cary”.
Now everyone realizes that having a Cary address is worth a few bucks, but back then nobody wanted their house that used to be in the country to suddenly be in the city and have to pay city taxes. But the laws changed back in 2011, making it more difficult for municipalities to do that, without the consent of the people being annexed.
Now annexation usually only happens when people request it because they want city amenities like water and sewer or sidewalks. Which usually happens when developers are building a subdivision and need city utilities. So it does happen but not in the same creepy, snatch and grab way it used to.
High School
The next reason we left was because of the high school. There was absolutely nothing wrong with our zoned high school. It just happened that we lived on the edge of the zoning boundary and most of our rising freshman’s friends that he went to middle school with were zoned to another high school. He was going to be starting over making friends anyway. So the timing was right.
I also have to say thatI love that there is only ONE high school in Holly Springs. Again, small town. And it doesn’t hurt that the one high school is ranked in the top 10% of high schools in the US. Cary of course has quite a few nationally ranking high schools as well. And the high ranking schools in Cary actually outrank the school in Holly Springs.
But to me, I think schools that are too competitive don’t allow enough flexibility for the kids to be who they are. I’m not a tiger mom. I want the course load to be to the level that my son can participate in things outside of school without the stress and not feel like he doesn’t fit in with the other kids because he’s not as dedicated to academics. Now, he’s taking all AP classes and precalculus in 9th grade, so maybe it wouldn’t really matter because he does push himself, at least when he’s not playing video games. But I think a less competitive environment while still having lots of options, will benefit him.
Economy
Even though Holly Springs is a small town, I think that it’s a really good place for long term real estate investment. Because unlike most other small towns and suburbs of Raleigh, Holly Springs has done an amazing job of creating a foundation for economic growth.
Look at this…. Holly Springs median household income is higher than Cary’s and its increasing at a higher rate than Cary. That’s because of economic development the town has undertaken to attract life sciences companies like Amgen and Fujifilm Diosynth. They have a business park similar to RTP but on a smaller scale, that will over time have an incredible impact on life in Holly Springs because as we have seen in RTP, when good companies invest in an area, others soon follow.
Also, look at the difference in home prices. Cary’s median home is an unbelievable $636,000 and Holly Springs is $579,000. But people make more money on average in Holly Springs. So it’s cheaper to live here. We’re gonna talk a lot about the differences in available housing in the two towns, which is significant. But I’ll get to that in a little bit.
Culture
Cary is a larger city and you would think that that means there are more things to do. And there are definitely more events put on by the town, and more classes at the community center. But because it’s so big, I have found things to be less accessible than in Holly Springs.
Because Holly Springs is so small, everything happens in one place. You can just be like, hey, I wonder what’s happening downtown and there’s probably something happening downtown. Just drive over there.
But in Cary, finding out what is happening and getting there to do it seems hard to me. An event could be taking place in one of 20 different spots. And there isn’t one streamlined way to find things. I’m on the town mailing list but that doesn’t incorporate events happening at locally owned places. And also things can be crowded enough that I shy away from doing them. But then I really, really dislike crowds. Some people don’t mind them. I personally would live in the country if I could. I like wide open spaces. Holly Springs seems to give me the best of both worlds, or at least a happy medium.
Food
Of course Holly Springs is smaller so it doesn’t have as much variety of food as you have in Cary. But honestly Cary is only 20 minutes away. Cary is big enough that there are definitely times you’ll drive 20 minutes to get from one thing to another in Cary. Twenty minutes is just not a big deal to go out to dinner, IMO. And Holly Springs actually does have a great variety of food for the size of the town. And there are always more things coming. I’m gluten free so I have limitations on what I can eat anyway. Holly Springs has Chipotle, a ton of gluten free pizza spots, a fully gluten-free bakery and The Mason Jar is run by a family whose daughter has celiac. If there is anything else I need, I can go to Cary. No biggie.
Parking in Cary & Holly Springs
There are a few examples of the differences in recreation from Cary to Holly Springs.
First, parking. When you want to go to downtown Cary, parking can often be difficult to find. There is the parking garage by the library. But really parking is pretty limited anytime there are events. It’s almost as if you have to live in downtown Cary to enjoy it. They do run shuttles at events, but for example, the biggest reason I don’t go to the Cary farmers market is that I have had trouble finding parking, and Chatham gets congested, and I hate stepping onto that busy road when you parallel park.
I’ve made fun of Holly Springs before because they built their downtown from scratch out of a cow field. When we moved here 22 years ago, there was almost nothing in Holly Springs and there certainly wasn’t a cute shopping and eating district like there is now.
But the benefit of building from scratch rather than revitalizing a historic district is that there is TONS of parking. There is a huge parking lot at the community center and farmers market. There is a huge parking lot right behind all the shopping and restaurants and check this out. This is where you park for events put on by the town at Sugg Farm.
In Cary, there has also been a pretty big increase in petty crime, smash and grabs all over Cary over the last 10 years. It’s still a very low crime town, but anytime population increases, you have more things like this. It seems almost a daily occurrence at Bond Park. And we don’t see police officers all over the place like we used to in Cary. Drive through Holly Springs and you’ll see them pretty constantly throughout the town, just like Cary was 20 years ago. They’re everywhere. Personally, I really like that.
Housing
Okay now let’s talk about the biggest reason we left: housing.
First I’m going to tell you how we made our decision and then I’m going to show you the kind of housing we had in Cary, compared to what we were able to get in Holly Springs for just a little bit more money.
Actually our house was right outside the city limits of Cary, in one of those areas they tried to snatch up but the neighborhood fought it. We were about 5 minutes drive to downtown..
Anyway, my son really wanted to go to Cary high where all his friends were zoned. But for that, we would have to buy a house in Cary. We were looking for more space, working from home has really cramped our style. And, there weren’t any houses in that district that we were remotely interested in. There still aren’t. Inventory is almost non-existent in Cary. And if we had wanted to stay in Cary, for something the same size, age and similar features of the house we bought in Holly Springs, would have cost about $150,000 more in Cary.
Frankly, while both Cary and Holly Springs are beautiful places to live, unless you need to be close to RTP, I don’t see that there is $150,000 difference in value in living in Cary over Holly Springs. At least for me there isn’t. Now, there are a lot of people who need to be close to RTP, but I am not one of those people. If I were, I would NOT want to make that commute from Holly Springs for sure. Although if I was part time work from home, I might.
This is the house we left in Cary. It was built in the 60’s and had really small closets! We wanted to spend a little bit more for a move up house with good closets and a little more space, but we didn’t want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more. We found this amazing home in Holly Springs. We absolutely love it. Like I said earlier, this home would be a lot more expensive in Cary.
Conclusion
In the end, we decided that Cary is just too big for us. And Holly Springs is no longer a rural crossroads. You’ve got all the amenities and shopping without the crowds and craziness.
Will Holly Springs eventually end up with the same kind of feel as Cary? I think it will. I personally think that Holly Springs is the most like Cary of any other Triangle town. And in 20-30 years it will likely be very similar to what Cary is now.
But by then I will have retired to some little town in the mountains and I’ll be okay with that.
