Interview: Jon Rufty, Owner

them to take advantage of capital gains tax breaks. The Triangle area has a total of 30 Opportunity Zones across Chatham, Johnston, Orange, Durham and Wake counties. The majority are predictably concentrated in Durham and Wake counties. According to CoStar data, total square feet under construction in Opportunity Zone census tracts more than doubled from 5.25 million square feet in 2017 to 10.82 million square feet in 2018, before rising again to 15.52 million in 2019. The investments will take several years to pay off for investors, especially since many projects were put on hold or delayed in the last year. There is also the argument that these investments would have been made anyway and there is no real way yet to measure the success of the program.

Residential The vacancy rate in both Raleigh and Durham ( ) Jon Rufty

Owner & President Rufty Homes

How has your business changed over the last year?

The outside executives who are moving into the area are bringing designs and cost increases that we just have not seen in the marketplace. The style of homes they’re wanting to build and how much they’re willing to invest in a home is substantially different from what we typically have seen in the past.

How important is green building for your business?

In 1994, we did a project called the Healthy House and it was one of the first green-built houses in the country. We teamed up with NASA, the American Lung Association, USDA and NC State to explore a lot of what the industry thought were new technologies. Green building has been done for centuries and the things that were important in ‘94 are the same things that are important now, like energy efficiency, air quality, water quality and sustainable landscaping, which are the elements we need to be thinking about as we design and build houses.

How do you manage the affordability and quality of construction given current cost issues?

Our niche is upper-end custom homes and pricing is not as critical as with affordable housing. But regardless of the price of the house, everybody is looking for good value and I think it’s common to ask the client what they would like. They’ll start listing things and as we start looking at the complexity of the house and the interior detailing, inevitably the price comes in higher than what they were thinking. I think that’s an area where we excel, which is helping people understand what things cost and therefore looking through the list and helping them identify the items they can easily make concessions on and still get the house they want.

What is the main challenge for construction in Raleigh-Durham?

I think we have a limited talent pool when it comes down to subcontractors and the craftsmen who have decades of experience.