Raleigh Durham rents have softened but nothing like Austin mentioned above. This is from Yardi Martrix the leader in apartment data and from their February report.
" Raleigh–Durham ended the year with a decline in rent movement
amid significant construction activity. Average advertised asking
rents were down 0.6% on a three-month basis through December,
to $1,520. Rents also contracted year-over-year, down 3.1%, while
the U.S. average marked a 0.6% expansion."
But also stated this fact which drives new residents: Net gain of over 22,000 jobs in the past 12 months DOUBLE the growth national growth rate of jobs. 12000 units completed last and 25,000 under construction right now in 2025 however all will not be completed this year.
While there is an oversupply with starts of new apartments falling off there will be tightness in the rental market in 2-3 years.
Softening of rent prices amid an increase in both supply and demand is not a bad thing. In fact, from the renter’s POV, it’s a very good thing. We want to keep attracting the best and brightest residents along with the job creation, and having housing that’s more affordable is a good thing. If anything, having Austin’s rents substantially soften makes them more competitive against us when it comes to attracting talent.
That’s possible, but I’d be interested in seeing new construction isolated for both downtowns as opposed to the metro, and I think we’d need to see the numbers for a longer time period than a single year to understand the volume of new units being added. The vacancy rate might paint a more accurate picture, and it looks like downtown Durham and downtown Raleigh are within 1% of each other. I wouldn’t think this would result in a 20% or more difference in asking rents, but maybe these are outliers.
Got dinner at Tucker St. Diner tonight. My chicken tenders were solid. But they still don’t have their ice cream machine yet, so no milkshake for me tonight 
But looks like work on Hone-Sharpen has just started. Smoky Hollow is getting closer & closer to being a filled out little shopping center. Exciting stuff
TBJ finally catching up to what we discussed days ago: Kane sold Peace to Cortland for $152m.
Nothing like paying for old news, huh?
I thought I remembered someone here mentioning a rumor of food trucks moving in to the phase 3 lot while it’s sitting vacant, but I can’t find it. In any case, we now have picnic tables out there. If I completely made up that rumor, then… the tables are nice, I guess?
We only know for sure that Happy + Hale is operating out of a shipping container there - but it sure would be cool for some semi-permanent or rotating food trucks to set up shop, as well. It would likely only boost Happy + Hale’s business, as well.
Do we know what’s going next to Madre? Is it the Italian restaurant? None the less, construction has started in that space.
We also have Crunkleton, Fastmed, Hone Sharpen, & Barrio all actively under construction in the Hollow.
Only one space left available in Smoky Hollow, exciting stuff.
The Italian place says coming soon, but it doesn’t seem that soon:
Happily, Crunkleton had a bunch of staff around tables in a meeting and is looking really close to opening. Only got 1 pic because of the insane glare.
They just put up those posters, as they didn’t have them up the other day. None the less exciting they’ve broken ground
Wow Crunkleton is much further along than I expected. Got to be close!
Going to be Closelton?
Sorry, don’t mind me.
I find it interesting that Lululemon is sponsoring the pickleball court. Wonder if that means anything 
Maybe they’ll take that last spot available in Smoky Hollow?
Also this little pop up is fantastic. There’s so many more opportunities like this around town. Would love to see more vacant lots used like this
Regardless of the fact that I would never shop there, I’d love for Lululemon to open a RETAIL STORE in Smoky Hollow. For transparency, I’d welcome ANY RETAIL STORE opening in Smoky Hollow lmao. Even the stupid luxury dog toy store. However, Lululemon would actually likely find success there.
Yes this! Raleigh is woefully behind other similarly-sized cities in terms of retail downtown - which is one of the reasons this city feels like a night-life city…Retail is one of the biggest drivers in bringing people into cities during the day (apart from obvious things like work) - more retail is a huge benefit and even something like Lululemon which I would never shop at (don’t think they carry my size) is a big win
We need more residents living in downtown proper to encourage more retail, and it’s why we need to defeat the NIMBYs who want to curtail density & height in deference to the single family homes just beyond the edges of downtown.
@John + @couggggar you’re BOTH RIGHT! 
15 posts were merged into an existing topic: Big Box Retail in DTR