I worked for JOCO 911 for some years, plenty of good areas in or around Clayton
Smithfield/Selma has some nice areas but I’d generally avoid anything off the I95 corridor area
As others have suggested, look at Harnett County. Angier area keeps you close to Raleigh and housing market, while still high, isn’t that bad.
Wife and I just sold our old house and bought our new this year. Ended up having to do a sight unseen offer just to get the house and pay $10k over asking. Overall worked out good, we did a lot of research before we made the offer so we knew what we were getting into. Biggest issue was having to replace the hvac and just clean out the junk the previous owners left (ie 10-20 paint cans and filling my brand new trash can up with their trash before leaving)
Cary is nice if you can afford it, a lot of stuff around to keep you busy but it’s expensive. But then you’d be another tax payer for the town so I could get more raises, so move to Cary!