Building industry watcher website BuilderOnline.com has rated Raleigh, NC as the 6th best building market for 2009. The capital city of the Tarheel State has continued adding jobs over the last two years (2.6 percent growth in 2008); and boasts “one of the highest rates of population growth of any top metro market in the country over the last five years: nearly 5 percent annually,” according to the site.

“Though the price of a median home here, $223,400, is above the national average, it is well below other cities in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The metro area has added roughly 65,000 jobs since 2005, and employment held steady last year,” it reported.

Raleigh plays host to North Carolina State University and is just minutes away from Durham (Duke University) and Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina), creating the Golden Triangle and a powerful brain trust from which government and business draw to continue growth in an affordable housing environment.

Just this past week, the city has announced being named one of three U.S. cities that are participating in Project Get Ready, according to the city’s official web site, RaleighNC.gov.

Raleigh, along with Indianapolis and Portland, Ore., will demonstrate its use of charging stations for “electric plug-in and hybrid-electric vehicles that are to be produced in significant quantities in 2010.”