Pros & Cons of Living in Cary

Cary is one of the most sought after suburbs in the Triangle Region of North Carolina. In fact, Niche.com, which is an online ranker of colleges and neighborhoods, ranked Cary as not only the #1 neighborhood in the Raleigh-Durham area, but the #1 neighborhood in all of North Carolina. So what makes Cary so great? Let’s check it out!

The Raleigh-Durham area has so many suburbs that it can often be overwhelming for people moving here to tell one from the other. There’s Cary and Morrisville and Holly Springs and Apex and Fuquay-Varina (that’s always a fun one for newbies to the area to learn how to pronounce!) - and those just cover the area south and west of Raleigh! My goal is to make videos & blogs on each, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for those, but let’s start with the crown jewel of the Triangle suburbs: Cary, NC. Cary has a population of nearly 175,000 people and is notable for its centralized location, top notch schools, cute downtown, great food & beer, access to the outdoors, and overall quality of life. But that prestige does come at a price, which we’ll discuss a little later.

Location
Let’s start with a major reason people love to move to Cary: the centralized location. Cary covers a pretty large geographical area - about 60 square miles in total - stretching all the way from Raleigh to the East to Lake Jordan to the West and from the Research Triangle Park in the North to Holly Springs in the South, with some carve outs here and there. Given its size, Cary actually covers three counties: the bulk of the city is located in Wake County, but there are tiny overlaps into Chatham County to the West and Durham County to the North. But what this means is that Cary is pretty darn close to everything, with its Downtown being fewer than 15 miles west of downtown Raleigh, less than 20 miles southeast of downtown Durham, minutes to RDU airport, and a quick 15-minute drive to the Research Triangle Park. If you’re looking for convenient access to literally everything in the Triangle, you really can’t pick a better place to live than Cary. 

RTP Connection
Speaking of the Research Triangle Park, it was really the construction of RTP back in the late 1950s that led to Cary’s explosive growth - its population was just 3,356 people in 1960 - and to its modern day strong economy. This wasn’t by mistake: the city actually built a 4-lane highway between Cary and RTP to attract developers to build the new research hub in North Carolina. So as you may expect, Cary’s growth was fueled by the tremendous wealth that was being generated in the Research Triangle Park, especially when IBM came to the area in the mid ‘60s, followed by SAS in the mid ‘70s and Epic Games in 1999. And that wealth has continued in the area, with Cary having one of the highest median incomes in the state at about $114,000. That’s nearly 30% higher than the county average and almost DOUBLE the state average! Just for reference, the NATIONAL average is $69,000. It will also probably come as no surprise that Cary is an incredibly well educated city, with 70% of the residents holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. 

Education
Speaking of education, another big reason people move to Cary is because of its great school system. Cary received an A+ from Niche.com and ranks in the top 5% in the state for its public schools. It’s part of the Wake County Public School System, which is the largest in the state, and has over 30 public schools for grade K-12. On average, public schools in Cary have higher math and reading scores than the statewide averages.

Downtown Cary
Of course schools and jobs are super important, but let’s get into some of the fun stuff, starting with Downtown Cary. This is probably one of my favorite downtowns in the area for its walkability, great restaurants, beautiful architecture, award-winning breweries, and tons of charm. You can make a day of just exploring Downtown Cary, starting with the much anticipated reopening of Downtown Cary Park, which will be a 7-acre park in the heart of downtown with a Great Lawn, water features, walking trails, a dog park, and tons of natural beauty. From there, you can walk along Academy and check out the cute restaurants and shops. Be sure to stop in and grab coffee at my favorite coffee shop, Esteamed before heading up to Chatham St, where you’ll find some great restaurants, cocktails bars, and breweries. SideBar has an awesome vintage vibe and some of the best cocktails out there, while Bond Brothers Brewery was named the Best New Brewery in the country by USA Today when it opened in 2017. How’s that for accolades?

Access to the Outdoors
Outside of Downtown, Cary has a ton of great access to the outdoors, starting with over 70 miles of greenways for biking, hiking, or strolling. There are also over 30 public parks, the most notable of which are Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve and Umstead Park. Hemlock Bluffs is over 130 acres and, as its name suggests, features over 200 hemlock trees that are normally only found in the mountains of Western North Carolina, along with nature trails and an outdoor play area. Umstead Park is over 5,500 acres of state park that includes tons of trails, man made fishing lakes, and a campground. It’s the epitome of the nature that the Triangle is known for. Also be sure to check out Lake Crabtree for your kayaking and paddleboarding adventures or to take a stroll around its 10-mile loop.

Weather
You’ll also be able to enjoy the outdoors much of the year due to the region’s great weather. OK, let’s just get it out of the way: yes, Cary has a HOT and HUMID summer, but the worst of it only lasts about 2 months, with July and August being the peak. Outside of that, the annual average high is around 70 degrees and the low is around 50 degrees, which means you spend a lot of time outside here. There’s an average of 213 days of sunshine a year, and Cary only averages about 4” of snow per year, so if you’re moving here from somewhere with a long and brutal winter, you should be just fine to sell your snow shovel!

Tourism
Cary is also building itself up as a major hot spot for tourism with the new, nearly $1-billion mixed-used development, Fenton, which includes shopping, top-tier restaurants, a movie theater, ice skating rink in the winter, and a plan for at least 2 more phases over the coming years. It’s really setting itself up to be THE place to go in the Triangle. There are also plans for the redevelopment of South Hills Mall, which will be reimagined as a multi-use development that places an emphasis on adding apartments and walkable amenities. Oh, and we can’t forget about the annual Chinese Lantern Festival at Koko Booth Amphitheater, which last year attracted over 200,000 visitors from around the country and internationally. 

High Costs
So that’s all great, but what about the downsides? Well, as you may have guessed, with all that good comes a lot of demand, which means that one of the biggest cons about living in Cary is the cost. The average home price in Cary was around $700k as of July 2023, which is about 20% higher than Raleigh and 45% higher than Durham. But that doesn’t tell the full story: when we look at the average price per square foot, Cary is only about 5-10% more expensive than its two neighboring large cities. So that means that homes in Cary are, on average, larger than those found in Raleigh and Durham, which contributes to the overall higher average sales price. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given what I talked about earlier with so much of Cary’s growth being attributed to the boom of the Research Triangle Park and the wealth that came from there.

Uniformity
Also, that explosion in population led to a huge demand for housing, so Cary was the first city in North Carolina to build a Planned Unit Development, or PUD. These are large-scale communities that include everything in one place: homes, shopping, restaurants, parks, and even community and religious centers. The PUD model became so popular in Cary that over 20 were built in the 80s and 90s, which means you’ll find a ton of housing from that period in Cary. In fact, over the past 5 years, the average single-family home sold in Cary was built in 2000, so just over 20 years old, as compared to 1989 for Durham and 1992 for Raleigh. These communities also have homeowner’s associations, which are much more common in Cary than in Raleigh or Durham, though they certainly exist all across the region. So while Cary covers a huge geographical area and contains all types of architecture and community, it can feel a bit more homogenous than some of the more historical cities surrounding it. 

So is Cary right for you? The best way to find out is to come see it for yourself. If you’re considering a move to the Raleigh-Durham area, leave me a comment down below or you can reach me directly, and I’d love to show you what makes Cary, and the Triangle region in general, so great!