More than Biotech and Basketball

newsobserver.com | Business: RTP may conjure notions of high tech college anchored towns to most people but it is also a increasingly bullish area for banking and real estate.

This N&O article is full of interesting stats some of which I have pasted below:

"Between 2000 and 2004, Wake County ranked No. 5 nationally in the number of new homes added -- 45,000, according the Census Bureau. The Triangle added more than 75,000 homes in that period, mostly in dozens of new subdivisions."

Measured in deposits, the Triangle banking market has increased 28 percent to $18.7 billion since 2002. But the number of branches is flat at 375, suggesting room for growth.

The Triangle added 22,775 jobs between January and the end of October, up almost 50 percent from the same period last year, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.

That may have contributed to a 47 percent increase in new apartment units in Durham, Orange and Wake counties 12 months ended Sept. 30, according to the Triangle Apartment Association.

In the three months ending Sept. 30, new single-family home permits in the Triangle were up nearly 20 percent from a year earlier, according to Market Opportunity Research Enterprises in Rocky Mount.