Wakefield / Wakefield Estates

Wakefield is technically a Raleigh address, and anyone who tells you otherwise is rounding. It borders Wake Forest, it shares the same retail, and enough of the people who live in it shop and eat on the Wake Forest side that it belongs in this directory. It is also big. Roughly 5,000 homes were built between 1997 and 2012, arranged around the TPC Wakefield golf course, with Wakefield High inside the neighborhood and the big-box stretch of Capital Boulevard along its edge. Prices run from about $400k to $1.5M. That span is accurate: the Wakefield Estates section holds the largest houses, and plenty of the rest is considerably more ordinary.

Where it is

On paper this is north Raleigh, and the town line is most of what separates it from Wake Forest. Capital Boulevard, which is also US-1, runs along it, so the trip south into the city is a straight one and downtown Wake Forest is a shorter drive the other way. Almost every errand happens on that corridor, since the shopping serving this side of the line is the same shopping the neighborhoods above it use. The golf course is the other orienting feature. A master-planned neighborhood built around one tends to be laid out by it, and this one is.

What to know if you're moving here

The section you buy in decides nearly everything, from the dues to the age of the house to what the street around it looks like. Two of the honest drawbacks are worth reading twice.

• HOA dues run $200 to $600 a year depending on where you are.
• The houses range from 1997 to 2012, so one street can be approaching thirty years old while another is barely fifteen.
• On the older end, expect a full replacement cycle to have come and gone, or to be due.
• Schools are Wakefield Elementary, Wakefield Middle and Wakefield High, and for many buyers that assignment is the reason they looked here at all.
• This is not the town of Wake Forest, so if living in the town is part of what you want, no amount of proximity delivers it.
• Five thousand homes generate real traffic at school hours and on the corridor, and a 1998 house and a Wakefield Estates house share a name and not much else.

What to do if you're visiting

Golf is the obvious draw, and the TPC course is the one the neighborhood was built around. Dinner is easy from here because the corridor carries most of it.

• Another course close by on the Wake Forest side of the line is Paschal Golf Club, if you want a second option for a round.
• For a table of six who cannot agree on anything, Los Tres Magueyes – Wake Forest is the dependable Mexican pick.
• The pub end of the evening is McKenzie's Restaurant & Pub, with a bar you can sit at.
• Anyone coming in from out of town to visit family can stay at Hampton Inn Raleigh/Town of Wake Forest, which keeps the driving short.