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In the early years of the recession, the cities that created the most jobs — sometimes the only ones — were either government- or military-dominated (Washington, D.C.; Kileen-Temple-Fort Hood, Texas), or were powered by the energy boom in Texas, Oklahoma and the northern Great Plains. Now, five years down the road, the economic growth has shifted, largely to cities with a strong technology base. Job creation in these tech hubs is substantial, and it seems that the growth will continue well throughout the rest of 2014. Forbes recently published an article with data analyzing the best cities for jobs in the US this year, and Raleigh made the cut.

Rankings are based on recent growth trends, mid-term growth, long-term growth and the region’s momentum. Forbes also broke down rankings by size since regional economies differ markedly due to their scale.

The list is as follows:

No. 1: San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA

No. 2: San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA Metropolitan Division

No. 3: Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX

No. 4: Raleigh-Cary, NC

No. 5: Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX

No. 6: Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN

No. 7: New York City, NY

No. 8: Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL

No. 9: Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX Metropolitan Division

No. 10: Denver-Aurora-Broomfield, CO

No. 11: Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Division

No. 12: San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX

No. 13: Salt Lake City, UT

No. 14: Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC-SC

No. 15: Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA Metropolitan Division

The demand in the Raleigh real estate market is totally apparent, as seen in the recent sales for homes in the area. However, one crucial element of a successful market is in limbo—sellers! In fact, the number of homes available for sale in the area are so scarce they are at a historically low level. While most industry analysts expected inventory levels to fall off dramatically in the years immediately following the housing bust, few expected they would remain so low for so long even as the market entered an extended recovery.

So what do you if you are interested in moving to Raleigh and want to buy a home? Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do except be ready. Have your pre-approval ready and your down payment sitting in the bank ready to apply as a good faith deposit. In a typical market, the law of supply and demand would dictate that increasing demand would lead to rising prices, which in turn would entice more homeowners to put their homes up for sale. That hasn’t happened in the Triangle. This is an interesting predicament for the local market to deal with, and it doesn’t show signs of changing any time soon.

New single-family building permits were up 5 percent in Wake County in February, according to data compiled by the Home Builders Association of Raleigh-Wake County. Permits were up 60 percent in Apex, 51 percent in Rolesville, 19 percent in Fuquay-Varina, 21 percent in Raleigh, 9 percent in Cary and 16 percent in Knightdale. The only Wake municipality to see a decline in permits was Garner, where permits fell 11 percent. By comparison, there has been no change to the Wake Forest permits in 12 months.

The demand for available housing has been consistently rising over the past few months, and the Triangle is experiencing a stretch of low inventory. The region had just 6,589 homes for sale at the end of February, down 7 percent from a year ago and off 30 percent from two years ago. Hopefully the addition of new residential real estate will help balance out the demand for homes, as moving to Raleigh seems to be a growing trend with no signs of slowing down.

The Triangle town house market, which hit rock bottom in 2011, continues to make a strong comeback as a recovering housing market and rising land costs make it an attractive alternative for buyers and builders. The market is continually growing in popularity, and townhomes make an efficient use of increasingly less property space available. There were 1,741 town houses started in the Triangle last year, up 6 percent from 2012 and 62 percent from when the market bottomed out in the second quarter of 2011, according to Metrostudy, a research firm that tracks Triangle housing trends.

As it becomes more expensive to move to Raleigh into a single family home, the townhome offers a realistic alternative for aspiring homeowners. Sales of new town houses have been particularly brisk in southeast Durham, as well as Cary and Morrisville, where land prices are high and young professionals are finding town houses to be a more affordable option when seeking to live near Research Triangle Park. Another factor helping drive demand for town houses is an uptick in divorces.

Recently, a report was published by Realtor.com which documented the top 10 markets for first time home buyers in the upcoming home buying season. First-time buyers have a widespread impact on the local housing markets. In transitioning from renters to owners, new buyers pay property taxes and other fees and taxes associated with homeownership that benefits local schools and services. It goes without saying that some markets are simply easier for new homeowners to transition. Markets that made the 2014 list by rank include: Pittsburgh, PA; Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL; Philadelphia, PA; Fort Worth-Arlington, TX; Orlando, FL; Jacksonville, FL; Dallas, TX; Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC and Phoenix-Mesa, AZ.

