Welcome to the College Real Estate Page for the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Many parents ponder whether they should buy or rent while their students attend college. For some the answer is to buy and for others the answer is to rent. College Real Estate hopes to help you find which is the right answer for you. Another great tool in helping you decide is our College Real Estate guide book that walks you through the entire process of buying student property. We hope you find this site useful and welcome any and all feed back. If you would like to be connected with a College Real Estate's exclusive Realtor in Chapel Hill, North Carolina please visit our buying page. If you have decided that buying student housing is not the right answer for you and would like to be connected with a leasing specialist please visit our leasing page.
Ranked number one in the nation by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance report for “best academic quality and low cost,” we just can’t say enough about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Opening its doors in 1795, UNC is the first public university in the U.S. The light blue Tarheels – a reference to the state’s early prominence as a tar and pitch producer – shine at basketball and women’s soccer in the prestigious ACC athletic conference. The team is most recognized for their intense rivalry with neighboring Duke University, though competition is fierce among all four ACC teams in North Carolina. The Tarheel population is currently made up of 17,124 undergraduate students, 10,593 graduate students and 3.100 faculty members.
UNC is home to the largest student annual fundraiser, the UNC Dance Marathon, which involves thousands of students and raises money for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. Students do not only excel philanthropically, but also academically in 71 bachelor’s, 101 master’s, and 74 doctoral degree programs. Newsweek and Kaplan have named UNC one of 25 “New Ivy” campuses emerging as institutional leaders across the nation. UNC may be close behind Ivy League schools in terms of academic prestige, but as a public university, it is significantly behind when it comes to cost. A typical in-state student pays $3,705 for a year of undergraduate studies, while an out-of-state student pays around $19,353. Room and board run about $12,000 per year.
Chapel Hill is certainly a college town and the personality of the city reflects much of the student culture. Due to the large number of students, the city is known for being significantly more liberal than the rest of the state and it also encourages entrepreneurs, fostering a strong start up business environment. Indie coffee shops and bars abound, and live music gives the community a strong sense of creativity and life. The vibrant music scene includes live performances in all genres and Chapel Hill has been the launching pad for artists such as Ben Folds Five, James Taylor, and Superchunk, as well as the indie music label, Mammoth Records. Seasonal outdoor festivals attract quite a crowd on the streets of Chapel Hill, but most notable are the Halloween festivities that draw over 80,000 costumed students to a mile long stretch of Franklin Street from colleges all over the South East.
As you consider the different off campus student housing options in Chapel Hill, we want to give you a brief overview, but we also want to point you toward our exclusive real estate partner, Mark Civiok. According to Mark, investment homes close to campus are very hard to come by because they have all been snatched up, but Chapel Hill offers a myriad of prime investment properties all over town. UNC provides a free shuttle bus system to serve the student and faculty population, so the neighborhoods along the route are great places to look. Your search could begin with a two or three bedroom condo or townhouse for $140K-$150K and go up from there, depending on your goals and desires. The Chapel Hill housing market consistently experiences 5-8% appreciation per year, so you could expect an investment home to appreciate 25% - 40% over a five year period.
Apartments to lease are also very hard to come by close to campus, but if you desire a close-proximity apartment, you can expect to pay $350-$400 per bedroom. If you are willing to go a little farther out, you can find leases for less than $350 per bedroom. Your UNC college housing search can take as little time as a weekend if you are in a pinch, but be advised that many students begin searching months in advance to get their first choice of Chapel Hill Real Estate.
College Real Estate’s goal is to make the moving transition as worry and stress free as possible so we have created a moving center which provides you with helpful information from your utility providers to local grocery centers, restaurants, churches and much more.
College Real Estate also offers a How To database that will keep a new homeowner or those of you renting a house or an apartment from paying an arm and a leg for a service that can easily be done yourself. You can learn how to fix the garbage disposal, light the pilot light, the best way to get rid of rodents, and many other useful lessons. We invite you to take advantage of this knowledge or even post your own helpful article.