Raleigh, in my limited experience (we lived there for 6 months when we first moved down here, right by the university which you should definitely avoid) has a very small area of housing older than about 1950. There's a fancy, and tiny, neighborhood of turn-of the century houses near downtown, a bunch of urban neighborhoods of 1950s era housing, some of which is nice and some of which is ranch houses, and then endless suburbia, some of which is very nice indeed but rather anonymous and definitely not walkable. If I had to live in Raleigh I'd look at the Five Points neighborhood, which is in town and funky and has a great pizzeria, but I gather is quite expensive. I was stunned when I moved to Raleigh, after having lived only in New England and Ohio, how tiny the place must have been before the 1950s. Really, Durham was a bigger place than Raleigh before WW2 is my impression.
People I know who have jobs in Raleigh/RTP (or a couple with jobs in both Raleigh and Durham) tend to live in Southern Durham, down by I-40 - Woodcroft is a neighborhood. It's all cul-de-sacs - nice houses, circa 1980s, but pretty suburban. Fine if you like to drive everywhere, and there are some good parks and bike trails.