The factors examined for the findings were: location, affordability, supply, days on market, and local employment. Realtor.com(R) examined key housing indicators including: search rank, median list price, year-over-year change in inventory, median age of inventory and unemployment rates across 146 markets and evaluated the metrics against the needs and desires of the typical first-time home buyer. All metrics considered were pulled directly from realtor.com(R) February 2014 data and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Living in Raleigh ranked in at #9 on the list of 10 markets.

The developers of the planned Church+Main condominium building in downtown Durham have officially broken ground and started construction—marking the development of the first new building in downtown Durham in 26 years. Church+Main is slated to have eight condo units in the five-story, modern-style building at 130 E. Main Street.

The project is being built on a small vacant parking lot directly next to the historic Durham County Administration Building and the Church Street parking deck. Moving to Durham has gained in popularity in recent months, and the addition of these new condos will help balance out the supply and demand to help accommodate for the growing population.

As of January, six of the eight units had been pre-sold. Unit prices start from $279,900. The building will also have 2,700 square feet of retail or office space on the ground floor.

A new real estate trend has started popping up in areas like Seattle, San Francisco, Raleigh and D.C. After dissecting housing reports Trulia found that prices were generally 82% higher in big tech hubs compared to other large metro cities. While engineers and highly paid coders are well paid in the industry, the cost of living increase is still making it difficult to afford to live in these cities and bridge the affordability gap. This could have a seriously negative outcome on the local real estate market for several areas. According to the report, 48% of homes listed in these tech cities were affordable to the middle class based on the median household income, compared to 63% listed in other metro areas.

While Raleigh is not as well-known to some as Silicon Valley and other west coast areas, moving to Raleigh has proven popular for tech people wishing to stay on the east coast. The big year over year increases in asking price were up in the top 10 tech cities, with a high rise of 24.4% in Oakland, and a low of 6.5% in Raleigh. Seattle’s asking price was up 16.6%, which was above that is San Francisco and San Jose. The rise in rent has also been prevalent in these tech hubs, with a standard 2 bedroom renting for over 37% more than in metro cities, and a year over year rise in Seattle has seen a 9.2% increase.

So where do the “self-consciously artsy creative-class would-be bohemians” congregate in the Triangle? A recent poll of Gawker readers shows that in Raleigh, it was a tie between the Boylan Heights neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown Raleigh and Carrboro. Technically Carrboro is a town 30 miles away, but it is still around the Research Triangle Area, and it is a good alternative for people who want to live outside city limits. Boylan Heights and Carrboro were tied in their hipness as the Triangle’s equivalent to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Raleigh’s Mordecai neighborhood on the northern edge of downtown ranked as the Capital City’s equivalent to Bushwick.

But how accurate are these findings? There were not many votes determining one neighborhood from the other, and how does any other neighborhood compare to a world famous area like Williamsburg? What do you think? If you were moving to Raleigh would you let surveys like this play into your decision on where to live?

A new study that compared 100 most populous metros has found the fastest growing cities in the nation, and the study rated these places based on six metrics. Using data from Moody’s Analytics, we assessed the estimated rates of population growth for 2013 and 2014, year-over-year job growth for 2013, and the rate of gross metro product growth—a.k.a. the economic growth rate–for 2013. We also considered federal unemployment data and median salaries for local college-educated workers, courtesy of Payscale.com. The result is a list of the 20 fastest growing metro areas in America in terms of population and economy.

Among this list, Raleigh ranks in the number two spot. Moving to Raleigh has gained in popularity, and the 2013 population growth rate was 2.15 percent in 2013. The unemployment rate is at 5.69 percent, and the median pay is $64,800.

As we begin the New Year, there are some real estate predictions made for the country in regards to areas that are projected to grow, to do well, and to gain in popularity and price. One area that has been named on this list is our very own Raleigh. Growth of the local economy centers around the science and technology industries. Both high growth industries that will continue to flourish for decades to come. That’s reflected in the Raleigh new construction permit rate that is 99% of the average since 1990. And Raleigh isn’t the only North Caroline city to receive recognition—nearby Charlotte made the list as well.

If you want to find the fastest growing real estate markets in 2014, you need to look for local economies with growing employment. The second factor to look for is high construction permits. Contractors are only building in areas where they think they can sell new houses. While the list doesn’t try to name the hottest markets in the country (which remain Manhattan, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and the other traditional market leaders), but these are likely among the most affordable hot markets in the country this year.