Homes for sale in Raleigh

RALEIGH – West Raleigh’s GlenLake South luxury residential community has been seized by SouthTrust Bank and sold to another builder group. It’s the second property surrendered by Creedmoor Partners over the past two years, the other being Hasentree in north Wake County.

Atlanta-based SunTrust took ownership of the remaining 86 lots and six acres of land at GlenLake South in January and sold the property in February to Ashton Woods Homes for a little more than $7 million. The six acres are slated for 60 townhouse units in the future.

GlenLake South is home to about 50 families who moved in after building began in 2006 in the community off Blue Ridge Road. Most of the GlenLake homes that Creedmoor Partners principal and Premiere Homes President Henry MacNair built and sold cost between $700,000 and $1.1 million.

Future homes at GlenLake are expected to cost much less, but Ashton Woods’ Raleigh division president, Hampton Pitts, says the new home designs will blend with the rest of the neighborhood.

“This is a dream project,” says Pitts, a veteran of the Triangle home building market who opened the Raleigh division office for Ashton Woods Homes in early 2010. “There was nothing wrong with the (GlenLake) project. It’s a premiere location, but it was at a price point that’s a little out of touch with our market today.”

Ashton Woods Homes, which is backed by private equity financing from investors from across the U.S. and Canada, has purchased lots in the past year in three other communities in the Triangle. Pitts says the company plans to build about 80 homes in 2011, beginning with five at Chessington in Morrisville at a price point beginning at $349,000.

Pitts would not estimate prices for new single-family homes at GlenLake. But figuring a lot generally represents about 20 percent of a home’s cost, then based on the $7 million purchase price, Ashton Woods would be building homes at a market price of $450,000 or less.

Raleigh lawyer Don Donadio and his wife paid $779,000 for a 3,900-square-foot home at GlenLake South in 2007. Donadio says he’s not dwelling too much on how less-expensive housing in the neighborhood might affect the value of his home.

“I’m delighted to learn someone has the rights now and will begin marketing (GlenLake South) again,” he says. “It needs active management, and it doesn’t need to be in the hands of the bank.”

GlenLake South’s safety net, Donadio says, will be an architectural review required by GlenLake’s master developer, Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties, which owns the office buildings and business park adjacent to the residential neighborhood and originally sold the land to Creedmoor Partners’ Glen Lake Group LLC entity.

Glen Lake Group LLC paid $8.3 million for the land in three transactions in 2005 and in 2007, according to deed records. Site plans for the property included lots for 31 single-family homes and 114 townhouse units on 46 acres. A combined 55 homes and townhomes have sold so far.

Among those who bought homes at GlenLake are former Carolina Hurricanes    players Andrew Ladd and John Grahame, both of whom since have been traded to other NHL teams. Ladd is now captain of the Atlanta Thrashers, but he still owns his GlenLake home valued at $916,000. Grahame is playing for the Colorado Avalanche    but sold his nearly $1 million GlenLake home in August for $755,000.

Mike Harris, chief operating officer of Highwoods and a GlenLake home owner, says Ashton Woods understood the design restrictions for the community before purchasing the property from SunTrust. “They reached out to us first,” he says. “Our interest is protecting the value and integrity of the whole development.”

Harris says he has not seen architectural sketches for the homes Ashton Woods plans to build at GlenLake, “but from what they said, I’m pretty impressed with what they intend to do. So far, we like what we’ve heard.”

Creedmoor Partners was the developer of Hasentree, a gated golf course community in northern Wake County that began selling homes in 2007 at an entry price of $800,000.

Creedmoor Partners lost ownership of the Hasentree property to SunTrust in late 2009, and SunTrust sold the remaining 330 single-family home lots, as well as the Tom Fazio-designed golf course, walking trails and 13,000-square-foot family activity clubhouse, to luxury home builder Toll Brothers for $23.5 million.

SunTrust officials did not return calls for comment about either the Hasentree or GlenLake South property sales.

Toll Brothers opened its first model home in Hasentree on Feb. 10, and its first new homes in Hasentree are priced from $650,000.

Amanda Jones – Hoyle Staff Writer - Triangle Business Journal