Corporate Housing in Raleigh, NC: A Guide for HR, Relocation and Project Managers
How corporate housing in Raleigh works for the people who book it: where to place a relocation, a project team or a traveling clinician (North Hills, downtown, Brier Creek, Cary, RTP), what a furnished apartment includes, how direct billing and the 90-night tax rule work, and how much notice you really need.
Most corporate housing is booked by someone who will never sleep in it: the HR coordinator with a new hire starting in three weeks, the relocation consultant with a family and a dog arriving Friday, the project manager who just learned the Raleigh assignment runs through spring. This guide is for that person. It covers how corporate housing in Raleigh actually works, where to place people depending on where they will work, what you are and are not paying for, and the handful of rules that save a budget. If you want the neighborhood-by-neighborhood tour, our Research Triangle guide has it; this one is about the booking.
What corporate housing is, and what it is not
Corporate housing is a real apartment in a professionally managed community, leased for 30 nights or more and set up before the guest arrives: furniture, a stocked kitchen, linens and towels, washer and dryer in the unit, electricity, water, high-speed Wi‑Fi and a streaming-ready TV already on, and parking. The guest brings a suitcase. It is not a short-term rental in someone's condo, and it is not an extended-stay hotel; the comparison of the three is its own guide, but the short version is that past about three weeks the apartment wins on cost, on space and on the paper trail. Everything Stay Furnished places in Raleigh works this way: one monthly invoice, one point of contact, a lease that extends month to month and ends with 30 days' notice. Our corporate housing page has the program details; our furnished apartments in Raleigh page lists the communities.
Where to place people, by where they will work
Raleigh is not big, but it is spread out, and the commute decides whether a placement feels like a soft landing or a daily grind. We ask for the office address before anything else.
Downtown, the state government and NC State → North Hills or downtown. North Hills is Midtown Raleigh: offices, restaurants, a grocery store and a cinema on foot, ten minutes from Fayetteville Street up the Beltline. It is the placement for the executive, the consultant and anyone who wants to leave the car parked. Meridian at North Hills is our address here; SOHO and 9200 Exchange cover other sides of the city.
RDU, Research Triangle Park and weekly flyers → Brier Creek. Brier Creek sits where I‑540 meets US‑70, ten minutes from the airport, fifteen from the Park and twenty from downtown. It is where we place the consultant who flies out every Thursday and the pharma team badging into the Park every Monday. The Exchange at Brier Creek, Jamison at Brier Creek and LC Brier Creek are the three we use most.
Families, longer placements and the Cary employers → Cary or Morrisville. Cary is where relocating families stop looking: the schools, the greenways and its own major employers, fifteen minutes from the Park. Morrisville is the shortest drive to the Park and RDU. Bell Preston Reserve, Lantower Weston Corners, Abberly Alston and Hawthorne at Parkside are the Cary set; Carrington Park, Cortland Davis Park and Alta Davis sit on the Park's edge. The corporate housing in Cary page has the rest.
The hospitals → wherever the campus is. WakeMed's main campus is east of downtown; UNC Rex and Duke Raleigh are north, a few minutes from North Hills; Duke University Hospital and UNC Hospitals are in Durham and Chapel Hill, 25 to 35 minutes west. For a 13-week contract or a fellowship we place as close to the campus as the community map allows, because a clinician's commute happens at 6:45 a.m.
The pharma plants → Clayton and the south. Clayton's manufacturing campuses pull in long project teams who have no reason to live in Raleigh proper. Parkside Village and Stallings Mill are ten minutes from the plants and 25 from downtown.
What you are paying for, and what you are not
A Stay Furnished invoice is one number a month. It covers the apartment, the furniture and housewares, electricity, water, high-speed Wi‑Fi, TV, parking, in-unit laundry and our guest services team. It does not hide a resort fee, a parking fee or a cleaning fee at check-out, and it never includes a unit count or a nightly rate, because we quote the stay, not the night. Pets are usually fine; each community has its own policy and we follow it, so tell us the breed and size up front.
Two rules worth knowing before you set a budget. First, the 90-night rule: stays of 90 nights or longer are exempt from North Carolina occupancy and sales tax, so a three-month assignment often costs less per month than a two-month one, and we quote both ways when a stay is close to the line. Second, notice: the lease extends month to month and ends with 30 days' written notice, which you can give at booking if the end date is known. A placement that runs long does not need a new lease; a placement that ends early needs 30 days.
How direct billing works
Most of our Raleigh placements are billed to an organization rather than a guest: a corporate housing program, a relocation management company, a hospital's housing coordinator or an insurance carrier. The invoice goes where you tell us; and there is one person at Stay for the whole stay, from the quote to the move-out walk-through. Tax-exempt organizations are handled accordingly. For a project team we place everyone at one community or across two near the same office, on one invoice, so the finance side sees one line instead of eight hotel folios.
How much notice you really need
Less than most people think, and more than they hope in August. One person with a flexible neighborhood can usually be placed within a few days. A family with school-age children, or a team of six who want to be together, is better with two weeks. The hard month is August, when the universities and the hospitals turn over at once and the Triangle's apartments fill in a fortnight; if you know a placement is coming, tell us in June. The first thing we ask for is the arrival date, because it decides everything else.
What to send us
A quote request takes two minutes and needs five things: the office or campus address, the arrival date and the expected length of stay, the household (adults, children, pets), the number of bedrooms you want, and who the invoice goes to. We come back within a few hours during business hours with two or three communities that fit the commute, and a quote with a private confirm link. Confirm, and we handle the lease, the furniture and the keys.
Stay Furnished has placed corporate guests in Raleigh since 2010, with a team in the Triangle that knows the difference between Cary and Apex without looking at a map. If you have a relocation, a project team or a long assignment headed to Raleigh, tell us where the work is and how long it runs.
