SOLD! is sign of success

There are pockets of success tucked across the Triangle, bucking the national trend of slow home sales.

For those in position to buy, the time is right. Interest rates are at a 60-year low, averaging about 4.5 percent on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage.

"I think we've made a good choice buying now," said Debra Hodges.

She and her family were unloading their belongings on Marsala Drive Monday. The relocated from a rental in north Raleigh.

"We're getting 1,000 more square feet for the same price," she said.

The builder of the subdivision, ForeverHome, started work in November. It has already sold 50 of the homes, which range in size from about 1,900 to 3,400 square feet and are priced between $150,000 and $250,000.

Lance Lindow moved his family to Johnston County from Arkansas.

"It was close enough to Raleigh, but yet far enough that you still got that family feel, and it was just bang for the buck," he said.

Mark Ward, ForeverHome vice president of sales, said, "Location, price, value and quality win every time. People are going to buy homes. People have to have a great place to live."

Other new neighborhoods with home prices up to $800,000 are also selling. Johnston County issued 21 more new home permits in June than at the same time last year.

"We hear people talking doom and gloom every day about different parts of the country," Ward said. "Raleigh and the entire Triangle always seem to bear the storm a little bit better than others."