October opens with a full weekend in and around Durham, starting with the fall GrassRoots Festival at Shakori Hills and NCCU Theatre’s season-opening African Medea. Saturday brings WUNC’s 50th birthday party, 1860s-style baseball at the DAP, and Phoenix Fest’s 25th year on Fayetteville Street, and Sunday closes 1.2 miles of downtown to cars for Move-A-Bull City Open Streets. There’s plenty to fill Friday, October 2 through Sunday, October 4.
Buying a new home before your current one sells can mean a more direct move and less coordinating around your own sale, but it also comes with real financial exposure most homeowners haven’t fully priced out. This week’s Advice by Design looks at what it actually takes to buy first responsibly, from accessing your current equity to budgeting for the stretch where you might own two homes at once.
Durham County’s closed sales fell to their lowest August total since 2022, even as homes under contract jumped from July, a gap worth watching heading into fall. This month’s update breaks down what it means for buyers and sellers, neighborhood by neighborhood.
Early autumn settles in this weekend, with two very different Friday night options: a laid-back garden concert or a Dolly Parton tribute at American Tobacco Campus. Saturday piles on even more, a pumpkin-picking train ride, an Outlander-inspired Scottish festival, a Shrek-themed block party, and a free evening of modern dance in Cary. There’s a lot to fill Friday, September 25 through Sunday, September 27.
Spring gets the glory and summer gets the traffic, but autumn might be the most underrated season to buy or sell a home. This special edition of Advice by Design looks at what’s genuinely different about a fall market, fewer competing offers, bare branches that reveal what a house was hiding, and a pace that leaves room to actually think.
Chatham County’s inventory just hit its highest point since 2022, and new listings and price per square foot both set August records alongside it. This month’s update breaks down what all that growth means for buyers and sellers, neighborhood by neighborhood.
CenterFest takes over downtown Durham this weekend, kicked off Friday by Third Friday’s art walk before the festival fills the streets Saturday and Sunday. Layer in a luminary program at Bennett Place, a new sculpture garden debuting in Pittsboro, a dragon boat festival in Cary, and a night with John Waters closing things out, and there’s a lot to choose from between Friday, September 18 and Sunday, September 20.
The market feels slower, stranger, and harder to read than it did a few years ago, and that feeling is only half right. Pulling 22 years of data across Durham and five surrounding counties, this special edition of Advice by Design shows what’s genuinely changed, what was always an outlier, and where today’s market actually sits in the full history.
Wake County’s median home price fell to its lowest August level since 2022 this year, even as inventory held near record highs and days on market hit a multi-year high for the month. A shift toward buyers is becoming harder to ignore, one this month’s update breaks down neighborhood by neighborhood.
Downtown Raleigh belongs to Hopscotch this weekend, while Durham holds its own with a literary celebration honoring Ruby Bridges, the Eno River Association’s 60th anniversary, and the 16th annual Durham Oktoberfest, all on the same Saturday. Add a new creekside concert series at Hub RTP and Triangle Vegfest closing out Sunday, and there’s a lot to fill Friday through Sunday across Durham and the Triangle.
