Raleigh does it again!!! Once again Raleigh has made the list of Best Places to Live in the July issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. This year, Raleigh placed 2nd behind only Houston on the annual list.
Kiplinger reports that Raleigh is "a work in progress" as the city has long been known for being a good place to work, but the big city culture has been absent in the community. That's changing according to Kiplinger, "Raleigh is increasingly becoming a more exciting place to live, and the excitement of living there is catching up with the benefits provided by the local economy."
Kiplinger credits the downtown renaissance as the key to the future of the city and specifically mentions the new convention center and the RBC Plaza as milestones for the city.
In essence, the main reason that Raleigh made this list of the Best Places to Live is due to low cost of living, a high percentage of workers with university degrees, and strong economic growth.
Kiplinger's says its list encompasses cities "offering strong economies, abundant jobs, reasonable living costs - and fun things to do."
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Despite all the "gloom and doom" reports that can be seen in the national and local media, North Carolina's economy is expected to grow this year by a modest, but positive, 2.2%, according to UNC Charlotte economist John Connaughton's quarterly forecast.
His forecast for this year, though, calls for a rate lower than the state's 2.4 percent expansion in 2007 and 4.3 percent growth in 2006. Additionally, North Carolina is expected to add 34,700 jobs, an increase of 0.8% over 2007.
Connaughton expects eight of the state's 11 economic sectors to experience growth during 2008. The sectors with the strongest expected growth forecasts are:
- Agriculture, with a projected real growth rate of 7.7 percent.
- Mining, 5 percent.
- Services, 4.8 percent.
- Wholesale trade, 4.3 percent.
- Government, 4.1 percent.
- Transportation, warehousing, utilities, and information, 2.7 percent.
- Retail trade, 2.6 percent.
Three sectors - durable goods manufacturing, nondurable goods manufacturing, and construction - are expected to experience an output decline during 2008.
Positive growth will benefit the housing market as the more jobs, the more potential buyers will be in the market for homes. Additionally, many sectors of the economy experience growth, it should result in higher wages and more stable incomes to allow homeowners to buy more home as well. If the national real estate market improves as it is expected, then it will benefit the Triangle even more as many people are moving to this area, but cannot sell their homes in other parts of the country, reports Steven W. Nelson, a local Realtor for Keller Williams Realty.
"I am seeing the market pick up with more phone calls to list their homes, the only issue now is to have more of these homes actually selling again as they did in 2006," continued Steven W., "It will get better in time and right now is the time to position your home to sell it. People are still buying, but it is making listing agents work harder to market their homes to get them sold."
