Hope Valley Farms
One thing that happens in a university town, especially a university town with a medical center, is that there are a lot of people that move here but only expect to stay for two or three years while they are doing a residency or grad school. This special situation tailors the advice and guidance in home buying I provide these usually younger buyers, who are often also first time buyers.
The thing I believe they should be most careful about is purchasing a home that will have enough appreciation to at least cover sales expenses when they put the house on the market two or three years later. In purely financial terms, it might be a close call on whether many of these folks should be buying instead of renting. However, because there is more selection of homes for sale and, for doctors especially, financial institutions are willing to lend them money, many choose to buy instead of rent.
Hope Valley Farms is one of the most popular Durham neighborhoods and one I often recommend to these short-time citizens. Hope Valley Farms is situated in southern Durham so that it is convenient to Duke University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, both major research universities with medical centers and medical schools.
Besides the convenience of being close to both universities and a major regional shopping center (SouthPoint) the primary reason Hope Valley Farms works for this segment of the market is it's good resale history. But there are a number of other factors too. First, it has homes in a wide variety of price ranges including townhomes. The style of the homes is fairly consistent...some might say bland...but that is one reason that it consistently sells well...it's a well researched subdivision, that truthfully doesn't look much different than a hundred other similar communities in the southeast. But that is not a bad thing if you are not going to be here long. Since the neighborhoods in HVF are newer, the homes tend to be a little more up to date and often better condition than the slightly older and larger Woodcroft, just south of HVF. Schools are good, especially the elementary schools.
One of the things I realized while doing the labels for a mailing in HVF was what an international community it had become. Many, many of the names I encountered were definitely of an origin outside of this country with lots of Asian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic and European origins. This reflects both the draw of the universities as well as the high tech companies in the Research Triangle Park which is also convenient to the community.
For that last couple of years I have kept market statistics on Hope Valley Farms. Currently up-to-date resale information is available on www.bullcitybulletin.com through the end of 2007.