40,000 WF residents in 2015?

Brian Pate, who has been everyone’s favorite DJ, is now concentrating on his career in real estate and recently gave a PowerPoint presentation about town and area growth as part of the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce’s new informational program, Coffee Talk.

Pate made a number of projections or predictions, among them:

• Wake Forest will possible pass the 40,000 resident mark in 2015. (The official current number on the town’s website is 35,609.)
• The state Department of Transportation elimination of U.S. 401 from its priority list will limit growth in Franklin County. In looking at Franklin County, Pate also cited the reduction in services at the Franklin Regional Medical Center, no progress on the U.S. 1 corridor and general economic challenges as limiting growth.
• Rolesville will grow FAST over the next couple of years. At the same time, completion (when it happens) of the U.S. 401 bypass will trigger migration along that route to the east of town.
• There is still a perception that there are better schools in Wake County as opposed to Franklin and Granville counties. Looking at Granville, Pate said there was no significant growth in the county in 2014, there are significant economic development challenges, and new construction will drive the market.
• While there is a need and demand for homes under $200,000, Pate said builders find it is not as profitable to build homes in that price range now and therefore there is a shortage. As a result, homes in Wake Forest and Rolesville priced under $200,000 will sell in less than 30 days if they are priced competitively. First time buyers will have limited options, and there will be a greater need for apartments.
• There are very few one-story homes available for baby boomers.
• There will be higher inventories of homes in the $400,000 and over range.
• He found 388 single-family detached homes for sale in Wake Forest this fall and their median list price was $374,717, their average list price was $440,071. The average day a home is on the market is 106 days.
• There were 39 townhouses or condos for sale in town at the same time with a median list price of $174,900, average list price of $200,752. The average time on the market for these homes is 74 days.
• He said the neighborhoods to watch there days are Heritage, where there is little inventory below $300,000, significant new construction above $400,000, and he asked if houses above $400,000 will sell on the Rolesville side of Heritage; Holding Village (where there have been no building permits as yet) rated a ?; and he said Traditions has significant activity but not up to peak Heritage levels. It is still a player in Wake Forest.
• Pate said economists, according to the KCM blog, are predicting a 29 percent rise in real estate values in the next four years. Appreciation will increase in 2015 as new construction begins to catch up with what was not built between 2008 and 2012. He says the annual appreciation for homes in 2015 will be 4.12 percent.
• At the same time, there are fewer homes this year listed in the Triangle Multiple Listing Service which covers 16 counties. This is the second year in a row we have not broken 15,000 total listings in the TMLS. The lowest point was the first week of January 2014 with 11,381 listings. Pate predicts there will be less than 11,000 listings in the next month.
• His graphic of in- and out-migration for Wake County is a blur of aqua lines coming from New York, Pennsylvania, the New England states, Florida and the northern midwest. The orange lines of people going out of the county go to Texas, Louisiana, and California with only a few outliers going toward Washington state and Oregon.

The next Coffee Talk will be Jan. 16 from 8 to 9 a.m. with Bonnie Little talking about Rex Hospital. Go to the chamber’s website, www.wakeforestchamber.org, for more details.