Permit values
Remodeling work cost in Raleigh–Durham
Declared value is what the contractor reported to the building department, which is what the permit fee is calculated from. It is usually the contract value excluding tax, and it runs below a retail quote. Treat it as the floor of the market, not the price. Why the permit and the quote disagree.
What the spread looks like
Every valued permit in the window, grouped by declared value. The last bar holds everything above the 95th percentile, so one unusually large job does not flatten the rest.
By city
| City | Permits | Median | Middle half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raleigh | 1,034 | $70,000 | $18,479 – $301,131 |
| Cary | 378 | $40,365 | $15,154 – $97,450 |
| Wendell | 266 | $351,458 | $295,826 – $426,376 |
| Knightdale | 209 | $371,244 | $332,722 – $488,574 |
| Wake Forest | 107 | $330,000 | $52,948 – $510,215 |
| Zebulon | 75 | $370,236 | $70,000 – $504,127 |
| Rolesville | 49 | $307,413 | $225,760 – $466,770 |
| Apex | 48 | $66,500 | $30,000 – $461,457 |
Month by month
| Month | Permits valued | Median |
|---|---|---|
| August 2026 | 793 | $148,300 |
| September 2026 | 713 | $141,000 |
| October 2026 | 724 | $124,438 |
Complete calendar months only. The current month is left out until it ends.
Who pulled the most remodel & new construction permits in Raleigh–Durham
By permit count over the same window, out of the contractors the building departments name.
- 1Meritage Homes of the Carolinas, Inc51 (4.2%)
- 2D.R. Horton, Inc. T/A Emerald Homes41 (3.4%)
- 3Groundworks North Carolina, LLC30 (2.5%)
- 4KB Home Raleigh-Durham Inc29 (2.4%)
- 5GROUNDWORKS NORTH CAROLINA, LL27 (2.2%)
- 6LENNAR CAROLINAS, LLC27 (2.2%)
- 7OWNER (GENERAL)25 (2.1%)
- 8STANLEY MARTIN HOMES, LLC23 (1.9%)
- 9EZ PRO CONSTRUCTION GROUP, LLC22 (1.8%)
- 10Carolina Basement Systems, LLC16 (1.3%)
Method
Permit Dawn reads the building departments in City of Raleigh and Town of Cary permits with contractor name and phone, plus Wake County permits for Apex, Garner, Wake Forest, Knightdale, Morrisville and Fuquay-Varina. every night and keeps every residential permit they publish. This page counts the remodel & new construction permits issued in August 2026, September 2026, October 2026 — 2,275 of them, 2,245 carrying a declared value (99%). Duplicates and permits a city later re-published are excluded, along with values below $500 and above $2,000,000, which are placeholders rather than jobs. Medians and quartiles, not averages: a handful of very large jobs would drag a mean somewhere no homeowner would recognise.