Dozens of million-dollar homes coming to booming North Carolina county

Originally posted by Triangle Business Journal

A Chapel Hill company has spent millions on more than 100 acres in a growing North Carolina county — and new homes will soon follow.

Hamlets Reserve LLC, which is tied to the the Bold Companies, purchased the 109 acres off Hamlets Chapel Hill Road in the northern part of Chatham County for a little more than $2.4 million earlier this month, according to Chatham County deed records. The land is zoned for residential use.

"We plan to develop it into approximately 40 residential lots that will be 1 to 5 acres each," Chris Ehrenfeld, owner of the Bold Companies, told Triangle Business Journal.

Ehrenfeld said the homes will sell for more than $1 million and will be ready for purchase in 2026.

The land is north of Pittsboro and across Highway 501 from the Fearrington area. The 501 corridor between Pittsboro and Chapel Hill is filling in fast with commercial and residential development, including the huge Mosaic project, the commercial entrance to Chatham Park.

With lots of relatively cheap land and decent proximity to the core of the Research Triangle, Chatham County has seen droves of new residents in recent years. As of July 2023, the county's population sat at 81,624, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. That's up from 76,285 in 2020 and 63,505 in 2010.

Massive manufacturing factories could potentially increase the population by much more in the coming years.

In 2022, Durham-based Wolfspeed (NYSE: WOLF) announced it would build an 1,800-job factory at the Chatham-Siler City Megasite, a $5 billion investment. The factory for semiconductor materials is expected to start production by the end of this year.

Also in 2022, Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast (Nasdaq: VFS) announced plans for a 7,500-job factory at Triangle Innovation Point park in Moncure. But questions are swirling about the project, which has faced delays with construction stalled at the site.

Originally published by Triangle Business Journal.